Manchester hopes for rich rewards
Manchester launches the biggest sporting event in its history on Thursday and the city looks set to earn rich rewards from the legacy of the Commonwealth Games.
Certainly Manchester will hope to succeed where Edinburgh failed in 1986, the last time Britain staged the event, and the north-western city has a point to prove after its bids for the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games were rejected.
The Edinburgh Games, hit by a boycott from 32 countries protesting at the British government's refusal to impose sanctions on South Africa over apartheid, needed to be bailed out by millionaire publisher Robert Maxwell.
The Commonwealth Games Council has said that none of the 16 events since 1930 has made a profit, however.
Manchester has looked beyond the 10 days of sporting events for its investment and spending on the Games has so far been relatively contained.
The city has secured over 600 million pounds ($943 million) of public and private investment and hopes to generate 12 million pounds a year from new visitors coming to the area as a result.
New stadiums, including the centrepiece 38,000-seat City of Manchester athletics stadium and the Acquatics Centre, have been built for a total cost of 170 million pounds, funded mainly from lottery money.
The City of Manchester Stadium, costing 110 million pounds, will be converted to a new home for Manchester City Football Club for the 2003-2004 season, when the athletics track will be removed and capacity increased to 48,000.
POSITIVE EFFECT
Such developments put London's attempts at sporting projects to shame, but providing they run smoothly, the Games should have a positive effect on the country's potential to stage international events in the future.
"The success of Manchester's Commonwealth Games will encourage other international events to come to the UK," organisers said.
Britain lost the right to stage the 2005 world athletics championships because procrastination over a site meant London would not have a new stadium in time for the event.
It was a major setback as the championships take place shortly before the International Olympic Committee decides on a venue for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which Britain is hoping to stage.
Similar confusion has surrounded the building of a new national soccer stadium to replace Wembley -- a project which has been dogged by political indecision and funding delays.
Almost two years since the old stadium, scene of England's only World Cup triumph in 1966, closed its doors for the last time, no building work has started and costs have soared to around 700 million pounds.
Nor does Manchester want to create a sporting equivalent to the Millennium Dome, in east London, which since closing over 18 months ago at the end of the millennium year's celebrations, has yet to find a buyer or new use.
Manchester's organisers also believe the Commonwealth Games will help improve its own image abroad and encourage it to be seen as a thriving hub for both business and tourism.
Despite being known for one of the world's biggest and most successful football teams in Manchester United, the city has had a tough time shaking off its reputation as a grim, northern town where it always rains.
But new visitors are expected to come to the area as a result of the regeneration, creating an additional source of income.
Official backers of the tournament include Manchester Airport, Microsoft Ltd, Cadbury Ltd and Coca-Cola. Sponsorship for such an event is not always an easy sell, according to the Commonwealth Games Federation's chairman Mike Fennel.
"The problem here in England is that sponsors do not always reach the level of satisfaction that they have wanted, such as with the Millennium Dome. Business fortunes have also fluctuated," he said.
