I know nothing about sport and the watching and/or enjoying of it. So forgive me. You are probably right that they don't see them as competition. However, I think the Festival deserves more respect than that. I would not attended the Commonwealth Games (unless one of my children were competing), but I go every year to the Festival.
The CG probably did draw in more revenue, but it wasn't that huge of a hit. They couldn't and didn't sell all of the tickets. I can't find if they ran at a loss or not (my husband believes they did), but I did find
this:
Quote:
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The Games ran at a cost of $1.1 billion, of which more than $800 million was paid by the Victorian Government, $32 million by Melbourne City Council and the remainder from ticketing and merchandise revenue and the Federal Government.
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