Australia was supposed to be hosting this one. Victoria signed up in 2022, watched the budget balloon past $2.6 billion, then pulled the pin in July 2023 and left the Commonwealth Games without a home.

Glasgow eventually picked up the pieces, funded in large part by the AU$200 million compensation Victoria paid to walk away.

So the 2026 Commonwealth Games run in Scotland from Thursday 23 July to Sunday 2 August, and Australian viewers get every session live and free on Seven and 7plus Sport.

Below is the full schedule converted to AEST, the ten sports that survived the cull, the Australians worth losing sleep over, and how the betting markets work across a Games this compressed.

When Are The 2026 Commonwealth Games?

Eleven days of competition, 23 July to 2 August 2026, with 215 gold medals across ten sports.

Glasgow sits nine hours behind the east coast and seven hours behind Perth. That gap decides everything about how you watch this, because the marquee evening sessions in Scotland land in the small hours here.

Bowls gets underway first, on the morning of Thursday 23 July local time, before the Opening Ceremony at The Hydro that evening.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will declare the Games open, the first Commonwealth Games of the King's reign and the finish line for the first King's Baton Relay. Seven's coverage of the ceremony starts at 4.45am AEST on Friday 24 July.

The Closing Ceremony airs from 4.45am AEST on Monday 3 August, and includes the handover to Ahmedabad for the 2030 Games.

How To Watch The 2026 Commonwealth Games In Australia

Seven has the lot, and none of it costs you anything.

The Seven Network holds exclusive Australian rights to both Glasgow 2026 and the 2030 Games, covering broadcast, digital, connected TV, radio and subscription. Coverage runs across Seven, 7mate and 7plus Sport, with Bruce McAvaney leading the commentary team.

The daily windows to know:

• Full daily broadcast: 3.00pm through to 7.30am AEST across Seven and 7plus Sport
• The gold medal shift: 3.30am to 7.30am AEST, hosted by Johanna Griggs and Matt White
• Afternoon highlights package: hosted by Rebecca Maddern
• Opening Ceremony: from 4.45am AEST, Friday 24 July
• Closing Ceremony: from 4.45am AEST, Monday 3 August

The useful bit is 7plus Sport, which runs 15 live channels simultaneously plus eight replay channels.

If you want bowls at 2am instead of whatever Seven has picked for the main channel, you can have it, and every event is available on demand afterwards.

McAvaney has suggested Australia could come home with 50 gold medals from a ten-sport program.

That is a bold number given how much of the old program has been cut, and we would want the velodrome and the pool both firing before anyone gets carried away, but it tells you how confidently the broadcaster is pitching this one.

Where Are The 2026 Commonwealth Games Being Held?

Glasgow, twelve years after the city last did it in 2014. Every venue sits inside an eight-mile corridor across four clusters, which was the whole condition of the city taking the job on.

• Scotstoun Stadium: athletics and para athletics
• Tollcross International Swimming Centre: swimming and para swimming
• Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome: track cycling and para track cycling
• Scottish Event Campus, taking in The Hydro, the SEC Centre, the SEC Armadillo and The Arena: ceremonies, netball, boxing, judo, bowls, 3x3 basketball, artistic gymnastics and weightlifting

Not a single new build. Glasgow was only confirmed as host in October 2024, barely 21 months out, so existing infrastructure was the only way this was ever happening.

What Sports Are At The 2026 Commonwealth Games?

Ten, down from twenty at Birmingham 2022. Para events are integrated into six of them, and Glasgow is staging the largest para program in Commonwealth Games history with 47 para finals.

• Athletics and para athletics
• Swimming and para swimming
• Track cycling and para track cycling
• Artistic gymnastics
• Netball
• Boxing
• Judo
• Bowls and para bowls
• Weightlifting and para powerlifting
• 3x3 basketball and 3x3 wheelchair basketball

Cricket, hockey, rugby sevens, badminton, squash, diving, table tennis and triathlon are all gone.

That guts a handful of reliable Australian gold sources, particularly hockey and diving, but the two biggest ones came through untouched and then some.

The pool program is the largest a Commonwealth Games has ever run at 56 medal events, with the women's 1500m and men's 800m freestyle added for the first time. The velodrome carries 26.

Bowls has moved indoors for the first time in Games history, which is a genuine form leveller. Outdoor greens reward local knowledge of pace and bias, and taking that away flattens the advantage the Scottish and English bowlers would normally carry at home.

2026 Commonwealth Games Schedule In AEST

Glasgow evening sessions run 6.30pm to 10.00pm local, which is 3.30am to 7.00am AEST the following morning.

Morning sessions start at 10.00am local, so 7.00pm AEST the same night. Swimming finals sit at 7.00pm to 10.00pm Glasgow time, landing at 4.00am to 7.00am AEST.

Here is how the eleven days break down, with the AEST date in brackets where it shifts:

Thursday 23 July (Friday 24): Bowls opens the competition. Opening Ceremony at The Hydro, from 4.45am AEST Friday.

Friday 24 July: Swimming day one, boxing, 3x3 basketball, artistic gymnastics, para powerlifting and bowls all start.

Saturday 25 July: Netball begins at The Hydro, with the Diamonds opening their defence. Swimming continues.

Sunday 26 July: Weightlifting starts. Swimming, boxing, gymnastics and netball all running.

Monday 27 July: Athletics begins at Scotstoun, six days of it, alongside the back half of the swimming program.

Tuesday 28 July: Artistic gymnastics wraps up. Athletics, swimming, boxing and weightlifting continue.

Wednesday 29 July: Final night in the pool. 3x3 basketball medal games. Athletics, boxing and bowls all live.

Thursday 30 July: Track cycling opens at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. Weightlifting finishes.

Friday 31 July: Judo starts. Athletics, boxing, netball, bowls and the velodrome all in play, the busiest day of the Games.

Saturday 1 August: Athletics and boxing both conclude. Judo and track cycling continue.

Sunday 2 August: Netball gold medal match at 10.00pm AEST, bronze at 6.00pm AEST. Judo, bowls and track cycling all finish. Closing Ceremony from 4.45am AEST Monday 3 August.

The 27 July to 1 August stretch is where this Games lives. Athletics finals every evening in Glasgow means six straight mornings of Australian breakfast television carrying medals, and from 30 July the velodrome overlaps with it.

Australia's Team And Medal Chances At Glasgow 2026

Australia is sending roughly 300 athletes under chef de mission Petria Thomas, and the stated goal is finishing top of the gold medal count. Given the sports that got cut, that is less of a formality than usual.

In The Pool

Sixty Dolphins are going, 42 able-bodied swimmers and 18 para swimmers, chasing the 25 gold medals the team took out of Birmingham.

Kaylee McKeown has confirmed Glasgow will be her third and final Commonwealth Games, and the backstroke events remain hers to lose.

Kyle Chalmers arrives as a seven-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist defending his 100m freestyle title.

Mollie O'Callaghan defends her 100m crown and adds the 200m. Lani Pallister took out the 400m, 800m and 1500m at the national trials and picks her program from there.

The one to watch is Cameron McEvoy. He is the 50m freestyle world record holder, he is 32, this is his fourth Commonwealth Games, and he has never won an individual gold at one. He made his debut here in Glasgow in 2014. If there is a story the broadcast will hammer, it is that one.

Elizabeth Dekkers defends the 200m butterfly, Meg Harris comes in as 50m freestyle world champion, and 17-year-old Sienna Toohey leads the 100m breaststroke charge on debut.

On The Track

Australia has named an 86-strong athletics contingent across able-bodied and para events.

Kurtis Marschall goes for a third consecutive pole vault gold, which would put him among the most dominant athletes in the event's Games history.

Nina Kennedy contests the women's pole vault, Nicola Olyslagers the high jump, Matt Denny the discus and Jemima Montag the 10,000m race walk. Jess Hull doubles up over the mile and 5000m and shapes as one of the surer bets on the team.

The mile is worth flagging. Glasgow brings the Commonwealth Mile back to a major championship program for the first time in decades, and Oliver Hoare, who ran down two world champions to win the Birmingham 1500m, has been selected for it.

In the sprints, Eddie Osei-Nketia and Aidan Murphy carry the load, Murphy on debut after a 19.88 at the national championships.

In The Velodrome

Twenty-five riders across track and para cycling, with six Birmingham gold medallists among them. Georgia Baker won three golds in Birmingham and returns, as does sprinter Leigh Hoffman. Jessica Gallagher lines up at her third Games.

Twenty-six gold medals are decided across four days from 30 July, and Australia has historically banked heavily here. If McAvaney's 50-gold call is going to land, this is one of the two places it has to happen.

Netball, Bowls And The Rest

The Diamonds are world number one and defending champions, with Liz Watson captaining a twelve-player squad that carries five debutants alongside Birmingham gold medallists Jo Weston, Courtney Bruce, Sarah Klau, Cara Koenen, Kate Moloney and Kiera Austin.

They are the clear favourites, and New Zealand and Jamaica sit in the other pool, which means Australia cannot meet either before the semi-finals.

Australia's bowls squad is deep enough that the move indoors reads as more nuisance than threat, with Kelsey Cottrell lining up at her fourth Games alongside Birmingham gold medallists returning across the seven disciplines.

The 3x3 Gangurrus and the Wombats wheelchair sides both play from 24 to 29 July.

Is Gout Gout At The 2026 Commonwealth Games?

No. The 18-year-old withdrew from selection in February to focus on the World Under-20 Championships in Eugene, Oregon, which run from 5 to 9 August, days after the Games finish.

Gout and coach Di Sheppard decided contesting both meets back to back was too much this early in his career.

He is chasing the 200m title Usain Bolt won at the same championships in 2002, and Australian Athletics backed the call publicly. Petria Thomas noted he remains 18 and on the rise, with Brisbane 2032 the long game.

He had been flagged as a genuine 100m medal chance in Glasgow, so his absence cost the Australian team and Seven's ratings. Lachlan Kennedy and Eddie Osei-Nketia now carry the sprint hopes.

Commonwealth Games Medal Tally: Australia's Record

Australia is the most successful nation in Commonwealth Games history and has topped the medal table twelve times.

• Birmingham 2022: first, 67 gold from 430 athletes across 21 sports
• Gold Coast 2018: first, 80 gold and 198 medals on home soil
• Glasgow 2014: second, 49 gold, beaten by England
• Melbourne 2006: first, 84 gold and 221 medals

That 2014 result is the one to sit with. The last time these Games were staged in Britain and Australia was the visiting team, England knocked Australia off top spot for the first time since 1994.

England then went closer still in Birmingham, finishing within a handful of golds. Scotland will also be substantially stronger at home than it was in the West Midlands.

A ten-sport program compresses everything. Fewer sports means fewer chances to absorb a bad day, and a poor night in the pool or the velodrome is much harder to make back when there is no hockey, cricket or diving to fall back on.

Australia should still win this, but the margin looks thinner than the 2018 and 2022 results suggest.

How To Bet On The 2026 Commonwealth Games

Multi-sport events price differently to a normal weekend of footy, and the Commonwealth Games throws up market types you will not see week to week.

The main ones:

• Outright gold medal markets on individual events and finals, which is where most of the liquidity sits
• To win a medal markets , covering any podium finish rather than the win
• Country medal totals and medal table position , priced across the whole Games rather than a single session
• Head-to-head matchups between two named athletes in the same event
• Team event outrights for netball and the 3x3 basketball tournaments

Two quirks are worth understanding before you get on. Medal markets are usually all-in once competition begins, meaning a bet stands even if a nation or athlete withdraws after the Games have started.

Settlement also follows the podium ceremony rather than the finish line, so a disqualification or an appeal that lands before the medals are handed out changes the result.

The compressed schedule is the practical thing to plan around. Finals arrive in clusters, several sports run simultaneously, and a 3x3 game can be decided inside ten minutes. Markets for the back half of the Games often do not open until qualification and team selections are settled, so the athletics and cycling books fill out later than the netball and swimming ones.

For the latest Commonwealth Games odds and markets, head to our dedicated Commonwealth Games odds page here at Sportsbet.