Why Birmingham 2022 will bring us all together
IN just two years’ time the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games will have officially begun, and we’ve used this key milestone to unveil our location for two of our sports: 3x3 basketball and beach volleyball.
We’ve chosen the Smithfield site in the heart of the city centre, which has an impressive backdrop and a huge amount of space, allowing us to showcase these two sports side by side and enabling us to bring the Games right into the heart of Birmingham.
These sports have a great synergy so it makes complete sense to host them at the same venue and we will create bespoke arenas in which to stage the two competitions. It will be the first time the 3x3 form of basketball has ever featured at a Commonwealth Games and it will be a first appearance for wheelchair basketball in any form.
It will be a second appearance at the Games for beach volleyball, and like basketball, the sport will bring a festival feel to the Games. Both sports also appeal to a young and diverse audience – a perfect fit for this city.
Diversity is something which has been widely discussed recently and we’ve been under scrutiny as an organisation.
Questions have been asked about why the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games board and workforce isn’t more reflective of the region, given that the Games will be hosted in the West Midlands, a region that is home to more than 187 different nationalities.
Some fair points have been raised and we know we have work to do in this area and we are determined to make improvements and to make them at speed.
We’ve always seen the region’s diversity as a strength for the Games and it’s something we’ve regularly talked about highlighting when our moment in the global spotlight comes in two years’ time.
That will continue to be a key focus for us, but we’ve also been challenged to ensure our workforce better reflects the region in which we operate and that’s something we are definitely looking to achieve as we continue to recruit at pace.
In fact, our workforce will grow tenfold over the next two years as we expect to employ around 1,200 people by the time the Games arrives on July 28, 2022. As the country emerges from lockdown after the Covid-19 pandemic, Birmingham 2022 is bringing hope and opportunity to people and businesses across the West Midlands as, not only are we looking for new staff, but we also have contracts to the value of £330 million that we expect to award to companies in and around the region.
Despite the pandemic, the last few months have been hugely productive for us and I’ve been impressed and grateful for the resilience of my team who have made great progress and adapted extremely well to the new world in which we all find ourselves.
We’ve continued to recruit, to procure, to plan and even to launch new campaigns all from the comfort of our homes. One of the new campaigns that we’ve launched during lockdown is our search for the official mascot for the Games and we’ve called on children aged from 5 to 15 to get creative, use their imaginations and to send us their designs. We are looking for a mascot that embodies everything the West Midlands stands for: youthfulness, diversity, dynamism and creativity. The nationwide ‘Mascot Makers’ campaign, which finishes on 5 August, was launched following the world’s first ever virtual mascot summit, when 50 school children from the West Midlands got the ball rolling by taking part in tasks to help develop what the mascot might look like, as well as what its characteristics and values might be.
The quality of the designs we’ve seen so far has been very impressive and they been flooding in over the last fortnight.
We were also delighted to announce earlier this month that we’ve appointed Sunset + Vine as our host broadcaster for Birmingham 2022, with a plan to deliver 2,000 hours of coverage to an expected global TV audience of more than 1.5 billion. We are very pleased to be working with such an internationally renowned company.
We are not only confident in their ability to deliver excellent coverage but we’re also hugely impressed with their commitment to leaving a positive impact on the West Midlands’ media industry through the Host Broadcast Training Initiative that they plan to launch.
With two years to go, we are in a great place and have made some really positive progress. I know that there is lots of hard work to do over the next two years but there’s so much to look forward to and I’m confident that we will deliver a fantastic edition of the Games. Birmingham 2022 will bring the region together, highlight the vibrancy of this city and region and it will be a Games that provides athletes from all of the Commonwealth’s nations and territories with the perfect platform to showcase their talents.
Ian Reid, Chief Executive,
Birmingham 2022
We’ve always seen the region’s diversity as a strength for the Games