CBC/Radio Canada, the country’s national public service broadcaster, has secured broadcast and streaming rights to the upcoming 2026 Commonwealth Games.
Under the deal, CBC/Radio Canada will provide free-to-air coverage of the 12-day multi-sport event, taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, from July 23 to August 2, across its CBC TV linear channel, as well as CBC Gem and ICI TOU.TV, the broadcaster’s English and French-language streaming services, respectively.
As well as live coverage, the broadcaster will also provide rolling news across CBC Sports and Radio Canada Sports digital and social media platforms.
The new deal comes as Canada prepares to send a team of more than 148 athletes to compete in the Games, including a record 34 para-athletes.
This year’s edition will feature 3,000 athletes from 72 nations and territories competing across 10 different sports and six para-iterations of the sports.
Chris Wilson, executive director, sports and Olympics, CBC, said: “CBC/Radio-Canada is committed to following the journeys of Canada’s high-performance athletes year-round, and with more than 148 athletes representing our country in nine sports, the Commonwealth Games is a great example of that.
“Building on the momentum at Paris 2024 and looking ahead to LA 2028, we’re excited to provide this extensive coverage across all of our platforms to audiences from coast to coast to coast.”
The new rights deal comes as event organizers continue to lock down broadcast partners, having most recently secured Welsh-language FTA broadcaster S4C earlier this month.
Last month, UK commercial network Channel 5 landed a deal to show a daily highlights program from the Commonwealth Games via a sublicensing agreement with media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
WBD holds exclusive live domestic rights to the event in the UK, with the broadcaster planning to air more than 600 hours of live coverage during the event via a dedicated linear channel.
Earlier this year, Glasgow 2026 announced rights deals with Australian commercial broadcaster Seven Network and the Sky New Zealand pay-TV operator.
Other commercial agreements secured for the event include UK-based software company Ideagen as the event’s official AI technology principal partner and craft beer brand Jubel as the event’s official beer partner.
Coca-Cola joined as the official soft drinks partner and the official partner of Team Scotland, while Corporate and Sporting Events, the UK-based logistics solutions provider, and Chinese electric vehicle company BYD also signed on as official partners.
Glasgow is due to host the event for the second time, having previously done so in 2014.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games was originally set to be hosted by the Australian state of Victoria, but the region's government withdrew in July 2023 owing to a huge increase in the projected cost of staging the games - originally projected to hit A$2.6 billion ($1.7 billion), the cost then rose to an untenable A$6 billion.
Last October, the Indian city of Ahmedabad was announced as the replacement host for the 2030 Commonwealth Games after Alberta, Canada, also pulled out in mid-2023.
While Glasgow will host a scaled-down version of the games, with only a 10-sport program, Indian officials have already stated they will organize a full slate of events and use the games as a stepping stone to bid for the 2036 Olympic Games.
