The state government launched its official ad campaign for the 2026 Regional Victoria games on Friday, marking just over three and a half years to go until the opening ceremony at the MCG.

So far, Bendigo is confirmed to be hosting T20 cricket, lawn bowls, netball, cycling squash and weightlifting events.

The prospect of lawn bowler Aaron Wilson defending his gold medal in the men's singles event on his home rink looms large.

It's expected more sports will be announced soon - and the City of Greater Bendigo is keen for mountain biking to be included, while the City of Ballarat is bidding for the marathon, and in partnership with Hepburn Shire Council, mountain biking in Creswick.

In the meantime, one sporting events expert says businesses should begin thinking ahead now - three years will go quickly.

Federation University's Dr Alana Thomson, from the institute of health and wellbeing, studies major sporting events. Previously, she's worked as a policy advisor at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, focusing on legacy.

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"I'm passionate about sporting events, I grew up in Sydney with the Olympics, it did fantastic things for the city," she said.

"Legacy doesn't happen without planning, without coordinated approaches across different levels of government and with government and the private sector, and the community as well - we can't sit on our laurels and think '(it's) going to have an economic impact, I'm going to see more people more active' - if we don't have plans in place to make that happen, it won't, the event's not a magic bullet."

Dr Thomson gave an example from her childhood in Sydney, with her parents' construction business, and how they sought to make the best of the situation by planning well in advance.

"There were predictions for traffic increases, and 80 per cent of their business is logistics and delivering stuff around the Sydney CBD, so it wasn't going to benefit them, it was probably going to cost them more time with drivers being stuck in traffic," she explained.

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"My dad wasn't thinking 'how can I benefit from this?', it was 'this might have negative impacts', so he planned ahead for that - we had our first family holiday (instead).

"Sometimes, it's enough to say 'well, we're not the company or sector that's going to directly benefit from this' - it might be worth stepping back and saying, 'how are you going to approach this, what are the different scenarios, could we encourage our staff to volunteer (at the games) for two weeks?'."

The 2026 opening ceremony is on March 17, 188 weeks away.

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