Quote: brearley84 "its basically just a cash cow for the rfl, they get money from the council that bids for it.. '"
Why do we see this as a bad thing? We have a sport that is crying out for investment and struggling to financially compete with competing sports and leagues because a large proportion of clubs can't market themselves properly, yet here we are with an event that cities are literally throwing money at us to host and we see this as a negative?
If the purpose of the Magic Weekend had nothing to do with expansion, nothing to do with profile and everything to do with generating a profitable event that people enjoy, that alone is a good enough reason to persist with it.
As it stands, RL will dominate one of Sky Sports' channels for two whole days this weekend - no other event in our calendar does that. There will undoubtedly be spectators from both RL land and further afield enjoying the weekend and next year, we will continue to have city councils and tourism bodies showing an interest in hosting the event.
If the reason to cancel this event is because some fans don't want to pay the train fare, then we may as well start cancelling the other 30-odd weeks of fixtures.