As others have alluded to, as it is too much "extra" cost already comes at the back end of the season. Fans are expected to shell out for CC semi and final, 3 rounds of playoffs and the GF all within a couple of months. For me the structuring of the cup needs altering before we even think about changing the location of the games. This ridiculous gap between the 5R and the QF means the appetite for the cup isn't sustained IMO. This has been proven with the poor crowd figures for QFs and SFs even when the bigger teams are playing against each other in moderately-sized stadia.

FWIW I think something like this would only work if it was replacing the current Magic Weekend, not on top of it. 2 double headers for the QFs, one Saturday and one Sunday.

Which would then remove potentially half the SL clubs from the MW

If it aint broke , dont fix it

RL [ well SL and its clubs/players ] currently has 5/6 ' Event ' matches during the season depending on how many Exile games they have , that is enough for the time being , leave it alone , attempt to build what you have instead of diluting them by adding more

When they are all selling out , then and only then look again

Bit too much asking fans to travel to London for the Semis then the Final, the idea is good but would need to be Midlands in my opinion to get a decent crowd.

Maybe Kingpower Stadium, Ricoh Arena, Brittania Stadium or City Ground ??

Magic weekend, CC FInal, Catalans away (twice or thrice depending on your luck in the CC & play offs) and now you want another expensive London trip. There is a limit to what fans can afford.

I agree with the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" opinion to a certain extent, but at the minute I don't feel the Magic Weekend serves any real purpose apart from a day/weekend out for the fans. It adds an extra fixture to the league table and means you play one team 3 times. All I was saying is I think the idea of the OP is a complete non-starter, I don't think the fans would want an extra trip to London adding to the fixture calendar. I think a compromise between the 2, playing double headers for the cup QFs in place of the MW in it's current format, still provides a weekend away for 8 sets of fans, adds more "worth" to the MW and would go some way to increasing the poor attendances we are currently seeing in the CC.

I mentioned in the Magic Weekend - why? thread that I would be more than happy with the RFL keeping the MW as it is. I was merely suggesting an alternative format which I think would go someway to solving some of the issues people have with it currently.

Is that such a bad thing?

People have got hung up on the "expansion" argument, purely because the first few were in Wales and Scotland. Expansion may have been an additional fringe goal / benefit of MW in the early years but I don't believe it was the primary motivator for creating the event. (A sweatner from the Welsh tourism board, IMO, had more to do with that).

As things stand, we have a calendar event that generates plenty of discussion, earns us wall-to-wall TV coverage for a full weekend and (judging by the discussion on here, the most pesimistic of places at the best of times) a lot of positive sentiment about the game at a time when it sorely needs it. Isn't that "purpose" in itself?

One good thing about the magic weekend is it gets far more coverage than a normal round of superleague.

60,000 ground a double header. Double headers don't work you get one lot in for the first game and few fans from game 2 join it during the 2nd half of game one. Game one fans bugger off at the end of game one. Most of game two fans enter. Leaving at most 15,000 during the game.

you only have to look at the magic weekend to see this.

I would have the semi-finals both staged in Blackpool every year on Saturday and Sunday on the same weekend.

Great location not too far from the heartlands.
Already hosts a big RL game each year.
Could sell 'weekend' tickets just like the magic weekend which would encourage people going for the weekend to attend both games.
18k is the perfect next step in capacity for recent figures. Too high and the stadium will be empty, but decent priced tickets could see fantastic crowds and another 'festival' event for fans to attend. Even if both games get 12k.... its better than what we have now.

You also have the advantage of knowing when the games are and on what day before the 1/4 final, fans could walk away from the stadium planning for the semi-final without having to wait for a venue to be announced along with ticket prices etc.

Blackpool would get my vote for the semi-final everyday of the week. It would be a fantastic weekend for all rugby league fans.

Another bright idea to give the magic weekend a boost, allow the grand finalists from the previous season in the championship to open the weekend. I'm sure Fax, Fev, Leigh etc. would love a trip to the Etihad if their team qualified through getting to the Grand Final. Everybody wins.

Not bad ideas at all. Didn't realise the capacity at Blackpool now. If they announced it ahead of time and put it in the RL Events brochure, it could be a real pleaser with the fans. Could mix it in with a 9s tournament or something to get more neutrals down.

I've thought that adding a Championship game to the Magic Weekend might make it more attractive. Depends on the league restructure I guess.

Really good shout, think the next big thing has to be a Season Opening Event. Unless the World Club Challenge is restructured as rumoured. But a really cheap, well organised, ie dates venues cost etc, CC semi final would be a welcome addition to the calendar in my opinion.

Not any more.

No,no,no,no,NO

The more ' events ' you have the more you devalue each one, the RL event calendar is full enough at the moment, until we see all the current venues at least 75% full, no more

Just because you build more shops doesnt mean people have more money to spend , and a Challenge cup shouldnt need any ' gimicks ' to sell it

It doesn't create a new event. It just improves the existing one. How can Rugby League expect to grow if our semi-finals are attracting only 10k. We need to make our big games bigger.

What could be bad about taking our game to a place where it isn't too popular and filling the stadium with 36,000 people over one weekend.

Only a rugby league fan could say 'nononononono' to that.