Correct so why not do it at Old Trafford and get 77500 there ?

Or Saturday Hull v HKR Bradford V Leeds then Wire v Widnes.

Sunday Wigan v Saints Batley v Dewsbury Cas v Featherstone and us re Fax.

At least the place might be full.

I think there's a key point in there - expansion should've been done from the heartlands out, not by randomly picking big cities and trying to impose RL on them. I suppose South Wales could've been seen as a different case because of their previous links with RL but places like Paris, Gateshead and London were/are never going to get huge amounts of interest.

Therefore, the next Magic Weekend could perhaps be in a city on the outskirts of RL heartlands, where RL is at least a recognised sport - Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, etc.

Still like the idea of the Ricoh Arena though. Also like the idea of Championship AND SL games over the same weekend.

EDIT: Mate of mine just suggested two Magic Weekend to be played at the same time - one in Yorkshire, one in Lancs - for all SL and Champ/C1 sides in that county, with teams from other areas divided up as appropriate. Quite like that for an idea too - in fact, anything that's not Murrayfield sounds good tbh?!

wonder how many individuals attended both days as this gives a false reading as to how many fans actually attended the magic weekend. this is one figure not published by the RFL
Sick of getting emails about it from the RFL, wonder if they will plug the Blackpool weekend amongst fans of SL clubs?

SL event , so basically couldn't care less if it is a roaring success or an abysmall failure

and that my friend, is exactly my point of view. I really couldn't give a toss how it panned out!

It's obvious that you're not interested in the Magic Weekend frmo the fact that you took the trouble to go onto another club's forum, open a thread about the weekend, read it and then post a comment?!

Still, I can understand the excitement of being able to post on internet forums getting the better of you, especially as the novelty of having electricity in Rawmarsh hasn't worn off yet!

by, your prose is a credit to the education system!!! Thi mam'll be really proud!!

not at my school owd cock! I was in the same form as william hague at wath grammar school 72-79!

my wife however, was indeed a student of said sheeite hole!

go on then! Name and shame - who's your bro and sister in law??

Total attendance over 2 days in a national capital of a country that has no pro RL = over 50,000
Revenue generated for the game = ticketsales (?£half a million or more) plus tv money (?tens of thousands)
Media coverage = all weekend on Sky, most of the weekend on 5live, fair amount in the national newspapers

Not a failure by any stretch. We are the only sport that does anything like this at its highest level... Twickenham's 7s is the closest elsewhere... imagine soccer trying to get the fans from all its Premier League clubs to hang out in one arena? Lol. The event does an awful lot to promote RL as a family sport, and as an innovative and attractive sport. Empty seats don't reflect badly precisely because there are so many games in a short space of time (same as Twickenham's sevens, in fact...).

Capitals (Edinburgh, Cardiff) have the hotel capacity to cope with Magic Weekend... not all that many other places do. Early season is too risky with the weather. Late May would compete with the footie playoffs for airtime.

The event is great, and successful, which isn't to say it couldn't be better and bigger, but let's get some sense of perspective rather than just knocking our sport for doing something different. It makes money, raises profile, projects the right image, and the people who go (almost 4 times the average for a single SL game) enjoy it. I don't see it as a development event for the host city per se, but much more a showcase which more than pays for itself and brings the values and skills of our game to a wider (media) audience.