NRL Magic Weekend

[Oliver Clothesoff]

59 minutes ago, Allora said:

If those figures are accurate

Was the Clubs costs in Travel, Accommodation and expenses factored into the numbers?

I am not a fan of this concept, it looked half arsed and for a local it was expensive to attend, I only wanted to see my team play another team I would not normally see in Brisbane, the ticketing prices for the worst seat in the house were significantly more expensive than seeing Parramatta V Brisbane.

 

 

You can’t please everyone. 

Yours is the only negative I’ve seen.

[Allora]

13 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

You can’t please everyone. 

Yours is the only negative I’ve seen.

 

Well I live here in Brisbane, I suspect not many others do.

There was plenty of empty seats because they were too expensive for most fans.

The seats we looked at booking were the worst available in the Stadium and they were far more than we were prepared to pay for the one game we were interested in.

Its easy to have an opinion on the crowd numbers when you are not actually attending the games.

The Stadium never looked more than 2/3rds full for any game I watched on TV, some games looked like they had 10-15K

 

[JonM]

4 hours ago, Allora said:

Well I live here in Brisbane, I suspect not many others do.

There was plenty of empty seats because they were too expensive for most fans.

The seats we looked at booking were the worst available in the Stadium and they were far more than we were prepared to pay for the one game we were interested in.

So in summary, you live close by to a big RL event, featuring 16 of the best teams in the world, but you stayed at home and watched some of it on telly? 

[RayCee]

12 hours ago, Allora said:

I don't know how they would know per match figures.

It would be total tickets sold per day unless they know how many left the stadium in between matches there would be no idea on the numbers per match.

Peter Beattie has been inflating some of the figures as he would.

On Saturday there were 12,000 for the first game. 25,000 more came through the gate for the next game and another 4,000 for the last game. I assume as people arrived, they are added. As you correctly point out, the issue would be did they count the people leaving? I'd be surprised if they went to that trouble. Perhaps once people arrived, they stayed for the remainder of the day.

[hutch]

On 12/05/2019 at 19:54, Allora said:

How are they doing that?

Maybe Beattie is giving them the numbers.

He is the worst appointment in living memory and I go back a bit and there have been plenty of contenders.

 

 

Not even close to being true. He is far better than John grant ever was. He has experience in dealing with state and federal government, has helped the nrl with stadium deals, government money and setting an international schedule for the pacific. He genuinely cares about the sports future, unlike other administrators who are in it for themselves. 

[DiH68]

It was definitely beneficial financially for teams like the Titans - they of course wouldn't have had the travel/accommodation expenses of other clubs as it's just down the road

https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/05/10/magic-round-delivers-five-times-what-clubs-normally-bank/

[Allora]

8 hours ago, hutch said:

Not even close to being true. He is far better than John grant ever was. He has experience in dealing with state and federal government, has helped the nrl with stadium deals, government money and setting an international schedule for the pacific. He genuinely cares about the sports future, unlike other administrators who are in it for themselves. 

Which Stadiums did he influence? Not Bankwest or Townsville they were already going to happen.

The one at Moore Park? that is a mistake the Stadium that was there was under used. I helped commission that stadium back in the day and it has been a White Elephant since it opened. 

He does not know much about the Sport it seems.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/peter-beattie-had-a-moment-to-forget-on-national-television/news-story/b586c1cc3b7a1594baf66260a3646311

https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/peter-beattie-deletes-twitter-account-after-embarrassing-laurie-nicholls-gaffe/news-story/cd514e690d458602af7a9dd1f19e6d09

https://www.qt.com.au/news/peter-beattie-makes-embarrassing-newcastle-knights/3388490/

 

Maybe he will apologize when he rides off into the sunset with a bag full of loot after delivering not much.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/sorry-not-such-a-hard-word-for-peter-beattie-to-say-20180416-p4z9wy.html

 

[dkw]

On 12/05/2019 at 17:45, JonM said:

So in summary, you live close by to a big RL event, featuring 16 of the best teams in the world, but you stayed at home and watched some of it on telly? 

I think he needs to change his signature thing on here, it currently has his interests as "Rugby League", i`m not sure thats entirely true.

[Bleep1673]

Guardian.....

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/11/why-rugby-league-needs-pilgrimages-like-the-nrls-magic-round

[Copa]

10 hours ago, Allora said:

Which Stadiums did he influence? Not Bankwest or Townsville they were already going to happen.

The one at Moore Park? that is a mistake the Stadium that was there was under used. I helped commission that stadium back in the day and it has been a White Elephant since it opened. 

He does not know much about the Sport it seems.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/peter-beattie-had-a-moment-to-forget-on-national-television/news-story/b586c1cc3b7a1594baf66260a3646311

https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/peter-beattie-deletes-twitter-account-after-embarrassing-laurie-nicholls-gaffe/news-story/cd514e690d458602af7a9dd1f19e6d09

https://www.qt.com.au/news/peter-beattie-makes-embarrassing-newcastle-knights/3388490/

 

Maybe he will apologize when he rides off into the sunset with a bag full of loot after delivering not much.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/sorry-not-such-a-hard-word-for-peter-beattie-to-say-20180416-p4z9wy.html

 

I have a memory like Peter Beattie. It’s the bane of my life. 

 

[RayCee]

I added up the attendance and it came to 134,677, an average of 16,834 per match and that's higher than the average for a NRL season. So would that be judged a qualified success? The UK MW ratio is about the same. 

[Oxford]

On 12/05/2019 at 21:59, RayCee said:

Perhaps once people arrived, they stayed for the remainder of the day.

People turned up .... it worked ..... why is there a debate about this?

Has the expectation of failure become the wish not to succeed?

[Balmain1969]

On 12/05/2019 at 13:12, Allora said:

 

Well I live here in Brisbane, I suspect not many others do.

There was plenty of empty seats because they were too expensive for most fans.

The seats we looked at booking were the worst available in the Stadium and they were far more than we were prepared to pay for the one game we were interested in.

Its easy to have an opinion on the crowd numbers when you are not actually attending the games.

The Stadium never looked more than 2/3rds full for any game I watched on TV, some games looked like they had 10-15K

 

There was plenty of empty seats because at any one time there were probably as many people out around the stadium as there were in there seats, for the Broncos game, definitely during the Warriors game and into the Storm game there was easily 40k in the stadium. Attached is a photo from late in the Bunnies game when the crowd had thinned, you can see there is still decent numbers.

You could get a seat for $75 to see 3 NRL games, thats value if you ask me. We paid $300 for the premium seats 3 day pass, sat on the half way line for 7 games, awesome value. If your complaint is you only wanted to see one game, there is 25 other rounds you can do that.

[Exiled Wiganer]

i might have got this muddled up, but if they are charging people prices for multiple games ($75 for 3 I saw above), and that is, say, twice what people would pay per game, then don’t the 135k watching end up producing twice the revenue? That’s good, isn’t it, especially when the Brisbane LA are seemingly paying a lot of money to underwrite the costs?? 

It is clearly different in one respect from our own - we have sometimes taken ours to a new market, whereas here they are getting the benefits of everyone together, and the festival concept without spreading their wings...

[Oliver Clothesoff]

1 hour ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

It is clearly different in one respect from our own - we have sometimes taken ours to a new market, whereas here they are getting the benefits of everyone together, and the festival concept without spreading their wings...

Which is why I’m not writing off Anfield as a venue for our event just yet. I’d have liked it to stay in Newcastle for selfish reasons but that’s another discussion. 

Liverpool is incredibly close for fans of Saints, Warrington, Wigan and Salford and is under two hours away from the bulk of the Yorkshire clubs (Leeds, Cas, Huddersfield and Wakefield). That’s two thirds of the league whose fans are catered for quite well. I don’t think the two and a half hour journey for Hull clubs is that much of an issue as Hull FC and KR fans generally travel quite well. 

While the whole weekend away thing that Cardiff, Edinburgh and Newcastle may have had has been debunked for some, I think taking the event to an area quite close to the heartlands may be a good thing. 

I know rumours are suggesting this won’t be attended well and if rumours are indeed correct, I don’t know what more can be done to cater for fans. 

[Allora]

3 hours ago, Balmain1969 said:

There was plenty of empty seats because at any one time there were probably as many people out around the stadium as there were in there seats, for the Broncos game, definitely during the Warriors game and into the Storm game there was easily 40k in the stadium. Attached is a photo from late in the Bunnies game when the crowd had thinned, you can see there is still decent numbers.

You could get a seat for $75 to see 3 NRL games, thats value if you ask me. We paid $300 for the premium seats 3 day pass, sat on the half way line for 7 games, awesome value. If your complaint is you only wanted to see one game, there is 25 other rounds you can do that.

 

I have an opinion, the fact it does not line up with yours does not allow you to insult my view of an Event.

 

[DavidM]

Was a great event . I’d say they need to tweak it in a couple of areas , condensing it down ideally to a weekend but certainly not over 4 days . And maybe look at the fixtures to get as many blockbuster or derby games to make it different and special rather than just a normal round in one place over the usual time slots 

[Exiled Wiganer]

1 hour ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Which is why I’m not writing off Anfield as a venue for our event just yet. I’d have liked it to stay in Newcastle for selfish reasons but that’s another discussion. 

Liverpool is incredibly close for fans of Saints, Warrington, Wigan and Salford and is under two hours away from the bulk of the Yorkshire clubs (Leeds, Cas, Huddersfield and Wakefield). That’s two thirds of the league whose fans are catered for quite well. I don’t think the two and a half hour journey for Hull clubs is that much of an issue as Hull FC and KR fans generally travel quite well. 

While the whole weekend away thing that Cardiff, Edinburgh and Newcastle may have had has been debunked for some, I think taking the event to an area quite close to the heartlands may be a good thing. 

I know rumours are suggesting this won’t be attended well and if rumours are indeed correct, I don’t know what more can be done to cater for fans. 

Anfield is as pointless an idea as it is possible to come up with. It is neither a home of a heartland team, nor a realistic expansion area. Plus, of course, purely from our side, playing Wire for the 12th time in a month makes it a non event on the pitch. 

 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

2 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Anfield is as pointless an idea as it is possible to come up with. It is neither a home of a heartland team, nor a realistic expansion area. Plus, of course, purely from our side, playing Wire for the 12th time in a month makes it a non event on the pitch. 

 

Is the point of Magic, expansion then? I didn’t think it was at all. 

[thirteenthman]

4 hours ago, DavidM said:

Was a great event . I’d say they need to tweak it in a couple of areas , condensing it down ideally to a weekend but certainly not over 4 days . And maybe look at the fixtures to get as many blockbuster or derby games to make it different and special rather than just a normal round in one place over the usual time slots 

The NRL are looking at reducing it down to 3 days next year. Apparently they wanted to do that this year but Channel 9 still wanted their Thursday night game. He who pays the piper etc.

From reading elsewhere, I gather the fixture selection was partly based on games that wouldn't normally get a big crowd. For example, it's been a long time since Titans v Sharks got 17,000, and it's very doubtful even being top of the table would've encouraged too many Bunnies fans to turn out for a game against the Cowboys.

Given the problems the NRL and its clubs have in attracting spectators at the best of times, the clubs probably didn't fancy some of their big crowd pulling games being taken away from them to Queensland.