LEIGH LEOPARDS owner Derek Beaumont wants to see some major changes made to the Super League Magic Weekend event.
The event took place at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park over the weekend with the concept proving a big hit with fans over the years, ever since it was created back in 2007.
However, there have been murmurings that the Magic Weekend could well be scrapped in the near future as new stakeholders IMG look to ‘re-imagine’ rugby league.
For Leigh owner Beaumont, he wants to see major changes to the event.
“For me, you fix that up. I don’t think you ditch the event. I think you fix it up,” Beaumont said on BBC Radio Manchester.
“The other fundamental problem is, you excuse the league. You would have thought we’d be closest to Wakefield being a promoted team and now that doesn’t look really fair.
“Then you’ve got Wigan playing Catalans, who are both sat above us two points ahead, it could go either way so that’s another issue with it.
“For me, you make it a separate event, whether it’s nines, and you make it a competition that has a winner over the two days in the end, and everybody plays multiple games. So there’s a reason to be in there. There’s a reason to have a carnival atmosphere.”
Beaumont went further, calling for prize money to be awarded to the successful team.
“There’s a reason to have entertainment like what we put on in the Leopard’s Den and on the second day there’s a prize money for it. So it’s an event you all need to be in there.
“It’s not skipping the league. You can still have the positives of the kit and the week ahead of the way. And somebody wins something, so there’s another opportunity for an overly different club to get their hands on some silverware. So that’s what I would be doing if it was in my hands.”
