SUPER LEAGUE’S Magic Weekend has long been a popular event in the rugby league calendar.
Enabling all 12 top-flight teams to play on the big stage, whether at Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester or Newcastle, the Weekend has been celebrated by rugby league fans up and down the country.
But, in recent weeks and months, there has been speculation that the concept could be shelved or changed by new rugby league stakeholders, IMG.
For Managing Director of RL Commercial, Rhodri Jones, it is a time of reflection as chiefs look at the financial validity of the Weekend as well as the hurdles of moving the Challenge Cup date and time.
“We need to take it back a step. The reflection on yesterday is it was a successful day,” Jones said.
“The crowd for the first game was a record which blew me away to some extent and it was great to see so many people. With all the travel disruption and all the other events in Manchester the fans deserve a lot of credit.
“What we will do now is the assessment in which we will take feedback from broadcasters and then we will have to do a financial assessment.
“It’s not just about Super League clubs now, it’s about Rugby League Commercial. We have to make an assessment on the validity of the weekend.
“Magic Weekend is part of the calendar so we can’t just look at the event as an individual event – we have to look at it as a whole. The IMG recommendation was creating a calendar that had peaks and flows.
“We have done the work on the Challenge Cup, that format and date will change which might mean that it goes from later in the summer to earlier in the summer which sits in the same timeframe of where we are now. So where does Magic sit in our calendar?
“The biggest challenge we might have is availability of city and stadium. A stadium in June or July doesn’t have a pitch. Having it in August here, Newcastle are a Champions League club now.
“We have some hurdles to overcome to put the weekend on but you can’t get away form the fact how good the weekend was but we have a lot to consider. I can’t give a definite answer for Magic.”
Jones did explain just how much money the Weekend brings to the city of Newcastle, with an eye on bringing in more fans.
“We can all sit here and say what a great host city is and we have said that for seven years. The football club have been great partners but they are changing too with ownership and Champions League football. They like this weekend, they could have had other music concerts this weekend but we are here as they value the partnership.
“The council has been great too, we bring in roughly £6-8 million pounds to the city. We have to do the right deal with the stadium and council to do right by the event. We have the right to ask for a better financial deal from the collective to make a Magic Weekend more profitable.
“Another 5-10,000 in the stadium would make this event really fly in the terms of the way it comes across from a financial point of view.
“It is a great foundation to build on – do we focus on revamping Magic or do we focus on a brand new event and not so much on Magic?
“From my position we have to make RL Commercial financially viable and profitable and we have to find the right mix to be able to deliver back to the clubs increased revenues.”
The problem of removing Magic from the loop fixtures means that six Super League sides would have to relinquish one of their home games – like in the NRL.
“From an IMG perspective, they didn’t disregard Magic, they referred to it as revamping. Can we rework the calendar to ensure Magic isn’t part of the loop fixture as it is now?
“It would mean a club relinquishing a home game like they do in the NRL.
“It could potentially be Magic and another event. The clubs relish coming here and we put a platform on the players to perform.
“We generally see exciting games, we don’t get many dull games here and I think that’s because we put a platform on for them – why wouldn’t you want to perform here?
“Coming here is a big tick in the box for clubs. When you are here, you get engrossed in it.”
The Super League broadcast deal is, of course, paramount to any potential Magic Weekend.
“There has been a lot of work done in the background, it ties into the broadcast outcome so depending on where we land on that in the next couple of weeks, we will look at the new event in the round of the full calendar.
“We talk about a Magic event, where does it fit in without disrupting the lead up to the end of the season?”
