Damon , what has the weather been like in Leeds this weekend ? Seriously would LUFC be happy having 7 RL matches played in the middle of the football season ?

There is no ' perfect ' time or place that will bring in more than 30/35 percent of SL clubs total fan bases , it just won't happen

Yes. And I wasn't alone. And yes there were easily 30,000 in the stadium over the course of yesterday. And the same today.

Alk this thread shows - as similar threads have shown over the past five years - is that people who don't like the event and won't come, don't like the event.

So they want to make it worse for the fans who do go and enjoy it.

Armchair fans, hey?

It's on the TV , that's what SKY pay for , if they want people to attend , don't have it on the Telly

There’s no doubt that Millennium Magic is a festival of super league and if it’s profitable then I hope it carries on. Ideally I’d want it in Leeds, but as starbug has pointed out – it just simply isn’t ideal at this time of the season.

I loved the concept on TV the first time, but I just seem to be watching less of it each year. But as tb pointed out, people who go actually enjoy the event and for that alone I hope that it carries on and it probably will carry on. However from the position of an armchair fan – it was an overload.

Next year we could do with some special effects that make it look like more people are in the stadium. We could make things even more interesting and get teams of lesser ability to pair up and compete. For example the best of Harlequins, Catalans & Salford v the best of Castleford, Wakefield and Crusaders. Which ever team wins gets the two points for the respective clubs that have contributed players to the winning side.

Won’t ever happen though..

How does expressing an opinion that you don't like the concept make it 'worse' for those who do?

Unless you're a very sensitive soul, I can't see that how that works.

Having spent the last two days in a cold stadium watching 7 games, I really enjoyed every minute if it. Shame if you couldn't (or did'nt go) but in my opinion you missed a great two day RL event.

holding it in a worse stadium, in a worse city, where it wouldn't be a weekend festival of RL but just another away game:
that would make it a worse experience for fans

Personally I think we should give up the magic weekend.
A lot of RL fans are only interested in their own club and not the game itself.

Isn't it about getting more people into RL and to the event in the first place though? 30 people could have the time of there lives but doesn't mean RL will grow or make money off it (quite an important factor I'd say).

I think it'd be much better for all concerned to just have a couple of games at a time during the course of the season in a similar vein to the old 'On the Road' games. Fans still get to go to somewhere different, the cities still have the benefit of 4 sets of fans turning up and the RFL still has the opportunity to showcase live RL to a new audience. Also gets rid of the problem like yesterday where the stadium empties for the 'middle' games (Quins vs Catalans etc)

Obviously left with a problem with an odd number of games but 3 'events' with 2 games each and a stand alone Wigan-Saints should comfortably surpass the weekend Magic attendance.

I think you’ll find that all the RFL want is for the game to be played on some inhabited Caribbean island where the audience consist of a man and his tortoise. In Australia they are many teams around Sydney and they create a large portion of teams that are in the NRL.

In England the RFL does seem to be bias towards unnecessary expansion. You might just want to read Eddie Warings journalism piece ‘London or the north’ to back this point up. However I don’t think we should scrap the weekend – we should just alter it so it’s not as long.

i heard the aggregate attendance announced as just over 60,000. i do find that hard to believe. holds around 75,000, i cannot believe it was around 40% full each day, the lower two (and smaller) tiers were not even 40% full.

Doesnt mean it was 40% full at all times just 30,000 in + out in one day.

Leeds is a hotbed of rugby league and the RFL should be putting all their money into this city. You only have to look at the attendances for the world club challenge games when Leeds Rhinos were competing with whomever to back this point up.

If this city reached its full rugby league potential like Sydney has done, then super league would benefit.

are Leeds and West Yorkshire tourism going to pay us up to £500,000 to host the event?

Is Leeds an 'event' weekend for most RL fans?

Is Elland Road a top stadium?

(in case you can't work it out, the answer to each question is no)

wow someone who can count the crowd just by looking around the stadium.

clubs should hire you instead of having turnstiles

Your post is so full of holes and contradictions i do not know where to start.

Firstly you do not have to stay overnight. You can do it in a day i do. £80 in petrol ( but as it is £35 for a home game it is not excessive. ) .

the advantage is that it only cost me £12.50 for a ticket to sit in the best stadium in the UK. It would cost me £20 plus to go to leeds or castleford to sit down.

Also i get to mix with PROPER RL fans. there is a much smaller % of idiots than you find at the CC or grandfinal. I love mixing with fans from all the SL and championship teams for a great festival of RL.

If travelling is a problem then i assume you do not go to Quins or catalans either. maybe because they are so far way they should be out of SL ( possibly your hidden agenda).

as for atmosphere maybe as you have not been you do not understand the atmosphere. 70, 000 fans in a morgue would be boring . it does not have to be full or half full to have a great atmosphere. I was with a group of about 200 Giants fans in the bottom tier and we had great atmosphere. I was then sat in between some cas and wakey fans and there was great atmosphere, then i sat between some Wigan and saints fans and there was great atmosphere.

separate to that is the great atmosphere among all the fans in the pubs, in the stadium and in the services on the way down.

We all have to make financial decisions and i prioritise watching RL over all of my other luxuries. Within that i prioritise MM over virtually any other away game i would go to.

added to that £500,000 went to the RFL.

Dont go to MM if you do not want but do not use false arguments for having a go at it.

This thread is PATHETIC.

If you are too insular and miserable to support a great event then that's your problem, but don't sit on your complaining. You are embarrassing the sport and you are embarrassing yourselves. Get a grip.

Correct. I was there yesterday and feel the event isn't growing from year to year.
Some events have worked, the Grand Final for instance. I was there back in 98 with 43k at Old Trafford and saw it increase very quickly to 70k attendances over the years.

The RFL must give this event one last chance next season to get it right, or get shut.

That's because there's no excitement in it so people are now reverting to having sex instead.

Surely debating ways to get more people involved in it is a good, posistive thing? It may well be a great exciting concept but when you have a 70,000 capacity stadium to play with (and similar across the UK) what's wrong with hping to at least hit the 75% mark?

Not seen anything on 500k to RFL, I must admit, where's that from Welsh Tourist board?

Yorkshire Forward (the tourist thing for west Yorkshire) isn’t interested in taking Yorkshire forward whatsoever, so they won’t bother funding this event. Elland Road is a fine stadium and would be packed to the rafters if the magic weekend concept was held they due to the fact its slap bang in the middle of the rugby league heartlands.

Either way we’re just going to keep disagreeing with each other on Leeds. I’m glad you had a good weekend and I hope you go on to have a good week.

I 100% agree with this.

While I think the RFL should be applauded for trying the concept, I just don't think it has worked. It is trying to attempt to manufacture a showpiece event from a regular round of fixtures. End result is trying to attract new fans with a set of games that do not have the intensity of other showpiece events.

As I've said before, and others have said, maybe use the Challenge cup semi finals as a double header somewhere. Fans of the clubs would be more likely to watch both games (main exception of the losers of the first game!), new fans would be watching games with more meaning and might inject a bit of life into the competition, which at the moment, until the final seems to be stagnating.

Who cares if it's not growing? Everyone I spoke to had a great time and the RFL gets a sizeable chunk of money. Result on all fronts. Even the armchair fans get to watch 7 games on TV, although I'm sure there are some who secretly hate that. To be honest if it was sold out then it probably wouldn't be as good, I think it was a good level of business for both days.