I'd love to say it was a resounding success and the RFL are doing a fantastic job.

But a half empty stadium looks bad to a newcomer/neutral a bad advert for the game.

A new neutral venue is great but one with say a capacity of 35,000.

Ambition is all well and good but half full stadiums are embarrassing.


If that was Football (and the fans got on with each other) they would of filled the Nou camp 10 times over.

The RFL needs ambition and ambitious people but some realism wouldn't go a miss either

you thought that was empty wait until Wires play Catalans at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona. That holds 80,000

This is just a thought, but if the RFL want to do something truly radical, ambitious, and at the same time attempt to 'spread the word', then why not, next time the franchises come up, award one to a travelling 'nomad' club, a kind of RL version of the Barbarians??

They could use several different venues around the country, places where the visiting club's supporters could make a weekend of it, such as Bath, Newcastle, Edinburgh, even into Ireland.

Surely with the correct publicity teams in place for this 'club', decent crowds could be anticipated, and with it would bring to an end to the ridiculous '27th game' situation we currently have, where certain clubs (I'm thinking Huddersfield), have basically earned a 'bonus' 2 points by getting an extra game against the league's whipping boys?

Scrap it, use the extra weekend to play the games normally played on Easter Monday

I too think playing in half empty stadiums is a disgrace........

Huddersfield should go back to playing at Fartown, We should go Back to Wilderspool, Salford Cas and Wakefield Should Scrap Plans to build new stadiums...they're never going to fill em even if they get built.

in fact Rugby League should be scrapped we should just have one game a year the challenge cup final one regular team called Wigan and then invite teams to play them every year at Wembley.....
To my mind this is the only game that regularly sold out/wasn't played in a half empty stadium.....




there were almost 60,000 people watching the Magic games and GMR reported that 6,000 tickets were sold in Scotland alone.

the full round of matches the previous week all bang on our doorsteps in the fabulous M62 corridor drew a combined attendance of 56,000

your all James Graham And I claim my free ginger Wig

There's always the 52 - remember that.

so Mr biscuit with your sarcastic tone im sure you think that it's a resounding success and everything is great with the game?

Im no flatcapper play it in on the M62 kind of guy, all im saying is that we shouldn't run before we can walk. It looked ridiculous on TV the amount of empty seats. or did Rylands dress up as seats instead of Smurfs this time ?

A smaller stadium would have been a better idea is all im saying or do you have a better idea.

Wigan v saints gets pretty much 23,000 every time we play them at the JJB, been quite afew sell outs as well. It is always more than 18,000 though.

I dont have the answers..

in my opinion We've got to Get images (good professional images of Rugby League on terrestrial Television for me that's the be all and end all.

I see NRL on fox sports, channel 9 and skysports New zealand (i think) and its all so much better than SKY and BBC - mind you even a nerd with a camera phone and access to you tube could do better than the BBC.

we need for starters a program like Match of the day. Match of the day brings football to almost everyone....

something similar needs to be done for Rugby League....The Superleague show is $hit and should be broadcast with a flat cap and Whippet Warning....

I have no problem in stopping Magic weekends if need be and ploughing some money into a "modern Rugby League TV programme"

Why we have not Tried to copy the Footy Show I have no idea..... We pinch everything else from The NRL.....

but its got to be on National terrestrial TV. we are all digital in a year or two so ITV2 bbc3 they will all count.
stick it on at a reasonable time and not 4am and spread the word ........!!!

but at the end of the day James Graham is still a fat Ginger Scouse get who single handedly tried to undermine something good the RFL were Trying to do.

anyway I'm off to watch the Titans v South Sydney hope the stadium's full it will ruin my enjoyment if it's not....

Average Attendance 2008

Bradford 10,287
Castleford 7,501
Catalans 8,488
Celtic 1,929
Quins 3,773
Huddersfield 7,846
Hull FC 13,432
Hull KR 10,197
Leeds 16,756
Salford 3,768
Saints 10,740
Wakefield 7,000
Wire 9,496
Wigan 13,955

Total 125,168

Average 8940.58

Murrayfield 67,130

On average only 12% of fans travel to away games further than 40 miles

12% of 125,168
equals 10,430.68

plus 6000 'locals' =16,430.68
add the people that wouldn't mind a special day out and you triple that figure.

which would still leave you over 17,000 seats not sold

I would love us to fill out massive stadiums but the truth is we are not ready to yet.
or
we move certain fixtures to MM over Easter weekend

Pool A
1. Saints v Wigan
2. Wire v Salford
3. Catalans v Quinns

Pool B
4. Leeds v Bradford
5. Castleford v Wakefield
6. Hull FC v Hull KR
7. Giants v Celtic

You have 2 fixtures pool A play Friday and Sunday

Pool B play Saturday and Monday

so you have 4 days instead of 2 with guaranteed derby matches which is more attractive to fans and people have the time off.
Then you might have a full stadium

I think you understand the power of the Catalans pride young Clinic.

Thats totally stupid!

I've got an idea. If you don't want to go. Don't.

If you don't like seeing empty seats. Don't watch.

The Magic Weekend is a great festival of Rugby League, so if you are not interested, fine, but leave it to those who do want to go and enjoy it.

I've been to all 3 so far and loved them all. I will be going again next year.

Considering the recession, I thought the crowd figures were excellent, and must have been on target.
One of the reasons that there were plenty of empty seats on show was due to the facilities, as plenty of people were sunbathing in the grounds of the stadium, just picking and choosing which games they watch, rather like a music fesitval.

As for people saying it attracted less than for a normal round, that may be true, but a normal round doesn't attract anywhere near as much publicity as this event. Sky showed all 7 games live this weekend, which is 3 weeks worth of coverage in one go.

The event also got a lot more newspaper coverage than a normal week of fixtures, including an eight page pullout in Scotlands biggest paper.

The crowd has been around 60k for the past three years, so I'm not sure why people are suddenly picking up on this now, as though we were suddenly gonna increase it to 40k in the current climate.

expand on that for me please

Great Post

You talked about taking a series of games, 7 (same as this year) in a ground of same size as past three years over 4 days correct?

So over four days the fans are in ground to watch games, so potentially only half the the number of people plus are in the ground during each day. So as an example, the 60,000 might have resulted in just 15,000 in a 60k+ capacity stadium each day.

Do i need to go on?

Don't get me wrong on this i enjoy the rugby and i like the concept but the RFL aren't doing enough who (of a rugby league persuasion) wouldn't enjoy all this rugby
but
it isn't the rugby people we are trying to impress though really is it ? it's the new people, the neutrals. The rugby yawnion guys must be creaming themselves at this because it looked embarrassing. a so called big event that couldn't even fill half the stadium.
Lets not put our heads in the sand just because we personally enjoyed it.

Quote ="Wire_Yed_79"Don't get me wrong on this i enjoy the rugby and i like the concept but the RFL aren't doing enough who (of a rugby league persuasion) wouldn't enjoy all this rugby but it isn't the rugby people we are trying to impress though really is it ? it's the new people, the neutrals. The rugby yawnion guys must be creaming themselves at this because it looked embarrassing. a so called big event that couldn't even fill half the stadium. Lets not put our heads in the sand just because we personally enjoyed it.'" Edinburgh Rugby Union team play in Murrayfield with crowds of 2-5k. There were around 6k local tickets sold. People are not stupid, they will have enjoyed it for what it was. From what I saw and heard, the Scottish fans seemed to be lapping it up, and it will be publicised that this event attracted 60k. Here is an article from the Scotsman, which shows what some non-RL followers think. thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport/M ... 5231072.jp

Quote ="Wire_Yed_79"Don't get me wrong on this i enjoy the rugby and i like the concept but the RFL aren't doing enough who (of a rugby league persuasion) wouldn't enjoy all this rugby but it isn't the rugby people we are trying to impress though really is it ? it's the new people, the neutrals. The rugby yawnion guys must be creaming themselves at this because it looked embarrassing. a so called big event that couldn't even fill half the stadium. Lets not put our heads in the sand just because we personally enjoyed it.'" Edinburgh Rugby Union team play in Murrayfield with crowds of 2-5k. There were around 6k local tickets sold. People are not stupid, they will have enjoyed it for what it was. From what I saw and heard, the Scottish fans seemed to be lapping it up, and it will be publicised that this event attracted 60k. Here is an article from the Scotsman, which shows what some non-RL followers think. thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport/M ... 5231072.jp

It's no embarrassing. Perhaps we should move the quiet games back to wilderspool. Full stadiums don't mean successful games.
RFL and Super league only get two games a year where it attracts decent crowds worth mentioning.

So what it's only 60 k over the two days, but will be more in coming years, especially once the economy starts to recover. If we add all the teams away suppport up, you wouldn't get 60,000.

Agreed. If you look at team's away support, generally they all take more to the Magic Weekend than a 'normal' game.

There were a couple of hundred at Odsal a few weeks back where it would have cost around £30 per person, whereas we had a good couple of thousand in Edinburgh at a much higher cost. There is plenty of interest.

Quote ="Dave T"Edinburgh Rugby Union team play in Murrayfield with crowds of 2-5k. There were around 6k local tickets sold. People are not stupid, they will have enjoyed it for what it was. From what I saw and heard, the Scottish fans seemed to be lapping it up, and it will be publicised that this event attracted 60k. Here is an article from the Scotsman, which shows what some non-RL followers think. thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport/M ... 5231072.jp'" RFL in 'successful tournament statement shocker'

Quote ="Dave T"Edinburgh Rugby Union team play in Murrayfield with crowds of 2-5k. There were around 6k local tickets sold. People are not stupid, they will have enjoyed it for what it was. From what I saw and heard, the Scottish fans seemed to be lapping it up, and it will be publicised that this event attracted 60k. Here is an article from the Scotsman, which shows what some non-RL followers think. thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport/M ... 5231072.jp'" RFL in 'successful tournament statement shocker'

It was more the journalist's comments I was referring to, in a newspaper that hasn't always been supportive of League.

For all the talk of attendance levels being around 60,000 people over the weekend, the true figure is cosiderably less due to a pecentage watching both days, it is still a great day out for the rugby league family, 6000 local tickets? advertising was even carried out to scottish premiership football clubs, such as Kilmarnock.I still met local folk who asked what was going on? i don,t forsee much progress with neutral support within Union strongholds, a rethink of venues by the RFL may do the trick. Still a fabulous weekend for all supporters of our great game!

people keep saying this "union strongholds", so what shall the RFL do give up because the whole of England is a football stronghold

IMO its easier to get an english football supporter to watch and appreciate rugby league and even attend matches in the summer offf season than iit is to get a staunch union fan to buy a ticket, never suggested the RFL should give up, the game is being played in far more places at grass root level than any other developing sport away from football.