So apparently I should be excited it’s Magic Round.
Just like in 2019 my team is playing a ‘home’ game in Brisbane this weekend, as are I think about five other teams who did so in 2019. How does that happen? Is that the magic?
Fans of those teams see an opportunity to attend a home game disappear? Is it the absence of home ground advantage for those ‘home’ teams that’s magical? Is it the rubbery way the NRL gets to allocate one attendance across multiple ‘home’ teams?
Like so many rugby league innovations (I use the term loosely) Magic Round is not an original idea. Just like cheerleaders at Australian Baseball League games, you can see someone noticed Super League have a Magic Weekend and said “I have an idea!”. The Super League has had Magic Weekend since 2007, but where Super League moves it around in an effort to showcase their game – Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester and Newcastle, the NRL plonks it in Brisbane and asks “how good is footy?”
Exactly how does Magic Round enhance my experience of the NRL? How does it grow the game? It looks and feels like a junior carnival to me and I expect a little more of a professional football league, though it does sit well with a league that still has grass hills at so-called stadiums.
(Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
It can’t be held in an effort to increase attendances over the given weekend. In 2019 an average of 16,834 was allocated to each home team of Magic Round, a figure that was beaten in four other rounds that season without having all games in the one city.
But if we have to have Magic Round, I would have thought the natural choice of venue is Sydney anyway, seeing it is the spiritual home of rugby league. Why is it not Sydney? If you want to energise the fan base and ignite historical rivalries surely the heartland is where you do it?
No?
zonecadet
Roar Rookie
Whoa, di I stuff up or what? I'm ex-Sydney and happy to be so. See my above response by way of explanation as to what I thought I was saying. As for games I attend, been to every home game of my club this season so far and intend to go to them all and have been to the majority of home games (and a couple away) for the past 23 years.........
zonecadet
Roar Rookie
Actually I'm in Melbourne but Sydney born and bred. I was trying to be facetious about the so-called 'magic' of the round as a celebration of RL being in the second city not the Home of. It was an effort to poke fun at the fact they'll never have it in Sydney because they wouldn't get the attendances. I know all the reasons for that, some valid some not so. I get it is a great venue and all but I still don't see why, especially when my club has been to two of them and lost a home game each time.....
kidkaos
Guest
Think you will find the 1st game in Brisbane was a year later than Sydney on the 8th May 1909.
GregM
Roar Rookie
Nat - my reference was for Magic Round re poor crowds. Hate to imagine what the Warriors & Cowboys do for half the year. Then with the NSW clubs playing each other where the furthest is to Penrif, can't complain aboutthe travel
Nat
Roar Guru
What on earth you provoke you to write such a miserable, sydney centric article? How many games does your team play in Sydney - 20? How many do you actually go to?
Nat
Roar Guru
You should probably check the attendance of last weeks games in Sydney. Sydney looks forward to 15k at a game...
Nat
Roar Guru
25 rounds and Souths play away from Sydney 7x and 2 of those are Souths taking their HG to Dubbo and Central Coast. How about Sydney fans eat a little of what every other club and fan has to every other week.
Maxtruck
Roar Rookie
Not sure if Zonecadet is anti magic round or just anti magic round because its not in Sydney ? Qld Gov tipped in to get it held in Brisbane to boost winter tourism, Group one Doomben 10.000 was also on Saturday giving visitors another event to attend. Weather was great, and the field held up perfectly ( even thought the Union played at Suncorp the Friday prior). The travel argument does not stack up, four teams would have been flying any round and driving around Sydney take longer than the flight to Brisso. Can not see the issue unless its another " Sydney is the centre of the universe" comment
GregM
Roar Rookie
"It would be wise not to stand near Todd Carney." - don't you like drinking warm p!ss?
Oh de la see da
Guest
Nearly 130,000 fans all up. Yeah rugby league is really struggling. Not.
GregM
Roar Rookie
biggest problem is the distance between Syd & Bris. A long way for Storm / Syd clubs to travel (even before covid). It may work in the UK because 90% of the clubs are within spitting distance of each other in the north of England so easy for fans to travel a few towns over to watch Magic round there as opposed to flying interstate or driving 1000 kays like they must do here. Maybe the NRL needs to make it like a fair with tents n stuff, like Darling Harbor with the RWC in 2003, to make it more than a game for the interstate teams fans?
zonecadet
Roar Rookie
At an average of 15,500 or so, just like a normal round of games in venues all up and down the eastern seabord, so no real improvement there. As for the mullions watching, that would be the usual viewer numbers, can't see why those numbers would increase.
Dodgy narratives about sin bins can’t detract from spectacle
Guest
Only 125,000 people will attend and millions more watching on TV. What a non event hey?
Joey
Guest
Who knew that magic meant the refs would make players disappear before our very eyes.
andrew
Roar Rookie
:thumbup:
MUCK
Guest
Poor simple cockroach , still trying to figure out how the worst team ever pulled the pants down on the best team of fullbacks ever . Dry your eyes mate and think back to pre 1980 when your air of superiority still smelt fresh.
Tony
Roar Guru
Enjoy it mate
Callan Sinclair
Guest
What's the point? The fledgling sport needs to boost average crowds somehow. Sad a "Professional" sport needs to resort to this
Joey
Guest
If they had of booked the three Qld teams to play on one day, it would destroy the gate takings of the other two days. That’s how much Qlders care about the game itself. Not much
MUCK
Guest
Theres only two States to be in lads and you can be in both all weekend during Magic Round. GO THE BRONCOS