This is a message from the future. A dark future where Magic Round is no more, where the whole concept is, as we speak, breathing its last breath.
The future is a place that looks a lot like rugby league now, with Tigers and Warriors and some team in red and white called the Saints. The only difference is that it’s a bit colder and our Saints are good.
This colder, wetter future is, of course, the Super League, where Magic Round is about to be canned in favour of, err, something. Look, we come up with ideas and then ditch them. Don’t expect consistency here.
But it had a good run. So good a run that the NRL actually thought it was a good idea to copy us and then pretend like the AFL stole their idea when they did their version.
The message from the future is this: stick to what works. Magic Round might seem like a moveable feast, a three day jamberee that can be taken to where the fans are, but trust us: it isn’t. Sometimes there’s a place and a time that works for everyone.
We found this out the hard way. Magic Round, Super League-style, was created to fill a void in our schedule that came from having played the Challenge Cup Final, our actual big weekend away, in Cardiff for several years while the traditional home, Wembley, was being rebuilt.
Cardiff was perfect and we loved it, but Wembley is where you play cup finals in England and gave rugby league one of its biggest national profiles, so we were left with an issue. We wanted more Cardiff, but didn’t know what to play there.
Cardiff wanted more us, too. Wales, particularly South Wales, has a long tradition of league and could accommodate more of it. The Welsh version of Destination NSW paid for the whole thing, because they loved the pissed up Northern hordes so much.
Fun fact: the whole Magic Round name comes from a simple alliteration on the Cardiff venue where the first was held, The Millenium Stadium.
Millenium Magic had everything. The stadium is right in the middle of the city, surrounded by pubs and close to Caroline Street – aka Chippy Lane, such are the number of beer-soaking food shops. Thus, all vectors of a great rugby league weekend were there: yer footy, yer pints, yer kebab on the way home.
For two beautiful years, we had it all. Then we made fatal error number one. We moved.
Back in the Wembleyless years, we had flirted with other locations. Twickenham, understandably, didn’t go that well. Murrayfield, though. We liked Murrayfield. When the Scottish equivalent of It’s Live In Queensland turned up, we took their cash and renamed it Murrayfield Magic.
The home of Scottish rugby union kept the quintessential things that made Magic Round good: it was close to the city, the chippies and pubs were plentiful and, like Cardiff, the place is a straight three-hour train ride from the heartlands. Far away enough to be a trip, not too far as to be too far.
Your columnist was present at two of them and, aside from May in Edinburgh being absolutely freezing, they went well.
But we got funky with it. In 2011, it was back to Cardiff, but for the start of the season. Nope. In 2012, a cardinal error: we moved to the heartlands. Sydneysiders, this is where your ears should prick up.
One would think that playing all the teams in one stadium close to where a bulk of the fans live would work, but it absolutely didn’t. It never felt like Magic. It felt like a big game in a big stadium, but not a festival of rugby league.
30,000 turned out on Day One, which ended with a thrilling 32-30 win for Hull KR over Hull FC, but 25,000 would have turned out anyway if the game was in Hull.
32,000 came the next day to see St Helens and Wigan, but again, it was only a few thousand more than could have gone if they’d have played it just 40km away as Warriors home game.
The numbers stayed still for another year of Manchester Magic, then tipped up slightly up the next, but it the event had lost its, ahem, magic.
Every single year, much as the Australian media debates “but what if it was in Sydney/Perth/Auckland”, we went through a hand-wringing cycle of “Whither Magic Weekend?” pieces about what the concept was actually meant to be for.
Then we found our home. Our Brisbane. It had all the things, again. It was close, but not too close. It was a massive stadium, but still in the city. It was Newcastle.
It helped that Newcastle is basically the bucks party capital of the UK, with a pub density unmatched anywhere in the country. The Bigg Market, packed with every rugby league fan in the country, made Caxton Street look like a temperance bar.
In typical rugby league fashion, it happened by accident – Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium was undergoing renovation – but once we hit on a winner, it stuck. Attendances grew and grew, fans loved it.
It lasted four years, before we tried another move to the heartlands – this time Liverpool – and guess what? It was rubbish again. Back to Newcastle it was, where we will contest this year’s event, potentially the last one ever.
This column would be book-length if it went into why Magic Round is getting canned, but the short answer is that we already have too many events and British rugby league fans are typically drawn from the least wealthy segments of society.
The NRL doesn’t really have these issues, and could learn a lot from the Super League’s cautionary tale. Brisbane has the nexus of pubs, fried food and easy access to the bulk of the support base to make an event like this work.
It’s far away for most fans in NSW and other parts of the country, and even people from Southeast Queensland don’t get to see many games in a weekend as Sydney people can, given that they have three teams as opposed to nine to pick from.
For everyone not from Brisbane, the idea of a late autumn warm weekend away with bulk amounts of footy is perfect. If it were in Sydney, it wouldn’t be.
Were the game to be in Sydney, you’d have to have it at one of Allianz Stadium, CommBank Stadium or Homebush.
Putting aside the idea to split between East and West – defeating the point of all-games-in-one-place – if you do Parramatta, the ground is too small, and if you do Allianz, it’s all the wrong area.
The Sydney Football Stadium is great for football, obviously, but it’s not really rusted-on rugby league territory anymore. It’s also arguably too small – 7,500 tickets down on Suncorp is a lot over three days – and the area surrounding it can’t hold a candle to Caxton Street.
While an influx of hammered NRL fans into the lined shorted, Sydney Swans heartlands of Paddington and Woollahra would undoubtedly be funny, it’s not the Magic Round vibe. Holding a Rugby Sevens tournament there: great. Rugby league…less so.
That’s before you get to the fact that there’s already all the rugby league you could ever want in Sydney, and Sydneysiders don’t go.
Local crowds famously don’t attend events if there’s the slightest chance of rain, or if it’s a bit cold, or if it’s a bit warm and suddenly going to the beach is an option.
They also get at least one Origin, plus multiple Finals games, plus the actual Grand Final at the end of the year. Maybe Magic Round Sydney works if the GF went to Brisbane, but one suspects that Sydney wants both, because Sydney.
Brisbane only gets a Final if the Broncos – and now the Dolphins – make it, which is a 2/17 chance, whereas Allianz, CommBank and Homebush have a 9/17 chance of getting Finals footy, and that’s before you factor in that Souths, the Roosters, Penrith, Cronulla and Parramatta are actually much better odds of making the Finals.
Of the last 45 finals games that could have been played in Sydney – so excluding the 2021 lockdown year – 31 were, meaning that just shy of 70% of all post-season games have taken place in Sydney.
So what about other locations? One could look at Perth, though that might well fail the proximity test. Remember, far but not too far is the dream, and a six hour flight for anyone on the East Coast – aka anyone likely to travel to the event – is probably pushing that. The oval configuration also counts against them.
That said, Optus Stadium is new and it’s not too far from the pubs, plus the game would do well to play more frequently in Western Australia. It is, however, hard to imagine the day kicking off at 11am, which would suit the broadcasters wanting to get three fixtures in per day for Sydney and Brisbane time slot.
Auckland would also fall into this category. Much as the game owes the Kiwis, and particularly the Warriors, their time zone makes it a hard sell for Foxtel. Both Mt Smart Stadium and Eden Park also have large uncovered sections in a climate known to be rainy, which fails the Edinburgh in May test. It’s not fun for three games back to back.
Adelaide did well for Gather Round in the AFL, but fails both the stadium configuration and the weather test, with May officially entering the cold period. 14 degrees isn’t actually cold, but Australians insist that it is, and they’re the ticket buyers.
That leaves Melbourne. They could get around the weather with Marvel Stadium, a fully covered venue, and the configuration can be moved, as it will be when the Storm take two fixtures there during the FIFA Women’s World Cup later this year. It’s the most appealing alternative, especially for a code trying to make inroads in Victoria.
The stadium is central, it’s the right kind of distance away and Visit Victoria will certainly chuck cash at the concept. They’d have to, in order to convince the AFL to allow a stadium that it owns to be used to promote a competitor sport.
Whatever it is, it can’t be Sydney. Super League fans can tell you exactly how that goes, because we persisted with Manchester for year, then found a solution in Newcastle, before inexplicably going back to Liverpool.
When you’re onto a good thing, stick with it. Magic Round in Brisbane is the definition of a good thing. It’s special. Moving the whole thing to Sydney – that makes it just another weekend of NRL.
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