Could be a surprise addition to Hull's team this weekend. Kirk Yeaman has registered as a member of the first team. If needs must, he'll be coming out of retirement on Sunday!

Oh aye, that's bound to put more bums on seats and liven things up.

Crowds were down, for example Hull got Harlequins, which while a fair draw poistion wise (they beat us) didnt get the pulses racing like the Hull derby does, you only need a couple of unattractive games and you can be 5k fans down as a result.

Glad Hull aren't playing my lot Wakey. He was usually good for at least one try every game.

cant get excited about magic this year tbh, even though im going to support fc, i think the scheduling of matches for sunday is quite poor, come kick off for our game i would be surprised if any other fans of other clubs will be still hanging around to watch it

Fixture wise it really should've been Saints vs Hull and HKR vs Widnes. Make those changes with the former being the closing game on Sunday then it's a good even lineup with all 6 games tricky to call.

Get back to the derbies

38,881 in attendance today, 3k more than last year and back on a par with 2016 levels...but I really can't see tomorrow doing big numbers so at best its holding its own crowd wise but not progressing.

would be interesting if they could bring an nrl game over for this weekend similar to hull and wigan in wollongong. might help swell the crowd a bit for the sunday

I’ve been to every single magic weekend. Both days for each.
I can honestly say this year has been totally pants. There is no magic anymore.
No crowd interaction -We got a few girls dancing about, some little kids playing, some crap with spacehoppers, And a live band you couldn’t see so Might as well put on a CD. One Screen too tiny to see owt. Kids bored stupid.
Please let’s go back to etihad- at least we got some entertainment for our money! Atmosphere was flat as a pancake because They couldn’t be bothered to try and generate one.

Magic needs to be on a bank holiday

Boys and girls. Fancy a trip to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/44191402

Boys and girls. Fancy a trip to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/44191402

Quote ="kobashi"Boys and girls. Fancy a trip to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/44191402'" The sport hasnt even conquered York yet never mind New York Only 25,438 there today, a car full higher than the lowest ever single day crowd at Murrayfield in 2010. 64k for the weekend overall, 1.5k less than last year and 4k down on the 2016 peak. I've loved Newcastle as a host city but time for somewhere new. The marketing as always needs to be better though, where are the 10k 'north east' postcodes who attended the first year? Because I didnt meet many locals in the ground this time. Do the RFL even look at why they havent come back?

Quote ="kobashi"Boys and girls. Fancy a trip to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/44191402'" The sport hasnt even conquered York yet never mind New York Only 25,438 there today, a car full higher than the lowest ever single day crowd at Murrayfield in 2010. 64k for the weekend overall, 1.5k less than last year and 4k down on the 2016 peak. I've loved Newcastle as a host city but time for somewhere new. The marketing as always needs to be better though, where are the 10k 'north east' postcodes who attended the first year? Because I didnt meet many locals in the ground this time. Do the RFL even look at why they havent come back?

64,319 over the weekend with the second lowest 2nd day turn out in the history of the event. 1,000 down, 2nd Lowest 2nd day and the spin-masters at the RFL are claiming that it was a GREAT SUCCESS....a year on year decrease of 6% over the 4 years isn't a success....unless you compare it to the 28% drop in season attendances for the same years.....
68,276
67,841
65,407
64,319

...no doubt, the RFL are busy patting themselves on the back because they received a bumper fiscal income, but the reality is that fewer fans bather each year. Talk of NYC is frightening......you only have to look at the ticket sales for Denver to see the potential disaster that Magic in NYC would be.

Quote ="kobashi"Boys and girls. Fancy a trip to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/44191402'" Wouldn't put it past the clueless RFL, how about on a different planet, no need to restrict this showpiece to Earth....

Quote ="kobashi"Boys and girls. Fancy a trip to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/44191402'" Wouldn't put it past the clueless RFL, how about on a different planet, no need to restrict this showpiece to Earth....

Definitely is time for a change.

Change of city and change of ideas. Seems like the powers at the top have no genuine interest to attract the host population into the stadiums that the Magic Weekend goes to.

What is most frustrating is i've spoke to at least 20 locals in bars, working in shops etc this weekend who have had at least some knowledge that the weekend was on. You say 'im here for the Rugby' and they dont assume you are there for Newcastle Falcons, or look blankly at you, they know RL hosts an event here annually..so it surely wouldent take much marketing spend and effort to lure a few in.

But instead we just rely on the clubs selling discount tickets to season ticket holders.

All the top clubs played on Saturday, because of this, Sunday was a drab affair because there was none of the big clubs on show.

Need to have better fixtures too. Based on league positions. Advertise it better and generate some interest. Only advertising to rl fans isn't going to work

Exactly. First time we’ve done just the one day instead of both, simply because the Sunday fixtures were so unappetising. Clearly from the attendances we were far from the only ones.

If I were the RFL, I'd also probably be inclined to think "feck it, let's do New York".

Let's face it, the sport has this great event but the only people who buy into it just whinge incessantly about the price / discount codes, moan about it being held outside the boundary of their bus pass, moan about the price of food, accommodation, drink and anything else that they have to put their hand in their pocket for and, no matter what the RFL do, they're never fecking happy.

So yeah, why not take it and have a jolly in NY on the company dollar? Maybe they'll find some people who want to enjoy this sport but even if they don't, at least they won't have to put up with the usual wingebags for another year.

As for the second day, simply writing the poor crowd down to the draw card lets some clubs off the hook. The same clubs perpetually undersell this event and the sport in general and its time that was called out. Why aren't these clubs growing their audiences and selling more tickets?

There are 12 clubs all with an equal stake in Magic Weekend and we have the usual suspects doing just enough to tread water whilst the other clubs bring disproportionately more of the audience and value. These clubs need dragging into Red Hall for their long term marketing plans to be scrutinised, because what they have at the moment isn't working.

Moving Magic Weekend to New York in 2019 would be absolute madness. We haven't even established a Super League club there yet. At least 90% of English rugby league fans who attend Magic Weekend in Newcastle could not afford a trip to New York, even with a cheaper jet-lagging schedule of 3 nights only, arriving Friday night and leaving Monday. In addition how could you expect 30,000 New Yorkers to show up for a game they have never even seen?

Leave such adventurous plans till after we have 3 or 4 north American clubs established in Super League, each with a 10,000 + fans base.

Rimmer is clueless.

Whilst we can no doubt look to an ideal world where all clubs are doing the same to attract fans, we're not in one.

Saturday had 3 local derbies involving 4 clubs with 10k+ attendances. The league leaders, last year's league leaders and the Grand Final winners. It was massively stacked. Only one club outside the top 6, and you could have predicted that before the fixtures came out.
Sunday saw 2 derbies and one left over game involving a foreign side against an underperforming small club. Only Hull were in the Top 6 before the weekend started, the rest lower league teams with much smaller fan bases. They completely put all eggs in the Saturday basket and relied on the Hull derby to at least shift a few tickets.

A better balance would have been to sway the Leeds/ Cas game with the Catalans/Salford game. Saturday would still have featured more big clubs, which shows you just how imbalanced the days were.

And that is the reason this game is on its last legs, I say the game can't afford to carry on with a fan base that can't afford to pay the going rate. Why do fans think we should get free to air or ridiculously cheap tickets? My only concern is there are better places to visit in the states? but NY is OK as most Americans are open to new ideas & do get pro sports as entertainment. My only change to the plan would be either to stop the extra fixture by making one side give up a home match every other year or make it the last 16 of the challenge cup.

Agree that the balance of games could have been a lot better, but it also needs to move back to the Bank Holiday. Its strange that they play the challenge cup final, a 1 day, 1 game event on one but the two day, multi game Magic Weekend isn’t on one. It doesn’t help attract people for the Sunday as they have work in the morning.

Only issue is the football grounds wanting to take the pitch up to host concerts and do repairs, but if demand is as high as the RFL claim then surely they can start demanding the Bank Holiday weekend.