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Magic Weekend linked with surprising new venue for 2023

by
Callum Walker
July 11, 2022

Well, the Magic Weekend is now over and what a weekend it has been!

Toulouse Olympique kicked off the showpiece event with a superb win over West Yorkshire side Wakefield Trinity, helping their fears of relegation whilst St Helens and Wigan Warriors played out a classic in the second fixture with Kristian Woolf’s men just about getting over the line against Matt Peet’s side.

The third game on Saturday saw Castleford Tigers go down to Leeds Rhinos despite leading at half-time as the latter ran in 28 points in the second forty minutes for a brilliant 34-20 win.

Wind the clock forward to Sunday and Huddersfield Giants were able to overcome Salford Red Devils for the first game of the afternoon, with Warrington Wolves easing past Catalans Dragons in perhaps the shock of the round so far.

The overall attendance was revealed as 62,154 with Hull KR and Hull FC selling the most tickets for the weekend. St Helens and Wigan Warriors were reportedly not far behind as were Castleford Tigers who went down to the Leeds Rhinos on Saturday night.

The Magic Weekend is easily one of the highlights of the Super League year.

But something that comes up most years is where the Magic Weekend should be held. Newcastle’s St James’ Park has been a firm favourite with fans.

Of course, with an event such as the Magic Weekend, it’s not just the quality of stadium that needs to be taken into consideration but also proximity to a big city and the attractions there.

A total of 62,154 fans turned up at the home of Newcastle, which proved to be an increase on the 60,866 of 2021.

But, the sport’s chief commercial officer Rhodri Jones, has revealed a decision will be taken quickly for Magic Weekend’s home in 2023.

“We’ll do the post-event review, internally with the clubs and also with Newcastle United and Newcastle council because they are part of the tripartite agreement we have here,” Jones told the PA news agency.

“There is a view to come back here next year but we’ll only trigger that once we’ve done the review. There is an aspiration from the Newcastle side to have us back.

“We’ve had a great weekend. The city centre has been busy, hotel and accommodate rates are high and so they are very keen to have us back but we need to do our own analysis and make a decision fairly quickly.”

It’s also been revealed that there has been interest from elsewhere to host the event.

“I had an interesting text from one stadium on Saturday saying they were watching and it looked great and they would be interested in having a conversation,” Jones revealed.

“It’s closer to the heartland and a stadium that we’ve been to before but, to be fair to Newcastle, they’re in pole position based on the number of years we’ve been here, the relationship we’ve got with the stadium and the way the fans just love coming to Newcastle.