What is Magic Round good for?
The idea of a festival of footy is great to some.
Fans love it, at least the locals who like to go to the games in Brisbane or those who have enough money to fly into the city to do so.
The Queensland Government? Secure.
Prime Minister Annastacia Palaszczuk has said it is evidence of “Queensland’s ability to host world-class sporting events”, but it’s hard to imagine that the International Olympic Committee looked too deeply into the event when making its own. the difficult choice between Brisbane and no other bidders for the 2032 Olympic hosting rights†
She said it was the biggest thing to happen to the rugby league in Queensland since the Maroons won eight consecutive State of Origin series – a quick reminder that the Broncos-Cowboys grand final in 2015 has fallen in the window since.
The Queensland Prime Minister has also made no secret of her delight at seeing hotel rooms fully booked all over the city.
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It’s a money consuming tourist boon, and no one pretends it isn’t.
Local casinos and bars like to jump on board with “Magic Weekend” offers and the like, which somewhat explains why the state government was so eager to hold the event in Brisbane; going so far as to claim that it invented the idea that has been a regular feature of the Super League season in Europe for a decade.
The activities in front of the stadium – “brought by the beer from here” – and the different corners of the ground – from Chemist Warehouse, Bundy rum, Ampol – betray the cynical marketing nature of the whole enterprise, beloved by state stakeholders and the competition itself.
So too, the many players who have said Lang Park is their favorite ground for years should enjoy an extra chance to run around the impressively steep cauldron.
Victorious Cowboys captain Chad Townsend said after the last game of the round how much he loved the concept and said the buzz in the city was palpable – a feeling echoed by other players this weekend.
But perhaps the Brisbaneites enjoyed it less, whose weekends were beset by about two dozen hours of major road closures during those three days.
And the weary stadium workers were heard lamenting three long days of serving well-lubricated customers.
In addition to that amount of alcohol, of course, there was violence from fans on the first night, largely cheered by those in the northeastern quarter of the stadium, most of whom hopefully couldn’t see how serious it was.
The NRL felt no need to release a statement condemning its fans’ well-publicized behavior – a lull Football Australia or even the AFL probably wouldn’t get away with – although NRL chief Andrew Abdo did comment to News Corp, saying fans would be banned for life.
That’s the kind of thing that might be good to broadcast on a larger scale, even if it takes a bit of the “magic” shine.
There was at least one pitch intruder and while flashing the kiss cam on two men shouldn’t be a problem, perhaps given the mocking laughter it repeatedly elicited from the crowd, those responsible for stadium operations could stop encouraging it. .
In fact, given the number of people, including a few children, who have been broadcast on the big screen pretending to perform oral sex – images that were then collected on social media fan pages – it might be time to turn off the fancam for a while. to make .
On the pitch, football itself was pretty standard, as no amount of use of the word “magic” in promotional material can turn a bad team into a good team.
We certainly saw that with the interesting choice to open the extravaganza with a cellar-swelling showdown between Newcastle and Canterbury.
Then, Brisbane continued their resurgencethe Warriors fought back from a seemingly impossible deficit, but ultimately came up short, and the Panthers remained dominant† Pretty typical stuff.
While three consecutive days with a crowd of more than 40,000 people probably couldn’t have reached the NRL any other way, the long days of Magic Round meant that the stadium was never completely full.
Friday night’s Broncos-Manly game, Saturday night’s Storm-Panthers game, and Sunday night’s Rooster-Eels game probably had the biggest crowds of the weekend, with 130,122 fans coming through the gates at various times over the three days. .
“Magic Round” is the ultimate marketing term that says a short time means less. The NRL whipped up another one this year with its ‘Unreal’ campaign for the season, although it hasn’t caught on in the same way as ‘Magic’.
Maybe it’s because it’s a fun word to say (damn, it’s on this page at least 10 times), or maybe it’s just easy to take the Mickey out.
Either way, with governments, sponsors and players well on board, it’s not going anywhere.
But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. We hope 2023 shows more of the best of the park and less of the worst.
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