Magic Weekend in Dublin and Paris? Bring it on!

With Magic Weekend taking place over the next couple of days, talk of where next year’s edition will take place has heated up in recent days.

A report earlier this week suggests that four cities are in the running for 2025 – Nottingham, Newcastle, Cardiff and Dublin. Then to make things really interesting, Paris is being mooted as a possibility for 2026.

In my last article, I asked what the purpose of Magic Weekend is now. It’s worth defining this before we go venturing into unchartered territory, although whatever the purpose is, I’m all for both.

Is the idea still to attract new fans? If so, let’s go for it. Dublin and Paris would be great shouts. After all, Ireland have appeared at the last five World Cups and Paris hosted the first ever Super League match, so it’s not like either place is completely alien to the sport.

Or, is the idea to give fans a weekend on the pi*s? If it is, then Dublin’s still a great shout, although from the vast majority of comments I’ve seen on social media, it appears that fans don’t want to venture overseas to do so.

Sadly, as is often the case when it comes to rugby league, there’s been an overwhelming reaction of negativity towards most things new, with both cities getting a real hammering on social media.

All the usual comments have come up. “No one will travel there”, “there’s no RL fans there, so what’s the point?” etc etc.

Bear in mind that most of these fans are the same ones moaning about Elland Road as a venue though, so it begs the question, what do people want?

In Leeds, there are loads of RL fans and the packed Western Terrace at Headingley every other weekend is proof that fans are willing to travel there.

So, what is the problem? Elland Road is old and cramped? Fair point, but there aren’t exactly stadiums queuing up to host the event right now. And if a new shiny one like Tottenham offered to, the next complaints would be that it’s too far to travel and there aren’t enough pubs around the ground.

Some people are just never happy and unless it’s held in their back garden, it seems anywhere is too far to travel.

Thankfully, social media isn’t always a great barometer of how the majority of RL fans really feel though, and Vegas has proved that fans are willing to travel if the location’s right.

Supposedly around 5,000 fans travelled earlier this year and that was without any English teams playing. When March 2025 rolls around and 10,000+ Wigan and Warrington fans head to Sin City, that will help prove the doubters wrong as well.

I have full confidence that fans would flock to Paris and Dublin in numbers for Magic Weekend, and the ones who don’t want to can stay at home and complain about it while everyone else has a great time. Put it this way – it won’t be the travelling fans suffering from FOMO when Super League’s finest are going at it in Ireland and France.

And who knows. If Vegas goes well next year, maybe Magic Weekend in 2027 could head to the USA.