ABSTRACT
Sports organizations, including teams, leagues and events, increasingly compete in the entertainment industry and can no longer rely on the quality of the sporting competition or event to attract and engage fans (Jowdy and McDonald, 2003). Therefore, like many governing bodies, the Rugby Football League (RFL) has employed a range of initiatives to engage fans, one of which is Magic Weekend. Launched in 2007, Magic Weekend is a two-day event held over a weekend in May, at which all 14 Super League teams play a complete round of fixtures at one venue. The Magic Weekend fixtures act as a ‘27th round’ of the Super League in that they are additional to the regular season fixtures of each team playing each other home and away. Therefore, no teams lose out on a home fixture as a result. At the time of writing, Magic Weekend is unique in sport as the only single venue event hosting a complete round of fixtures for a league and as such can be seen as a unique selling point for the sport (Björner and Berg, 2012).
