Not that I was there.

Thursday night football is fast becoming another footnote in the ever revolving lazy susan of rugby league debate.

Channel Nine absolutely loves the concept, so much so it convinced the NRL to sign up to five matches a season for at least another three years.

Nine's argument is it gets to present another night of content to the ravenous masses and that the $7 million allocated to each club annually more than makes up for any loss in gate takings.

I'll put my hand up and admit the TV grant would have had to make up the lost profit from my attendance on Thursday, commitments cruelly ruling out a Lang Park pilgrimage on the fifth day of the week.

But while watching the broadcast at home I saw numerous pockets of orange and red seating, indicating I was not the only one perturbed by the scheduling.

The moment of noticeable quiet directly after the famous voice box of Ray Warren announced the match attendance at 36,057 spoke volumes about the disappointment over the missed opportunity.

This was Wayne Bennett's return, Corey Parker's 300^th game, Anthony Milford's debut, a battle between the defending NRL premiers the team from rugby league's capital and - quite obviously - the opening match of the 2015 National Rugby League season.

Despite the recent Brisbane heat, NRL administrators must surely be agonising over the crowd attendance of a game that should and could have come much closer to raising the full-house sign.

For comparison, it was a Friday night in round eight of 2014 when South Sydney last made the trip to Brisbane and 44,122 fans packed Lang Park to watch Greg Inglis score the try of the season.

So what do the ratings tell us?

Consolidated figures from March 5 show the South Sydney massacre earned 729,000 viewers, which made it the eighth most popular show, in front of Channel 10's I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! but behind Home & Away and My Kitchen Rules.

Admittedly these are reasonable numbers and the total audiences in Brisbane and Sydney upstaged other shows that aired in five cities, which Channel 9 will say proves they can sell a Thursday night game to a considerable audience.

But did it have to be the opening match of the season?

Fans of rival teams will bemoan that Brisbane hardly needs any more Friday night games, but surely as the opening riff to the new year it is in everyone's interest that the first game of the season is packed to the rafters.

Nothing brought out the contrast between the idealism of the NRL's marketing team and the realities of a Thursday night more than the decision to hire Eurovision hopeful, Guy Sebastian, as halftime entertainment.

The small step towards Dave Smith's dream of US style game day theatrics was an obvious but laudable attempt to appeal to demographics not traditionally associated with the rusted-on rugby league faithful.

But those who might have attended an NRL match with the promise of a Sebastian spectacle couldn't because of the family unfriendly time, and those who would even if it was played in the middle of Cyclone Marcia couldn't have cared less about the formerly fro'd Idol, and it showed.

In defence of the administration, crowds in the intensely fractured market that is Australian sport are notoriously hard to predict regardless of what night events fall on.

The AFL's 2014 opener, played on a Friday between grand-finalists Fremantle and the most supported team in Australian sport, Collingwood, only managed an extra 1,514 people in the Melbournian crowd than the Broncos did last week.

Despite this fickleness, the NRL has showcased that Thursday night rugby league can be successful if done right.

In 2014 rounds 23-26 all featured a Thursday night game which when combined attracted the second largest crowd average of any other single night of football.

The minor premiership deciding Thursday clash between the Rabbitohs and the Roosters in Round 26 also pulled in 700,000 Sydney viewers alone.

So it can work, as a lead-in to the backend of a season maybe, but not as the lead-in to yet another season of lip-synced parody pop songs sprouted by ex-footballers and a cricketer on The Footy Show.

Give the first match of the season the appropriate fan-friendly breathing room it needs regardless of which clubs are involved and where it is ultimately played, because at the end of the day it benefits everyone to have the best of both worlds, in the crowd and on the TV.

If the sport includes an oblong shaped ball, Joshua Bristow will be dangerously obsessed with it. His career highlights include becoming his high-school's top try scorer (with one try). Born and raised in Brisbane on a diet of Wendell Sailor and Lote Tuqiri, he is now more than qualified to throw his two cents in where the Broncos are concerned.