Magic Round's formula just works.

There is little surprise the NRL have opted to extend the contract with the Queensland gvovernment through to the end of 2032.

People travel from here there and everywhere, Queenslanders love their footy, and year after year the event proves to be a success.

While a Thursday night game for the men was used in the first year of the concepts existence, it hasn't returned since and the women's State of Origin series opener has instead found a happy home to kickstart magic round festivities.

But that may not be the case heading into 2027, where Magic Round will have to look different as a nine-game slate of men's NRL games looms, with the addition of the Perth Bears adding an 18th team and removing the bye from each round of action.

That means the NRL may well be forced to use Thursday evening when it comes to men's NRL games, and Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman Peter V'Landys seemed to indicate the time for women's Origin to be a part of magic round is at its end.

"I think the women need to have their own identity and their own space. With the two new teams coming into the NRL, they will be given that opportunity. They have already shown how great they are and how in their evolution how far advanced they are to any other women's sport," V'Landys told the ABC on Saturday.

When you consider women's Origin is also currently played before the start of the women's season, lessending the quality of the concept a little bit, particularly in Game 1 (which is not at Magic Round), there is a further easy argument to be made for that match switching in particular, as much as it could leave there being no female influence to the on-field product at the NRL's biggest weekend of the regular season.

It has to be noted that when Zero Tackle spoke to the NRL during the week leading into magic round, they told us no chatter had taken place at this stage as to what the structure of magic round in 2027 will look like.

When the Thursday evening game was last used for magic round, it simply didn't work. The crowd wasn't there, with many travellers not arriving until Friday, and the fear is something similar would happen if it returned in 2027.

There is the option of taking the Brisbane Broncos game out of the rest of the weekend, making them the stand alone Thursday game and banking that enough people travel to keep the rest of the weekend played in front of a full - or close to full - house at Suncorp Stadium.

There is certainly still enough Queenaland teams across the rest of the weekend to ensure an interested local audience too - the Dolphins, the Titans, the Cowboys, even the Storm who have an enormous fan base in Brisbane, and the Warriors too who have been one of the better atmosphere drivers in recent seasons at magic round.

But what if the NRL decide to stay away from a Thursday night men's game at magic round?

There are potentially two options.

One is to simply add a fourth match to the Saturday slate, with action starting at around 1pm. That is going to see a small reduction in crowd for Game 1, and potentially TV viewership given people in Brisbane will be at the pub for lunch, and others not in Brisbane will very likely have plans elsewhere.

You could also shuffle the weekend as a whole back to the Labour Day weekend in Queensland (early May), the King's Birthday weekend (which is not observed in Queensland at the same June time window as New South Wales) or even forward to the Easter weekend to make the most of the public holiday and have games played there to ensure there is no need for either a stand alone Thursday game, or indeed four on the same day.

But neither of those options look to be the way to go.

Thursday night will have be the answer in 2027.

Just maybe magic round has come far enough since it started back in 2019 to ensure it doesn't hit the crowd and atmosphere.