After a record-breaking 2025 season, rugby league has been crowned the undisputed champion of Australian sport.
The NRL Grand Final between the Brisbane Broncos and Melbourne Storm is the single biggest sporting event for 2025 with 4.46m Australians tuning in to watch, up 33% on audiences for the 2024 decider.
The epic premiership decider, won 26-22 by the Broncos after a brilliant display by Clive Churchill Medallist Reece Walsh set a number of broadcast records, including:
The most-watched Grand Final in Australian sports history;
Australia’s most streamed sporting event ever, with 1.3m watching on 9Now, up 68% year-on-year, and;
The Grand Final reached a historic 6.4m Australians, up 21% year-on-year.
In addition, the 2025 Grand Final was Australia’s No.1 most-watched program across key demographics and major markets; ranking No.1 among 16–39s and 25–54s, as well as in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.
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NRL Best Moments – Grand Final Day
Grand Final viewership also surged in New Zealand, delivering an average audience of 181k, up 15% year-on-year.
More than 80,000 fans packed Accor Stadium to watch a new NRL premier be crowned for the first time since 2020 after Penrith’s history defying four-peat and the Broncos end a 19-year premiership drought.
A crowd of 46,288 also witnessed the Broncos become the first club to win the NRL and NRLW titles in the same season after Brisbane’s women edged Sydney Roosters 22-18.
The NRLW Grand Final set viewing records, with an audience of 1.03m tuning in on Nine, up 36% year on year. The NRLW decider was also broadcast on Fox Sports.
The 2025 Grand Final was a game for the ages and the 2025 NRL Finals set a new benchmark for audience and youth engagement across the four weeks.
20.5m fans across Australia and New Zealand tuning in to watch, up 31% year-on-year;
The Finals Series delivering four consecutive weeks of record-breaking viewership, and;
More than 328k fans attending the games live to witness history, including seven sell-outs
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This Reece Walsh performance will be remembered for a long time
Digital engagement around the Grand Final reached unprecedented levels, marking one of the biggest online moments in NRL history, with.
182m social media views for Grand Final week content across all NRL channels, up 27% year-on-year;
5.2m social media engagements for Grand Final week content across all NRL channels, up 22% year-on-year, and;
275k social media shares for Grand Final week content across all NRL channels, up 24% year-on-year.
No.1 across 2025 in total viewership, 16-39s and digital engagement.
Heading into the Grand Final, figures showed that Rugby League was No.1 across 2025 in total viewership, 16-39s and digital engagement.
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NRL Best Moments – Finals Week 1
“We’ve had a phenomenal season, we’ve broken records, the response from our fans has been incredible and that’s because the football has been incredible,” NRL CEO Andrew Abdo said at the spectacular grand final launch on Sydney Harbour.
“We have Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney represented, and we have the New Zealand Warriors and the Burleigh Bears represented in the State Championships so that’s three massive games of football.”
As the No.1 sport in Australia and the Pacific, the NRL is delivering not only more total viewers on average than any other sporting code in Australia, it is also delivering more 16-39 viewers.
On the back of a record ratings year, the NRL has registered enormous growth throughout the 2025 Finals, with Finals matches up 32% on average.
Six of the eight NRL Finals matches have sold out, with attendance records broken across each of the three weeks, as well as record television ratings beating all other sporting codes.
The Broncos vs Panthers Preliminary Final delivered a historic result – setting a new record as the most-watched single broadcast in Foxtel Group history across all sports with 943,000 viewers, alongside a record-breaking 1.76 million viewers on Nine. The Storm v Sharks game was the second most watched NRL match on Fox in history.
All three weeks of the Finals have delivered record viewership:
– Finals W1 Australian Total Audience: 6.4m (up +27% YoY); NZ Total Audience: 422k (up +39% YoY)
– Finals W2 Australian Total Audience: 3.6m (up +34% YoY); NZ Total Audience: 205k (up +80% YoY)
– Finals W3 Australian Total Audience: 5.0m (up +36% YoY); NZ Total Audience: 241k (up +19% YoY).
Two key areas have exploded across NRL Season 2025; viewership in the critical 16-39 demographic as well as digital engagement across all formats.
Finals viewership for 16-39 audiences across Finals Weeks 1 to 3 is up 54% year on year.
Across the NRL regular season, 16-39 audiences for FTA were up 18% for Thursday nights, 27% for Friday nights and 5% for Sunday afternoons.
16-39 viewership of State of Origin was up 19% across the 3 games.
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What a welcome
Across digital channels the NRL has had a year of record engagement and audience traffic. The NRL is the most consumed sport for paid and free streaming services in Australia.
Video consumption on NRL.com and the NRL app is up 116% year on year.
The NRL now has more than 4 million registered NRL ID users, delivering the largest first party data sets of fans and participants in Australian sport.
Average users per week on the NRL app increased by 8%, while average session times per user increased 9% year on year.
NRL social channels on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X have a market leading 8.7 million+ combined total followers.
Total social audience engagement is up 10.5% in 2025.
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A frantic finish to an incredible game!
Australia and the Pacific’s No.1 sport strong in all metrics.
Total NRL TV audiences year to date are on track to be up 9%.
Live match attendance across the regular NRL season eclipsed 4 million people, and NRL Club memberships are at record levels.
Internationally, the Watch NRL streaming product has grown 9% across 2025.
Australian only participation is set to smash last year’s mark of over 1.1m (touch, tag and tackle), including a record-breaking 50K female club participants.
NRLW viewership and attendance across the year is up with TV viewership up 45%, with crowds up 115%.