March 2nd-5th Weekend Crowds and Ratings – NRL, ALM, NBL Grand Finals, Super Rugby

A-league Men

Week 18 of the 2022-23 Aleague Mens season was attended by 46,542 at an average of 7,757 per game. (30.62% of capacity)

The 2022-23 ALM season has been attended by 839,400 at an average of 7,428 per game (30.44% capacity)

• ALM Season Ave (with WU/MAC inc) ->7,428
• Home ave (-WU,-Mac Home Fixtures) -> 8,404
• Home and away (-WU, MAC H&A fixtures) -> 8,702

TV ratings are anyones guess at this point.

National Basketball League

Games 1 & 2 of the 2022-23 NBL Grand Final series were attended by a total of 21,574 people at an average of 10,287 per game.

The Finals series to date has been attended by 68,738 at an average of 5,728 per game

In total the season has been attended by 924,809 people (ave 6,125)

Game 1 on Friday night didnt make it to the ratings charts, while Game 2 on Sunday rated 46,000 on ESPN.

National Rugby League

First, the crowds were outstanding – picking up from where the 2021 season ended on a high. In total, 147,836 people attended NRL matches across New South Wales, Queensland and New Zealand, with an average attendance of 18,480 per game. This was the highest attendance aggreagate and average for round 1 in ten years and average crowds were up more than 18% on the corresponding round 1 in 2021. Brookvale Oval and Endeavor Field were both sold out, and venue capacity usage across the round was 65.8%.

 

It was a huge weekend on the television. 5.593 million people watched Round 1 of the NRL. (not including 9NOW audiences). Television figures were up 17 per cent over the first weekend compared to the first round of last season.

Nines ratings are up – Metro 5 City traditional tv ratings on Thursday and Friday were up 5.1% on 2021, while Nine happily trumpeted the highest BVOD numbers for a regular season match ever on Thursday. Fox Sports and Kayo reported their highest ever TV ratings for a round.

Foxtel set top box ratings over the weekend were outstanding, with 4 matches reaching higher than 300,000 viewers. Foxtels STB ratings for Round 1 of the NRL season were up 19% compared to Round 1 2022, averaging 294,000 per game. – 6 of 8 matches had audiences of over 300,000.

Nines metro ratings for R1 of the 2023 NRL season were up 15.71% on 2022, thanks to the Storm on FTA in Melbourne leading to a 120% increase in that audience, while Brisbane audiences climbed 36% on the back of the Dolphins opening game and a Broncos Friday Night. The NRL reported an additional 601,000 metro viewers.

Total FTA and Foxtel STB viewing came in at 4.17m. Streaming viewers on Fox add another 1.8 million to the total.

• Round 1 of the 2023 NRL Season was the #1 rating NRL round ever on Foxtel Group platforms including Foxtel and Kayo Sports
• Blockbuster average total audiences of 523K on every game, up +17% YOY
• Linear audiences at record highs making this the highest rating round ever
• Streaming of all NRL games on Fox League was up 17% YOY which follows a record breaking 2022 season of streaming where more than 1 million minutes of NRL were streamed every week on Kayo Sports.
• Shark v Rabbitohs saw more than 630,000 viewers making it the number one regular season game ever across Foxtel Group
• Dolphins v Roosters brought in more than 567,000 viewers making it the #1 rating NRL regular season game on a Sunday Afternoon across Foxtel Group
• Panthers v Broncos brought in more than 552,000 viewers making it the #1 rating NRL regular season Friday game of all-time across Foxtel Group
• Eels v Storm brought in more than 546,000 viewers making it the #1 rating opening NRL match of all-time across the Foxtel Group

The ratio of Fox streaming viewers to linear STB viewers was 77% in round 1 – the exact same ratio as round 1 last year.

Total Round 1 NRL Ratings
5.989m

Metro 1.215m (405k ave)
Regional 601,000 (200k ave)
Fox STB 2.354m (294k ave)
Kayo 1.819m (227k ave)

R1 stream to linear Fox ratio: 77%
{Same as R1 last year}. This is why I havent used last years trends.

Data: Oztam, NRL, News Ltd.

— sportsindustry (@footyindustryAU) March 6, 2023

Fox Sports and Kayo have recorded their highest TV ratings in history in a blockbuster start to the NRL season over the weekend.

Television figures were up 17 per cent over the first weekend compared to the first round of last seasonhttps://t.co/IAY8Vc0DcJ pic.twitter.com/MTrE7E7l94

— sportsindustry (@footyindustryAU) March 6, 2023

 Super Rugby Pacific

Despite a lack of any real promotion, Super Rugbys equivelant of Magic round took place in Melbourne.

Saturday nights Super Rugby coverage rated 67,000 on GEM in the 5 city area. No attendance figures are available at this time.

Source Notes

• Crowd data is sourced from League websites and Media reports. You can also refer to afltables.com, Ultimatealeague.com and austadiums.
• Capacity data is sourced from Austadiums, and in some cases event organisers.
• TV Ratings data is sourced from OzTAM and RegTAM, the NRL and News Limited reports. These can also be sourced from sites such as TV_Blackbox, Mediaweek and TVTonight.

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