As the NRL heads towards a fitting climax to a record-breaking season at Accor Stadium on Sunday, figures have revealed that Rugby League was No.1 across 2025 in total viewership, 16-39s and digital engagement.
"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," said NRL CEO Andrew Abdo at Monday's 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).
We're underway!
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.
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 44894.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.
Australia and the Pacific's No.1 sport is on track to smash records again in 2025, with all metrics tracking strongly.
- 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%.
A frantic finish to an incredible game!
