Due to the massive first week of Finals the AFL had (7.7m total), we estimate that the AFL and NRL both finished around the 107 million mark for their premiership seasons.. AFL Ratings finish the season down 6% on 2017 – a drop of about 6.2 million. NRL Ratings finish the premiership season up 4% – an increase of about 3.8 million.
To that the AFL can add 2.5 million for its JLT, AFLX, and AFLW competitions, and the NRL can add more than 10 million for its Origin/Tests/Preseason competitions (to date). The gap widens further if you include Sky ratings – although I have no figures for this – for NZ (despite the AFL being available on both FTA and sky in NZ). Either way, league wins the year in the battle for ratings.
Note: All ratings are estimates inclusive of Metro, Regional and Foxtel ratings, using data from that published by OZtam/RegionalTAM and released through agencies such as Mediaweek, TVTonight, Mediaspy, DeciderTV, MrTVAus and others. It does not include any streaming. Footyindustry is not permitted to publish tabulated data.
