Round 1 of the 2025 NRL season was attended by 145,288 including 45,209 attendees in Las Vegas for the season opener, this figure is down 21% on the 183,554 that attended the season opening round in 2024, and is the lowest opening round since 2022.
This is in part due to the moving of the Dolphins game from Brisbane to Sydneys Commbank Stadium at short notice. The Dolphins played the Cowboys at Suncorp last year in Round 1 for 32,477 (last year the Souths game was at Redcliffe), so moving to Commbank where it drew over 6,000 is a definitve impact on the total.
On Nine the first four matches of the season had an aggregated audience of 2.62m – up 17% from 2.329m in 2024.
- Vegas Opener rated 715,000 (down 10% from 796,000 in 2024) – and consolidated to 718,000.
- Thursday Night rated 789,000 (BVOD 130,000) with a reach of 1.893m (up from 505,000 in 2024). This was standalone as the AFL was cancelled due to a cyclone.
- Friday Night rated 600,000 (BVOD 90,000) with a reach of 1.441m. (Up from 576,000 in 2024).
- Sunday Afternoon rated 516,000 (BVOD 70,000) with a reach of 1.366m (up from 452,000 in 2024)
In NZ, SkyNZ reported that Warriors fans tuned in in huge numbers for their initial game, with 402k people watching the Raiders v Warriors match from Las Vegas on Sky and free-to-air on Sky Open. A further 91k watched on Sky Go and 64k on Sky Sport Now. For further details on the Vegas ratings including overseas broascasts, please see here.
Data for Foxtel, including Kayo and set top boxes, is not available at this time and may not be in the future. Data for skyNZ outside of Vegas maches is also not available.
