Big Weekend in Sport as NRL and AFL viewing records tumble

Jason Lassey September 23, 2025 4 minutes read

AFL Preliminary Final Weekend and Brownlow Medal

The Seven Network’s coverage of the AFL has reached more Australians than any other winter sport this year, with 16.2 million tuning in to date on Seven and 7plus Sport, including 8.2 million for the Finals series.

Saturdays Preliminary Final between Collingwood and the Brisbane Lions was the highest rated game this year, reaching 3.26 million people nationally, with a national total TV audience of 1.54 million – up 17% on the same match last year. More than 207,000 people tuned in on 7plus Sport, which was the highest 7plus audience this year.

Friday night’s clash between Geelong and Hawthorn, reached 3.14 million and had a national total TV audience of 1.3 million – the second highest audience this year.

The average audience for the Finals is up 6% on last year. All eight Finals on Seven were #1 in their timeslots in all people, 25 to 54s, 16 to 39s and grocery shopper

Saturdays #AFL Lions/Pies final drew a national average television audience of 903,000 across the platforms of Foxtel and Kayo – making it the most-watched sporting broadcast across all codes on its platforms. (2.449m when added to Sevens audience).

Fridays Cats/Hawks clash attracted a national average audience of 822,000 across the platforms of Foxtel and Kayo – making it the fourth most-watched AFL game ever for the Foxtel Group. (2.124m when added to Seven) Combined 7 and Fox aggregate for the prelims now 4.573m.

Foxtel average audiences are up 17% in the finals YoY.

Brownlow Medal

More than 3.36 million Australians tuned in for the AFL’s glittering night of nights, The 2025 Charles Brownlow Medal, which was broadcast live, free and exclusively on Seven, 7mate and 7plus Sport last night.

Gold Coast Suns player, Matt Rowell, took out the Brownlow Medal in front of an average national total TV audience of 1.45 million, which was up 14% on last year and the biggest Brownlow audience since 2015. More than 335,000 people tuned in on 7plus Sport, up 72% on last year.

Seven’s coverage of the red carpet reached 1.46 million Australians, with an average national audience of 878,600, up 4% on last year. More than 190,000 watched the red carpet coverage on 7plus Sport.

NRL Semi Final Weekend

On Nine, Saturdays Raiders/Sharks match had a viewership of 1.025m.

Sundays Bulldogs v Panthers dominated its timeslot with Total People and all key demos across Australia and in Sydney and Brisbane. It recorded a National Total TV Reach of 2.295 million, a Total TV National Audience of 1.174 million (up 42.6% year-on-year) and a BVOD Audience of 243,000 (up 107.7% year-on-year).

Week two of the NRL finals had a combined average of 3.8 million viewers across New Zealand and Australia, up more than 34 percent on the corresponding weekend last year – and beating the AFLs Week 2 finals by 14%

The Bulldogs and Panthers game attracted 2 million viewers across the Nine Network, Fox and Sky — and was also the most streamed finals game of all time. The Raiders game against the Sharks was the third most watched week two finals game of all time.

NRL FINALS RATINGS SNAPSHOT

Week Two had combined average of 3.8m viewers across Australia and New Zealand, making it the most-watched Finals Week 2 in NRL history.
The Bulldogs vs Panthers was the most-watched Finals Week 2 game of all time, attracting 2.0m across Nine, Fox & Sky.
Across the two fixtures, viewership in Brisbane was up +24% year-on-year whilst Melbourne was up +95% YoY.
Attendance: 82k across the two games (+35.5% YoY), the highest-attended Finals Week 2 in the NRL era (i.e., since 1998), surpassing 2017 by 1.6%.
NRL Finals Week 2 outperformed AFL Finals Week 2 by 14% across the two fixtures. This includes 16% outperformance of FTA and 6% outperformance on Fox.

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