NRL gets a handy win on Friday night in average audience on FTA continuing its season long dominance, while the AFL won the reach again with help from multiple matches.
#AFL
Power/Dogs & Lions/Blues – No splits expected
- Seven 541k (BVOD 72k) Reach 1.651m
Sevens Friday Night Football broadcasts have an average audience of 620,000 per national broadcast, or 486,000 per match broadcast. The national broadcast average is up 1.6%% YoY from 610,000 in 2025. Consolidated ratings come in at 639,000, up 6.3% YoY – from 601,000 in 2025.
The average Reach per broadcast is 1.741m in 2026, this is down slightly from 1.791m in 2025 (-2.97% YoY). Average BVOD audience is 86,000, up from 43,000 in 2025 (+100% YoY)
Pies/Dockers remains the highest rating Friday Night AFL game with 741,000 national average, while the Swans/Giants & Dogs/Bombres had the highest reach to date at 2.093m.
#NRL
Cowboys/Eels
- Nine 601k (BVOD 114k) Reach 1.288m
Friday Night NRL broadcasts have an average audience of 671,000 per match/broadcast, this is up 13.3% YoY -from 592,000 in 2025. Consolidated ratings from VOZ give an average of 671,000 up 10.7% YoY – from 606,000 in 2025 (although it should be noted that this figure could be out as we believe there may be an error in the reporting for at least one round)
The average Reach per broadcast is 1.483m in 2026, up 7.2% YoY- from 1.383m in 2025. The average BVOD audience is 154,000, up 94.9% YoY – from 79,000 in 2025.
Storm/Broncos remains the highest FTA audience on Nine with 753,000 viewers, as well as the highest reach with 1.685m.
Data: VOZ preliminary and consolidated, 2025-2026
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