Beyond the Media Releases: What the AFLs TV Ratings Really Say

This week we got press releases from both Seven and the AFL trumpeting ratings success during the home and away season. I thought we should take a closer look at these statements and see what the numbers really say.

As usual now, we dont have Foxtel/Kayo data to include – havent since the start of 2025. See this article on ratings here.

AFL: The AFL has today announced the highest viewership in the history of the game, reaching more than 370 million people during the 2026 Toyota AFL Premiership home and away season across Kayo SPORTS, Foxtel, Seven and 7plus.

The key word is reaching. Typically announcements like this have been made using the tradition of aggregated averages – the entirety of the AFL season last year rated an aggregated total of 152m – to reach 370 million would require an uplift of 143% across the board – and lets be clear, this almost certainly has not happened – son I can only assume this is an aggregated reach audience – which has never been done before in Australian sport and distorts the data.

For example, The total Seven FTA aggregate for the home and away season was just over 51m (VOZ, overnight data). Aggregating reach gives you a figure of 144m for the season (VOZ, overnights). If a similar reach to average ratio is demonstrated across Foxtel, you can see where the average audience might be around where it was last year.

AFL: “including year-on-year growth of more than 30 per cent in Perth and more than 10 per cent in Sydney.”

It’s amazing what can happen to ratings when you take the Victorian blinkers off.

The Dockers have frequented Thursday and Friday nights nationally and locally, like no WA team before them in 2026, while WA sides also had Sunday night local broadcasts early in the season. This lead to increased and record ratings.

The Dockers rated 828,000 against the Crows and 757,000 against the Hawks in prime time, and a massive 930,000 against the Swans. In fact, 5 of the top 10 audiences for the year on FTA were Dockers matches.

AFL: The AFL has also seen significant growth in digital viewing, with audiences on 7plus increasing by almost 130 per cent this season, while Thursday night audiences have grown by more than 16 per cent.

According to VOZ data, average AFL Thursday night ratings are up nearly 20% (inline with Sevens reporting), while average reach is up 15% on 2025. Seven reports 7 plus audiences up 127%, which is probably more accurate than the reported data of 108% – this is average audience.

AFL: On average, AFL free-to-air broadcasts attracted more than 550,000 additional viewers than competing sports, winning 15 of 21 Thursday night contests and 16 of 23 Friday night contests on average audiences.

The 550,000 additional viewers is based on reach audiences. The average Reach on a Thursday for the AFL was 1.906m, the average NRL reach was 1.473m. The average Reach on Friday was 1.828m, the average NRL reach was 1.372m.

Average AFL (average) ratings on Fridays was 630,000, this was up from 621,000 last year. Seven says Fridays are up 5%, but VOZ has it up 4.1% for nationally broadcast matches. Close enough.

On average ratings, the AFL won 10 of 17 Thursday night contests where the AFL went head to head with the NRL, and 14 of 25 up against all NRL/W programming. If Reach is taken into account its 21/25 Thursdays to the AFL (16-1 head to head AFL)

On Average ratings, the AFL won Friday nights 21-4 (15-3 if you exclude double headers), If reach is your thing the AFL wins 24-1.

AFL: On free-to-air, the AFL retains the title of Australia’s most watched winter sport, reaching 11 per cent more people than NRL free-to-air coverage so far in 2026.

Figure is based on reach or possibly even, home and away season. VOZ data has AFL reach aggregate around 147m, and the NRL reach aggregate around 133m for a 10.5% difference. This includes Origins. The AFL home and away season had an aggregated average audience 12.5% higher than the NRL premiership audience (to date Thu 27/8)

On the traditional aggregate ratings front, all AFL programming including Origin, and AFLW on Seven had an audience of 52m. (50.033m without AFLW/Origin). This contrasts with the NRL reporting a aggregate of 62.5m including Origins and NRLW. The NRL season itself had an average audience of 44.469m.

Seven: Seven’s live and free AFL coverage generated an average national total TV audience of 585,000, up 7% on the regular 2025 premiership season

Seven only considers national broadcast figures here. Single/double market matches shown typically outside of Melbourne are not usually included in this data, leaving Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and Public Holidays. However on balance, this figure is reasonable, given reported data has a 13% increase in 2026.

Seven: All of Seven’s key prime time AFL sessions have seen growth in their total TV audiences this year, with Thursday Night Football up 19%, Friday Night Football up 5% and Sunday Night Football up 1%.

This is fairly borne out by the data within margins of error in our collated data.

Reach v Average

Using averages favours shorter programming – and it should be noted means average audiences of similar amounts means a higher total audience if the program is longer. In particular Sevens Thursday programming has largely gone without pre & post match being programmed making that average even better as its over ALL of that.

Reach does not solve the issue either, the time frames are ridiculously short to be counted as a viewer.

My personal preference would be to see a total audience, not a total average audience for programming.

While we are here, no I don’t think the NRL deal is some kind of good/evil triumph of averages over reach. The NRL included so much extra into its deal that it HAD to get higher regardless of its ratings campaign. Average audiences will have helped, but almost certainly not as much as the extra teams, the national coverage gained by going to Perth, and whatever the hell is going on with Superleague and PNG.

Reach wasnt as focussed in 2021 when the AFL was done either.

However, Ive attached some materials below on the reach/average thing. Enjoy.