Its been another big year for Rugby League in 2019 as 113.5 million people tuned in to see the preseason, home and away season, NRLW, Origin, Representative footy and finals. However, while this figure was enough to get it over the AFL again in 2019, it was down more than 6% on the 2018 season.
Like the AFL, the NRL also was ambushed by a high rating Ashes series in the second half of the season, and a mediocre Grand Final audience didn’t help much either.
Please note that New Zealand figures were not available, and haven’t been since 2015. I was also unable to find Telstra or Live Pass data for the NRL.
The Season
The 2019 NRL Season rated 88.201 million viewers at an average viewership of 459,000 per game, with an almost even split between free to air viewers on Nine and GEM, as well as Foxleague.
The highest rating game of the season was in round 1 between Melbourne and Brisbane, which rated 1.183 million. Filling out the top 5 was Brisbane v Nth Queensland (R2), Brisbane v St George (R3), South Sydney v Brisbane (R8) and Brisbane v Parramatta (R24)
Only 2 games this year crossed the million mark, down from 5 in 2018. Both of these matches were in the first two rounds.
Round 1s Melbourne v Brisbane was the highest rating game on the Nine network with 849,000 watching nationally. Rounding out the top 5 games on Free to air was Brisbane v St George (R3), Brisbane v Nth Queensland (R2), Sth Sydney v Brisbane (R8), and Sydney v Sth Sydney (r1).
Round 17s Melbourne v Cronulla was the highest rating game on Foxtel with 357,000 viewers. Filling in the top 5 was Sth Sydney v Melbourne (R21), Melbourne v Brisbane (R1), Melbourne v Parramatta (R9) and Brisbane v Cronulla (R7).
State of Origin
State of Origin s watched by an average audience of 8.87m over the three matches, down 4% on the 2018 series. The highest game of the series was Origin 1 which rated 3.207 million viewers. – its also the highest rating live game on television this year.
Womens Origin was watched by 783,000 across the Nine and Fox networks.
NRLW
Ratings for the NRLW held firm during the season, with FTA ratings down slightly in the 5 cities, but up on Foxtel. The 2019 NRLW Grand Final TV ratings were 321k metro fta (up 28%, and same as the 2019 AFLW Grand Final) and 109k on Fox (up 38%)
Finals
The 2019 Finals series was watched by 12.241 million viewers, down 7% on the 2018 seasons finals. The most watched finals were both in the Preliminary weekend with Sydney v Melbourne reeling in 1.696m people in.
The Grand Final between Sydney and Canberra had some lackluster ratings for such a close match, with the lowest grand final ratings in years being reported as 2.642 million people tuned in across the Nine network – down 12.8% on the 2018 decider.
The Clubs
During the premiership season Brisbane was the most watched team on television with more than 16 million people tuning in to see them play over the course of the season, averaging 680,000 viewers per match. They also had the top rating averages on both Nine (640k) and Foxleague (254k).
Rounding out the top 5 on average figures on Nine was Melbourne (593k), Sth Sydney (584k), Nth Queensland (575k) and Parramatta (560k)
Completing the Foxtel top 5 on average figures was Melbourne (251k), Wests (250k), Parramatta (245k) and South Sydney (243k).
A tale of two cities….the rest
In Sydney, the highest rating match was Round 12s Parramatta v South Sydney game which rated 259,000. 13.9 million people watched the NRL on Nine in Sydney in 2019 at an average of 197,000 per game. Matches involving Sydney teams rated an average of 198,000, while matches involving both sides from outside Sydney rated an average of 186,000.
In Brisbane, the highest rating game was Round 2s Brisbane v North Queensland fixture which rated 240,000. 8.743 million people watched on Nine during the season at an average audience of 123,000 per game. Matches involving the Broncos average 173,000 for the season, while Queensland sides averaged 157,000. Matches involving two out of state teams rated an average of 107,000.
Outside of the two main cities, the highest rating game in Melbourne/Adelaide/Perth was the 66,000 who watched Melbourne v Brisbane in Round 1. The same game also had the highest rating regional audience with 325,000
Streaming
While complete figures aren’t available, Kayo reported that NRL fans were watching an average of 3.5 hours each week, with some regular season games reaching nearly 70,000 users.
On 9NOW, an average of 2.9 million minutes was streamed online every round, with every round recording big increases on the previous season. The highest live VPM recorded was for Parramatta v Wests Tigers in round 6 with 26,000 viewers.
The Canberra Raiders topped the Telstra charts as the most streamed team on Live pass in the 2019 home-and-away season, with supporters logging an impressive 43.5 million minutes in the NRL Live official app and Telstra Live Pass. The Newcastle Knights took second place in 2019 with just shy of 43m minutes. New Zealand Warriors fell just short of second place with 42.95m minutes, while Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles rounded out the top four with 41.7m minutes.
In total, 302 million minutes of NRL were streamed on Telstra Live Pass and the NRL Live official app across 2019 to the end of the regular season.
The NRL Live official app and Telstra Live Pass recorded 2019’s biggest weekend in round 6 with over 15.2m million minutes streamed while the biggest single streamed match on Telstra Live Pass and the NRL Live official app in 2019 was the 11-10 nail-biter between Manly-Warringah and Melbourne in round 19, with 3.46m minutes. New South Wales accounted for 46% of all devices streaming NRL matches on Telstra Live Pass and the NRL Live official app – the most by any state or territory
More STREAMING on 9NOW
2019 Finals Series
• The 2019 NRL season, including Finals, saw 118.2 million minutes streamed in total on 9Now, an increase of 85% year-on-year.
• The 2019 NRL season, including Finals, saw 6.6 million stream starts on 9Now, an increase of 122% YOY.
• The top VPM of the 2019 NRL season was the NRL Grand Final, which achieved a live average VPM of 84,000, an increase of 86% year-on-year.
• 9Now saw 29,000 new sign-ups for the 2019 NRL Grand Final Day alone.
2019 State of Origin
• The 2019 State of Origin series received an Average VPM of 84,000 streamed in total on 9Now, an increase of 78% year-on-year.
• The 2019 State of Origin series saw 1.9 million live streams in total on 9Now, an increase of 194% year-on-year.
• The 2019 State of Origin series saw 28.6 million minutes streamed in total on 9Now, an increase of 83% year-on-year.
• State of Origin Games II & III dominated live streaming numbers, taking out the top two spots of the year-to-date in live VPM.
DIGITAL
• Total number of WWOS page views for NRL content in 2019: 47 million views.
• Most read story – ‘Jorge Taufua’s savage Cameron Munster hit sends American sports fans nuts’
• Total NRL video views on WWOS in 2019: 14.1 million views.
• Most watched video – ‘Taufua goes bang!’
SOCIAL
Facebook, Twitter & Instagram
• Cumulative reach for all of Nine’s NRL content in 2019 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: 259.9 million impressions.
• Cumulative engagements for all of Nine’s NRL content in 2019 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: 71.6 million engagements.
• Combined video views for all of Nine’s NRL content in 2019 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter: 143.4 million views.
YouTube
• Combined video views for all of Nine’s NRL content in 2019 on YouTube: 30 million views.
• Cumulative minutes watched for all of Nine’s NRL content in 2019 on YouTube: 143.7 million minutes.
• New subscribers to the NRL on Nine YouTube channel in 2019: 48,000 new subscribers.
States
The Canterbury Cup and Instrust Cups were beset with wildly fluctuating ratings due to being shifted to and from Nines primary channel when the Super Netball was on, with the start, middle and end of season ratings vastly different from the rest.
The NSW Canterbury Cup rated 567,000 over the season at an average of 25,000 per game. The Grand Final rated 80,000 in Sydney.
The QLD Intrust Cup rated 398,000 over the season at an average of 17,000 per game. The Grand Final rated 62,000 in Brisbane.
The Residents Cup rated just 16,000 on GEM.
The State Championship between Newtown and Burleigh heads rated 223,000 in the 5 cities, with another 60,000 on Foxtel.
World Cup Nines
A total of more than 2.7m viewers watched the World Cup 9’s on Foxleague at an average of 117k per game, with each game reporting ratings individually.
Oceania Cup
The Oceania Cup series attracted 876,000 viewers across the 4 matches with Australia v Tonga being viewed by 435,000 viewers on GEM and Fox nationally.