The AFL would have to be worried if these figures are correct
NRL on course for TV ratings victory over AFL
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At the halfway mark of the season, the NRL is set to eclipse the AFL as the most watched football code on TV in 2018. If current trends continue, the NRL will have a higher premiership season audience than the AFL for the first time since 2011.
The Oztam ratings relate only to club games in both codes and, with State of Origin matches always represented in the top five most watched programs on TV, rugby league is headed for a historic season.
Compared to 2017, AFL TV ratings are falling even faster ... down 13.9 percent to the end of round 9, while the NRL season, which began two weeks earlier, has recorded a drop of only 0.6 percent to the end of round 11.
Significantly, comparing TV time slots where NRL games are shown, with programs on other networks, the overall national TV market is down 4.7 percent, meaning NRL is holding its ground.
The cumulative live audience for NRL games in Australia has been 43.0 million for the first 11 Rounds, compared to 43.3m last year. The AFL’s cumulative live audience is 36.9m for its first 9 rounds, compared to 42.9m last year.
The average free-to-air Audience for the NRL is 612,689 in 2018, compared to 317,003 for the AFL. The AFL will say that it has cross-over timeslots and doesn’t go free to air with the same games nationally, but the raw numbers show that NRL is dominant.
The average subscription TV audience (Foxtel) for the NRL is 244,853 in 2018, compared to 180,387 for the AFL.
The TV data confirms what State of Origin has demonstrated this past decade – Queensland is a rugby league state.
The Broncos are the highest-watched team across the NRL and AFL nationally (744,103 average free-to-air and 274,619 average subscription), while the North Queensland Cowboys rate third for free-to-air (722,922 average) and fourth for subscription TV (258,826 average).
This is despite the Broncos' erratic form and the Cowboys' lowly position on the premiership ladder.
The two lowest-watched teams nationally (across both AFL and NRL) are the AFL’s two Queensland teams, the Gold Coast Suns (93,510 FTA average and 97,765 subscription average) and Brisbane Lions (95,510 FTA average and 97,765 subscription average). They are the least popular of 34 teams across both codes.
The average Queensland-wide audience of the Broncos (325,494 per game) and Cowboys (311,321 per game) is nearly 10 times the size of the Queensland-wide audience of the Brisbane Lions (40,778 per game) or the Gold Coast Suns (34,365 per game)
Roy Masters
Roy Masters is a Sports Columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.