The AFL averages over 4 million viewers per round, the NRL closer to 2 million.
There is no contest in the total viewership of the two codes. It's not even close, hence the gulf in the TV deal.
AFL Friday night Football is delayed by an hour in Melbourne, 90 minutes in Adelaide, and 3 hours in Perth. Rugby League FNF is the
match of the round and it is
live in both NSW and QLD. Anyone who thinks that is an apples vs apples comparison is ******ed. They pre-select the game a couple of weeks in advance as the match of the round purely for TV purposes, lol!
If the AFL match of the round was ona Friday night (which it isn't) and featured two (or even one) Melbourne teams, it would be around 450,000 and if it was live you can add another 80-100,000 to that. Essendon vs Carlton in 2000 was live, and match of the round at a sold out MCG and rated 900,000 just in Melbourne!
The AFL is by far the most watched TV league in the country.
Why do NRL fans constantly crap on about TV ratings when the AFL has over 4 million viewers per week, making it the most watched league in the country?
Spin, spin, spin.
This is an old article here from 2002 (
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/27/1032734328602.html ) written by Roy Matsers and therefore it has as a Rugby Legaue bias towards it, which you will have to excuse, but towards the end, it quotes the NRL's average total per round is 2.1 million, while the AFL's high was 5.3 million and the low was 2.9 million. Demetriou has been quoted as saying the AFL averages over 4 million per round.
For an NRL fan to come on here and try to give crap over TV ratings is just asking to be humiliated. They only like TV ratings because they can be selective and "include" and "exclude" certain figures, creating their own "cut off points" to give their code a positive spin.
But, no matter what spin is used, it won't change the fact that the AFL has a far, far bigger audience than the NRL.