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SPORT RATINGS WRAP | Cricket World Cup commences, NRL prepares for Origin, and AFL in China

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 image - Fox Sports
image – Fox Sports

Another big week in sport with the Cricket World Cup underway, Origin looming over the TV landscape, and the Women’s World Cup about to commence.

The AFL had the most watched match of the weekend with 987,000 viewers over Seven and Fox Footy. It was also the most watched match of the weekend on Free to air television with 774,000 viewers.

The AFL and NRL had a tie for the most watched game on Foxtel this round with 236,000 people watching the Swans take on the Cats in the AFL and the Eels play the Rabbitohs in Rugby League.

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Australian Football

The AFL had 3.75 million viewers watching round 11 across the weekend nationally on the Seven Network and Foxtel. 47 million people have watched the league this season with the AFL average broadcast audiences now at 478,000 for the season.

The most watched game of the round was Friday nights North Melbourne v Richmond game which had 987,000 viewers tune into the action live from Marvel Stadium. The match was also the highest rating AFL game on the Seven Network with 764,000 viewers in metro and regional markets.

The most watched game of the round on Foxtel was Saturday afternoons Geelong v Sydney game which was viewed by 236,000 viewers on Fox Footy. Sunday afternoon’s Port vs StKilda clash from China had an audience of 126,000

The Giants v Suns clash on Fox Sports could only manage 32,000 – making it the lowest AFL Foxtel game since 2012, including preseason matches.

Two matches made it into the OzTAM VPM ratings list with Geelong v Sydney topping the AFL games with 17,000, and Collingwood v Fremantle scoring 13,000.

In state football, the SANFL had 22,000 tune in for the Eagles and Panthers on Saturday, while in the VFL 56,000 switched on for the Bombers and Blues.

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Rugby League

With Origin beckoning, the NRL had a reduced round 12 with just four matches which still reeled in 2.681 million viewers for the weekend. 44.9 million viewers have tuned in to the Rugby league season to date at an average of 488,000 viewers.

The most watched game of the NRL Round was Friday nights Parramatta v South Sydney clash with 914,000 viewers. It was also the most watched on the Nine network with 678,000 viewers and the most watched on Fox League with 236,000 viewers.

Nine reports that Friday nights average metro audience was up 6% on the average rating for the timeslot this season, while Sunday’s average metro audience was up 2% on the season average for its timeslot.

Nine also reported 2.2 million minutes of live match coverage streamed on 9Now, with average viewers per minute up 55% on round 12, 2018.

Saturday night’s Bulldogs v Raiders was the only game from this round to make the OzTAM VPM Top 10 list with 17,000 viewers.

The Canterbury Cup match between St George Illawarra and Western Suburbs had an audience of 23,000 on GEM in Sydney, while the Intrust Cup rated 16,000 in Brisbane.

State of Origin tonight will be broadcast live across the country on Nine from 7pm AEST. Some pre-game material will be broadcast on GEM in Adelaide and Perth.

Cricket World Cup

The Cricket World Cup launched over the weekend with the opening game between England and South Africa rating 208,000 on GEM and 101,000 on Fox.

Saturday night’s Australia v Afghanistan clash rated 306,000 nationally on GEM and 149,000 on Fox Cricket.

613,000 viewers tuned into Fox Crickets coverage over the first seven matches at an average of 88,000 per game.

Rugby Union

The highest rating Super Rugby game of the round didn’t feature an Australian side, with the Chiefs and Crusaders getting 55,000 people to watch on Saturday night.

Friday night’s Rebels v Waratahs was the best performing of the three Australian matches with 52,000 viewers. Fox broadcasts with Australian sides currently average fewer than 57,000 per game with more than 2 million viewers this season.

The total Super Rugby broadcast average on Fox is less than 51,000 with more than 3.36 million viewers tuning in.

The Sunday morning replay on 10 Bold was watched by 12,000 metro viewers and averaged 9,000 metro viewers nationally for the season.

Saturdays Shute Shield clash between East’s and Gordon rated 9,000 on 7Two in Sydney.

Super Netball

Super Netball has reached its millionth metro viewer of the season with 1,042,000 people switched to Nine and GEM for their netball coverage, at an average of 86,000 viewers per game across the 5 capitals. The average is led by Sydney on 31,000, Brisbane on 24,000 and Melbourne on 20,000.

Super Netball had a season high metro rating on Sunday with 103,000 viewers watching the Swifts take on the Magpies from Qudos Arena. It’s the first time this season that the 100,000 mark has been reached.

Saturdays Lightning v Vixens match was watched by 82,000.

Motorsport

The Moto GP Qualifiers on Saturday rated 36,000 on Fox Sports.

The Moto GP event on Sunday rated 134,000 on 10 Bold in the 5 Capitals with the post event show rating 112,000. The event also rated 50,000 on Fox Sports.

FIFA Women’s World Cup

The FiFA Women’s World Cup starts this Friday and all 52 matches will be available live on Optus Sport, with 40 of those exclusive to Optus.

Football fans will be able to watch all Matildas’ matches live, free and in HD on SBS and SBS On Demand, as well as the opening match, all Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and the Final.

All 52 matches of the tournament will be live and free on the SBS Radio app, with match commentary aired in up to three languages simultaneously; English and in languages of the competing teams.

Source Note: All data and figures used in the article are sourced from OzTAM and RegTAM Preliminary Overnight ratings.

As always no figures are available for Kayo, Mobile apps or Telstra TV.


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Jason Lassey
Jason Lassey
Jason Lassey is a sports industry blogger focussed on the Attendances, Financials and TV Ratings of professional sport in Australia. A long time Carlton supporter, he longs for the heady days of 1995 to come around once more.
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