After a week dominated by Origin, the weekend was all about Ash Barty’s win at the French Open, plus two World Cups featuring men’s cricket and women’s football.
In amongst it all, the NRL ratings took the expected post-Origin dip, and the AFL’s first bye round delivered low ratings, only slightly offset by the Queen’s Birthday matches.
Top rating match of the weekend went to the AFL’s Friday night clash between the Tigers and Cats with 977,000 viewers, while it was also the top rating FTA game of the round with 791,000 viewers on the Seven Network.
The most-watched event on Foxtel was Friday evenings NRL clash between Souths and Knights which attracted 291,000 viewers to Fox League.
State of Origin
State of Origin moved into first place as the highest rated TV event in 2019, rating 3.207 million nationally, slightly down on Game 1 last year. The match rated 69,000 on Oztam’s VPM ratings.
For more on Origin please note the article we released Thursday.
AFL
Round 13 of the 2019 AFL season was the first of its three bye reduced rounds with just six matches from Friday to Monday and 3.458 million viewers tuned in to watch across the Seven Network and Fox Footy.
The Friday night Tigers v Cats clash just pipped the Queen’s Birthday match as the top rating match of the round, with 977,000 people watching across the country on Seven and Fox. It was also the top rating game on Free to air with 791,000 people watching nationally.
Seven declared on Twitter that AFL was the top rating winter sport with its AFL ratings up 14% year on Year.
The top rating Foxtel game of the round was Sunday afternoons Sydney v West Coast game with 252,000 viewers on Foxfooty. Friday nights, Tigers v Cats was the lowest rating Friday night game on Foxtel this season.
State league viewers switched to Seven on Saturday and Sunday. 29,000 tuned into the WAFL, and 28,000 to the SANFL on Saturday, while 46,000 viewers watched the VFL on Sunday.
NRL
The NRL went into round 13 with only two games on free to air, and ratings were somewhat less than what is normal as a result. 2.747 million viewers switched to Nine and Fox League across the weekend.
Combined with Origin this gives the NRL an overall lead off 22,000 in aggregate viewers over the AFL for the season, with both leagues crossing the 50 million mark over the weekend.
The top rating game on the Nine network was Fridays Tigers/Raiders match with 494,000 viewers, easily the lowest Friday night match of the season.
The top rating game on Foxleague was Friday evenings Souths/Knights clash with 291,000 viewers.
Three matches from this round (in addition to Origin) rated enough to make it to the Oztam VPM charts with Friday evenings Souths/Knights game coming out on top with 20,000.
State league viewers switched to GEM on Sunday afternoon with 5,000 watching the NSWRL and 12,000 watching the QRL.
Tennis
Fridays Roland Garros triumph by Ash Barty was watched by 103,000 on Fox. Ratings were not available for the late Sunday final at the time of writing.
FIFA World Cup (Women’s)
The women’s World Cup launched on Friday at 4 am – the opener between France and Korea was the most watched women’s match ever in France with 9.83 million viewers.
England v Scotland’s women’s world cup match was the most watched women’s football game in UK history with 6.1 million viewers.
Australia’s match v Italy on Sunday night rated 570,000, including 421,000 metro viewers and 149,000 regional viewers on SBS.
Cricket World Cup (Men’s)
Sunday’s game between Australia and India attracted 444,000 viewers to GEM for the first session, while 246,000 viewers tuned in on Fox Cricket.
Super Netball
Super Netball had its best 2019 weekend with 140,000 people watching nationally on Saturday and 144,000 people watching on Sunday. This included metro audiences of 89,000 and 100,000 respectively. It’s the second week in a row that the Sunday game has reached 100,000 metro viewers.
Super Rugby
Super Rugby had a fair round by its standards, with all three Australian games rating over 50,000 on Fox, but the Waratahs v Brumbies clash taking top position with 60,000 viewers.
Sundays Super Replay attracted 12,000 metro people on 10 Bold, while Friday nights Global Rapid Rugby saw 4,000 viewers nationally on SBS. 12,000 people in Sydney turned to 7TWO for their Shute Shield fix.
Motorsport
The Canadian Grand Prix had 102,000 viewers on Fox, while Qualifying rating 87,000.
Source notes:
All figures used above are sourced by OzTAM and RegTAM. Figures for Kayo, Optus Sports, Telstra TV and apps not available at this time.
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.
Twitter – @footyindustryAU
Website – http://www.footyindustry.com/