More than six in ten Australians, or 14.06 million people aged 14+, visited a sports website or app in September as cliff-hanger AFL, NRL and NRLW finals captured national attention, according to the latest Ipsos iris data.
Ipsos iris serves as Australia’s endorsed digital audience measurement system under the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). It measures digital behaviour across 22 million Australians aged 14+ and tracks activity across smartphone, tablet, and desktop.
Australian sports fans spent an average of 54 minutes consuming sports content online last month.
While both men and women engaged with sports news, men spent more than five times longer reading and watching sport online. That was 89 minutes compared to 17 minutes for women.
Audiences aged over 40 were the most avid consumers, spending 2.4 times more time on sports content than those under 40. They were also significantly more likely to visit a sports site, with 72% of over-40s doing so compared to 52% of under-40s.
Unsurprisngly the AFL’s own website was the most popular digital destination for sports fans, leading the September figures, while news.com.au sport pages and Fox Sports came in second and third.
7NEWS.com.au sport came in fourth, despite losing 11.2 per cent of its traffic month-on-month.
News consumption up +2.8% year-on-year
Online news audiences also grew in September, with 21.3 million Australians accessing a news website or app, a +2.8% increase year-on-year, reaching 96.4% of online Australians aged 14+.
Australians spent 4.56 hours consuming news content online, consistent with the same period last year.
Engagement was fuelled by a mix of sporting, celebrity and breaking news events, including the AFL Brownlow Medal, NRL Grand Final build-up, off-season trades, and Brownlow red-carpet coverage.
There was also high interest in entertainment and general news stories with the split between Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, the manhunt for Dezi Freeman, the fatal shark attack at Sydney’s Long Reef Beach, and the sentencing of Erin Patterson all featuring.
Globally, news spikes were driven by the assassination of US political activist Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump’s State Visit to the UK, and ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
Top Ten News Category
As a result, the Ipsos iris ranking of top news digital sites shows ABC News at number one in audience with 12,812 – a decrease of -1.15 per cent.
News.com.au remains in second place for the month of September, marginally behind the ABC with an audience of 12,071.
Nine.com.au grew its audience by 2.5 per cent to remain in third position.
7NEWS.com.au declined again month-on-month in audience but keeps the fourth spot, while bbc.com saw a huge surge in traffic of 18.5 per cent to make it into the Top 10 News Category as The Australian bowed out of the table for this month.
Average time spent per person on the sites across the category was 8, 768 minutes, a marginal 1.5 per cent decline from August.
The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during September 2025 by online audience size.
