The Penrith Panthers and Parramatta Eels clashed for the NRL Grand Final on Sunday night, with the event attracting a record streaming audience for a Grand Final, measuring 389,000 viewers on 9Now.
This local derby between Sydney’s western teams amassed a national average audience of 2.367 million on Linear TV (Metro, 1.67m/ Regional: 696,000) while Live BVOD figures reached 389,000, resulting in a TotalTV audience of 2.756 million viewers.
The Grand Final capped off an NRL season that saw record audiences across 9Now, showing the NRL’s digital transformation for Nine. The flock of viewers to 9Now for the Grand Final saw a year-on-year rise of 7 per cent. Australians consume NRL and NRLW across a multitude of Nine’s platforms from 9Now, WWOS.com.au, and various mastheads and audio assets.
Hamish Turner, director of 9Now and Programming said: “Last night’s NRL Grand Final further highlighted the growing scale of 9Now live audiences as one of the top four highest rating programs of the year alongside all three State of Origin games.
“We have experienced fantastic year-on-year growth for 9Now this season as Nine continues to offer the biggest reach of any broadcaster in the country.”
The 2022 NRLW Grand Final played between the Knights and the Eels yesterday recorded the highest ever BVOD Audience for an NRLW game, and was up +197% on the 2020 NRLW Grand Final which was the last time they played back-to-back Grand Finals with the Men’s fixture.
On the rise of viewers of the NRLW Grand Final, Turner said: “The Women’s game continues its impressive growth with the most-watched NRLW Grand Final in history on both 9Now and Linear TV tuning in for the Knights’ victory over the Eels. Congratulations to the NRL, the players and the teams on a fantastic season.”