NRL Made History With First Weekend Of The Season

The first round of the National Rugby League (NRL) season broke records and made history as all four Queensland teams came out on top, making it the most watched round in Fox Sports history.

As a long-standing partner of choice for the NRL, Foxtel Group congratulated the NRL’s chairman and commission, with the NRL’s management on record subscriber engagement across the country as its vision came to reality.

Foxtel Group’s, chief executive officer, Patrick Delany said it has been fantastic to see Queensland supporters make the most of the opportunity with record audiences across all platforms over the weekend, making this the biggest round of NRL on Foxtel and Kayo Sports ever.

“It’s great endorsement of what our Fox Sports team are doing to bring the magic of this sport to the screen of millions of Australians every single week.

We will keep changing the game together with the NRL, and there is no doubt this season is only going to get bigger,” said Delany.

The Foxtel Group today announced record ratings with every exciting moment of every game LIVE on Fox League.

Highlights from the weekend include:

• Round 1 of the 2023 NRL Season was the #1 rating NRL round ever on Foxtel Group platforms including Foxtel and Kayo Sports
• Blockbuster average total audiences of 523K on every game, up +17% YOY
• Linear audiences at record highs making this the highest rating round ever
• Streaming up of all NRL games on Fox League was up 17% YOY which follows a record breaking 2022 season of streaming where more than 1 million minutes of NRL were streamed every week on Kayo Sports.
• Shark v Rabbitohs saw more than 630,000 viewers making it the number one regular season game ever across Foxtel Group
• Dolphins v Roosters brought in more than 567,000 viewers making it the #1 rating NRL regular season game on a Sunday Afternoon across Foxtel Group
• Panthers v Broncos brought in more than 552,000 viewers making it the #1 rating NRL regular season Friday game of all-time across Foxtel Group
• Eels v Storm brought in more than 546,000 viewers making it the #1 rating opening NRL match of all-time across the Foxtel Group

Commenting on audiences, Delany congratulated Peter V’landys and the commission for their hard work and extraordinary experience within the clubs to pull off something like that as it’s what the fans have been waiting for.

“Two years ago Peter V’landys began a ground-breaking push around further expansion in Queensland and this vision was brought to life over the weekend.

He believed at the time that extra teams in Queensland would stimulate the total market for NRL in Australia and the extraordinary start of the season for all four Queensland teams puts this vision on track to achieve those goals,” said Delany.

Fox League is available to watch on Foxtel and stream on Kayo Sports, home of Rugby League with every game of every round of the 2023 NRL Telstra Premiership, plus every game before the Grand Final, live and ad-break free during play and in HD.

All Queensland team games in Round 3 of the NRL season are exclusive to Fox League and Super Saturday is exclusive to Fox League on Foxtel and Kayo Sports throughout the 2023 season.