- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Manly Sea Eagles Brett Stewart celebrates their win in the NRL Grand Final at ANZ Stadium in Sydney, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011. Manly defeated the Warriors 24 - 10. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Alright, I am not a fan of the code wars. In fact, I openly detest the wars that happen on the blogosphere. However, I cannot stand by while I read putrid rubbish coming out of Sydney’s NRL heartland.
When discussing the Grand Final TV ratings, the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph proudly proclaimed that the AFL Grand Final was out-rated by the NRL Grand Final in terms of television viewers.
Yet, when I read the ratings from TV Tonight on Monday, I saw that the AFL got 2.5 million metropolitan viewers, whereas the NRL on Nine got 2.1 million viewers. I suck at Maths but, I know that 2.5 million beats 2.1 million.
So where how did the newspapers conclude the NRL was more watched?
Surely, they have competent maths skills at Fairfax and News Ltd. Well, as it turns out, both included New Zealand viewership figures in their stories.
New Zealand? That tiny little country across the ditch, that is not involved in our code wars because they have differing sporting tastes?
Yes sir, the Sydney media used another country’s figures to try and show that NRL is a better TV product.
I know there is a great competition for viewers, sponsors and fans but to include another country’s viewership is blatant scraping the barrel to prove a point.
You say that New Zealand is involved in our competition?
Okay, fair enough, the New Zealand Warriors are an integral member of the best rugby league competition in the world, but if we use that logic, it can also prove other sports are more popular than both the NRL and AFL.
Using the Sydney media’s test, soccer is a more popular sport than League because a Socceroos match against Saudi Arabia will draw a bigger TV audience.
Only 300,000 Aussies will watch it, but in football-mad Saudi Arabia (population of 27 million) two to four million will tune in, giving it an audience of around three million people.
Cricket is even more popular than soccer and the NRL combined. A Test match may draw a viewership on Channel Nine of 600,000, but in the fanatical India (population 1.2 billion), up to 15 million people will tune in on their pay TV channels. Possibly more.
If this was printed, the four men of the horsemen of league (Masters, Rothfield, Gould and Ritchie) would go off their nut.
But I’m applying their theory that an Australian sport is more popular because international viewers are tuning in.
In conclusion, rugby league will always generally have a better audience than the AFL (popular in the bigger cities, a better television spectacle).
But admit it, the NRL was beaten this time round and everyone should accept it and move on.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.