AFL ahead of NRL in Sydney ticket sales

Not really, the way the AFL play with numbers as shown in their junior participant rates in NSW i bet theres alot of fee tickets for the AFL to boast about as being bought.

don't worry about oikee, he tends to make stuff up including his fantasy mongrels. Oikee, you still make me laugh with your level playing field comments. You still don't get it, your commission signed off for 6 years on this level of coverage. Get use to an unfair playing field Okiee because your idiotic new commison just signed off for the same level again for another 5 years. You have a good day crying over that. I think this is going to be a sell out looking at these figures now for the Swans. Once you get to 50k plus ticket sales at this stage critical mass has been achieved. Work colleages, familiy members will now go with other friends etc... just because it is now an event. The only way this won't be a sellout is if it persist down on Friday night which will keep the 5-10k in walk ups away to reach 75k. Me and my bro are going, bought the $160 buck seats, can't wait to see it. I'm predicting this to be the best game of the year just like the HAwthorn/Woods prelim last year was the best. Hawthorn and the Crows will respond to this I guarantee you. I'm predicting 70K plus to this game, the Crows have a legitimate chance against the Hawks and I'm hoping 10-15k of Crows fans hop the boarder. Melbourne will do the rest with neutrals for the love of the game, something other codes would no nothing about.

Come back with the Metro and regionals, no more leaving veiwers out of the contest. As can be seen above, even the regionals are clouded because the signals are eroded, i know because i live in a regioanl and the amount of reboots is nearly once a day since Foxtel took over. If i was you Austrlian rules, i would be more worried when they start just putting all facts of ratings in the one basket, This will be the big wake-up call for AFL Austrlalia. Like the Paytv takeup, still strong for NRL, weak for AFL.

Oh dear Oikee The article you just lifted that from, disproves your point: http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/09/11/afl-beats-rugby-league-in-tv-head-to-head/ The headline reads: "AFL beats rugby league in TV head-to-head". goose

Umm.. You just proved my point champ.

Oikee, you're a dill. Comments like: "NRL still is outrating AFL on FTA. This weekend will be no different."...is just more nonsense from you. I feel silly even responding... but oh well... FTA Metro ratings for 2012 finals series: AFL - 5.6M (approx) NRL - 4.7M (approx) Then...add 2.3M to the AFL for Foxtel viewers, which is not available for NRL fans during finals. Keep at it muscles.

As i mentioned, if the AFL like to compete, just add the toyota cup under 20 live games on pay to our only FTA coverage of the main games, as the Pay TV dont cover the main game like the AFL, so your playing on a unfair playing field. Both are live, the juniors and the Frre to air Main games. If you want to take the NRL head-on, feel free to do so, i will be watching both Toyota cup games as this is a brilliant junior concept, the best in Australia. I suppose you will want to dispute that fact as well. ;) You might end up looking pretty silly, because alot of the under 20 juniors are now origin and Australia rep players, i can do a list if you like. :) Pleased to help out.

Here you go, that is some finals ratings, as you can easily see the NRL is killing the AFL on Free to Air ratings, this is taken off a Crikey blog. Now that is the evidence you cant dispute that, why do AFL people keep trying to dispute facts, you just make yourselves look jealous all the time. :) They have broken down Pay and FTA for you. Friday night’s brutish clash that saw Hawthorn account for Collingwood was watched by a total of 1.860 million people across the country on Seven (main and digital channels, 1.455 million) and pay-TV (451,000). It easily eclipsed the 1.447 million people who watched Canterbury beat Manly in the first qualifying final of the NRL in Sydney on Nine (main and digital channels). Saturday’s second qualifying final (an afternoon game) in which Sydney beat Adelaide was watched by 1.309 million people (975,000 million people on Seven’s main channel and 334,000 on pay-TV). The Geelong/Fremantle first elimination final was watched by 1.169 million people on Seven (main and digital) and 381,000 on pay-TV’s Fox Footy for a total of 1.550 million. Saturday night’s second NRL qualifying finals on Nine (Melbourne beating South Sydney, a twilight early evening game) was watched by 1.311 million people on Nine and the first elimination final between North Queensland and the Brisbane side (won by North Queensland) was watched by 1.113 million, according to early data. (Some of the figures for the NRL games are clouded by poor coding data for the ratings in regional markets). The last of the elimination finals saw the Canberra/Cronulla game win out with a total of 1.116 million viewers on Nine (main channels and digital) in metro and regional markets. The West Coast/North Melbourne game averaged 1.057 million viewers, with the pay-TV audience of 334,000 boosting the audience on Seven (main channels and digital, 723,000 in total) by close to half.

All the evidence I've seen has AFL outrating NRL so far this finals series.

The highest-ever ratings for an AFL game was the Syd v WCE Grand Final in 2005. Goes to show the tv power of Sydney. Given this Prelim is a Friday night game, and involves Collingwood, expect massive tv figures.

It will be interesting if the AFL get more supporters to ANZ stadium despite these disadvantages.

posted in the wrong place.

Ken - I'm sure people in Sydney knew that the AFL existed in the 80's. Do Dr Geoffrey Edelsten and Warwick Capper ring any bells? I went up and saw Essendon play the Swans in 1986 and I'm sure there were over 30,000 there then. Because you were very young, you probably didn't have much idea about what was going on.

All of this weekends matches, their are only 2 on. NRL will get around 90 thousand, AFL probably 120 thousand. Plus the NRL is only braodcast live on FTA TV, so getting bigger tv audiences for AFL is not that hard either, you have live pay and FTA. NRL still is outrating AFL on FTA. This weekend will be no different. If you like you can use our Toyota cup games in the TV ratings to make it even. That will give both codes a even ratings chance. Now fight fair, fight hard, or go home. You think 12 million for Origin ratings this year is good, you aint seen nothing yet. ;)

"Souths getting many fairweather fans who suddenly have decided to follow them" Oi! We are not! :)

Good to have the two sides in two articles, Rob. There will be more people to the Canterbury / Souths game than the Swans / Collingwood game for three reasons 1. The Swans game is on Friday night - therefore many Collingwood supporters won't be able to get time off or make time to get here Friday and many Sydneysiders won't be able to get to the game on time or won't feel inclined due to traffic etc 2. The Swans ticket prices are double that of the leagues - don't think that was a smart move 3. The league sides are two of the most supported with Souths getting many fairweather fans who suddenly have decided to follow them - plus the fact that people like Johnny Gibbs are begging people to buy NRL tickets to beat the AFL. That the two ticket sales are so close is quite remarkable considering these disadvantages. One thing is certain though - the AFL will sell more tickets for all of this weekends matches that the NRL.

No doubt AFL is further entrenched in the North than RL is in the South but your comment about it always being the case shows a lack of understanding about how divided we all were not very long ago. Growing up in the 80's in Newcastle and Sydney we didn't even know AFL existed, there was footy (RL) and soccer. The first time I remember learning about AFL was a driving holiday (does that still happen?) through Victoria when I was about 10 and I got into a conversation with another kid about which team we supported and it took us a while to realise we were talking about different games. Times have definitely changed now and the AFL is about 10 years or so ahead of the NRL in pushing out from their homelands. Although I think your '3-4' times number might be a bit skewed, AFL gets decent crowds, this one is especially healthy, but test signals rate about the same on TV - it has a small but loyal following who are all pretty much at the games. That's not really a dig though, I wish RL currently had a similar footprint in Melbourne.

Next time assassinate the lead negotiators of Fox and Nine - their replacements will most likely be less competent and more malleable and you can get your money and expand the coverage at the same time! (j/k on the assassination)

Would be pretty happy with that - was also good to see strong Perth figures in there. 1.925m is a monster set of ratings, even for a semi. And just quietly, shows that the period of Victorian domination may not have been as good for the game as they thought :D but I shouldn't stir ):

Thats better TC, showing the true colours again, like it much better that way.