This is the latest installment in a series of articles keeping tabs on club football ratings and attendances across the four football codes.
The first article for 2015 combines January and February, but from March onwards I will revert to monthly updates.
In the interests of comparability and accessibility, all ratings are for Fox Sports.
The January/February period was dominated by the A-League (noting that there was a small hiatus due to the hosting of the Asian Cup), with the opening rounds of the 2015 Super Rugby season also included. A handful of AFL pre-season games have also made the respective lists.
The Melbourne Victory had the two highest attendances for the period, culminating in the local derby attracting just on 40,000.
The Waratahs were the only other team to attract over 20,000 to a home game, having done so in their season opener against the Force.
On the ratings front, Hawthorn versus Collingwood topped the table with 179,000 for the opening game of the AFL’s pre-season NAB Challenge.
The recent A-League Sydney derby took second spot, with a very healthy 135,000, while the Rebels were able to get 122,000 in their second-round game against the Waratahs, both games being very tight for the duration.
The following month will see the opening rounds of the 2015 NRL season, while the start of the AFL season will occur the month after due to the Cricket World Cup.
TV ratings
1. Hawthorn versus Collingwood (pre-season) : 179k
2. West Sydney Wanderers versus Sydney FC: 135k
3. Melbourne Rebels versus NSW Waratahs : 122k
4. Melbourne Victory versus Melbourne City : 120k
5. West Coast Eagles versus Carlton (pre-season) : 120k
6. ACT Brumbies versus Queensland Reds : 112k
7. NSW Waratahs versus Western Force : 100k
8. Perth Glory versus Sydney FC : 94k
9. Gold Coast Suns versus Geelong (pre-season) : 94k
10. Crusaders versus Melbourne Rebels : 90k
11. Queensland Reds versus Western Force : 90k
12. Melbourne Victory versus Perth Glory : 84k
13. Perth Glory versus Adelaide United : 84k
14. Melbourne Rebels versus Queensland Reds : 84k
Attendances
1. Melbourne Victory versus Melbourne City : 40,042
2. Melbourne Victory versus Perth Glory : 21,289
3. NSW Waratahs versus Western Force : 20,271
4. West Sydney Wanderers versus Sydney FC : 19,484
5. Sydney FC versus Melbourne Victory : 17,356
6. Hawthorn versus Collingwood (pre-season) : 15,422
7. Western Force versus Hurricanes : 14,670
8. West Sydney Wanderers versus Melbourne Victory : 14,619
9. Sydney FC versus Central Coast Mariners : 14,239
10. Queensland Reds versus Western Force : 14,199
11. West Sydney Wanderers versus Central Coast Mariners : 14,137
12. ACT Brumbies versus Queensland Reds : 13,570
13. West Sydney Wanderers versus Wellington Phoenix : 12,663
14. Perth Glory versus Melbourne Victory : 12,271
15. Melbourne Rebels versus NSW Waratahs : 12,178
16. Central Coast Mariners versus Sydney FC : 12,102
Uncle Junior
Guest
AR you are absolutely correct about many teams being followed by fans. But, I'd assume for the biggest matches in AFL on Foxtel nearly every AFL fan who has Foxtel will tune in (same for biggest Rugby, NRL and ALeague matches for those respective fans)? If we assume the biggest AFL match on Foxtel are the 2 Preliminary Finals (since the Grand Final is not on Foxtel) then we find around 450,000 people watched each of those 2 matches on Foxtel. These are huge figures. No argument at all. But, if there are around 8 million people who have access to Foxtel, then 450,000 is just a small percentage (around 5%) of people with Foxtel who are watching the biggest AFL match on Foxtel. Unless you think there are significant AFL fans who subscribe to Foxtel who wouldn't bother watching the Preliminary Finals which would be very odd.
AR
Guest
Uncle, I'm not really sure what the point is you're trying to make. There are 18 AFL clubs, 16 NRL clubs, 10 ALeague clubs and 5 Super Rugby clubs. So that's 49 individual sporting clubs with content being shown on Foxtel. It's possible that many Foxtel subscribers do so in order to watch their club on tv. If the Raiders are playing the Warriors, do I watch it? Probably not.
AR
Guest
Bondy: "would you venture to an AFL game knowing you’ve saved $6.10 on food and beverages, are you there to eat and drink ?. " Odd question. Obviously, my answer is that I go to a sporting event to watch the sporting event. Do I purchase food and drink? Sure. Am I happy if food and drink prices are cheaper? Of course. Bear in mind, when people attend an AFL match, they spend more than 3 hours inside the stadium.
Uncle Junior
Guest
Kirk: as far as I know the subscriber numbers that Foxtel reports total for all types of subscriptions. mds1970: If you are correct and "Live sport is what people get pay-tv for" why are ratings for sport on Foxtel no higher? If we assume there are 3 people in each Foxtel household, it means there are around 8 million Foxtel viewers. So, either people are getting Foxtel for sport but they don't actually watch even the biggest events on Foxtel for AFL, NRL, Rugby, Cricket or Football. Or people are getting Foxtel for a wider entertainment with viewing numbers spread widely. c: Not sure I know what you mean? But I'm not a particularly fussy person.
Kirk
Guest
I wonder how many foxtel subscriptions are from the business and accommodation sector. Are these numbers just residential?
Kirk
Guest
wikipedia lol sorry just laughing that wikipedia is the only site you can find super rugby attendances, dodgy much?
mds1970
Roar Guru
If you look at the top 20 pay-tv programs on any day when there's live sport on, sporting events dominate. Any AFL game, any NRL game, most A-League games are guaranteed to be in the top 20 for the day. Live sport is what people get pay-tv for.
Kebab Connosieur
Guest
RL = BLOB
c
Guest
uncle junior are you fuss?
Bondy
Guest
MF Or as I should've said its never been cheap ....
Mister Football
Roar Guru
For as long as I can remember, people have complained about prices of food at sports events.
Bondy
Guest
AR Off topic would you venture to an AFL game knowing you've saved $6.10 on food and beverages, are you there to eat and drink ?. We take our own when we venture to sports events...
Bondy
Guest
Interesting to note also the Melbourne Rebels versus NSW Waratahs 3rd on the list Rugby match was schedule at the very same time as the HAL match between Bris vs Mlb Vic which was postponed due to the hurricane in Qld the Rugby match appeared to pick up about 10 -20 k extra viewers because of . Very ethnically diverse crowds at the Wanderers matches, just an observation ...
offsider
Guest
The NRL match of the round is shown live on FTA friday night plus this year the sunday afternoon game is being shown live.
Uncle Junior
Guest
Mister Football you make a very valid argument. Perhaps, in the extreme, AFL fans only watch 1 match on Foxtel so with 9 matches there are 1.8 million distinct AFL fans with Foxtel watching AFL, from a total Foxtel audience of 7.8 million (if we say an average Foxtel house has 3 people). But, you'd think each AFL Preliminary Final on Foxtel would attract nearly every AFL fan who subscribes to Foxtel? Maybe not 100% but close to 90%? The Preliminary Finals last year averaged 450,000 on Foxtel which is massive. But it's a small portion of the 7.8 million potential Foxtel viewers. I totally agree AFL (and NRL) is huge on Foxtel. But, purely based on TV ratings, we can see AFL and NRL are only capturing a small portion of Foxtel viewers. So, those other Foxtel viewers must be subscribing to Foxtel for reasons other than sport.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
UJ During the Winter, the AFL has 9 games per round (all shown live on Fox, some head-to-head), while Fox also shows five NRL games live per weekend (from memory, perhaps some are not live). Each of these games are averaging around the 200k+ mark (and probably more for the live NRL games). Regular Fox programming rarely gets above 100k, add to that the super rugby, and you have 20 games of footy live per weekend with the total ratings adding up in the millions per weekend. During the Winter, no other Fox station is even in the ballpark.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
I've just sent an updated article - thanks for the heads up.
Uncle Junior
Guest
Mister Football there are 2.6 million subscribers to Foxtel. If you are suggesting more than 1.3 million (the majority) subscribers are driven by the sports packages why aren't the ratings for sport higher than current? Shouldn't AFL's and NRL's biggest matches on Foxtel be attracting well over 1 million viewers? So either there are a lot of sports-mad Foxtel subscribers who don't actually watch sport on Foxtel, or it's a myth that the majority of people get Foxtel to watch sport. Remember subscribers refers to households, not viewers. If the average Foxtel houeshold is 3 people, that amounts to millions of people with Foxtel who aren't watching the biggest sporting events in Australia when they're broadcast on Foxtel.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
There's no doubt that sport is a big driver for Fox subscriptions. During the Winter, every weekend, footy is dominating the ratings, and that's with multiple NRL, Super Rugby and AFL games all going head-to-head. A-League is becoming important because it helps maintain that sports interest over the summer (and you'd expect Fox to try and get a cut of the BBL again in the future).
AR
Guest
"From personal experience and observation, every family I know that subscribes to Foxtel does it for the kids’ programming. It’s used as a temporary baby-sitter when parents need to do daily chores like cooking and cleaning." Wow. I've never heard of that. People I know get Foxtel for either the movies or the sport. As a temporary babysitter..?? each to their own I guess.