NRL grand final between Penrith Panthers and Melbourne Storm pulls national TV audience of 3.42 million

The ratings for the closely-fought match between the Panthers and the Melbourne Storm were up on last year’s NRL centrepiece but were easily outstripped by the TV audience for the lopsided AFL Grand Final a week earlier.

The Panthers won their fourth-consecutive NRL premiership in front of just over 80,000 at Accor Stadium and a strong TV audience. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Penrith’s fourth-consecutive NRL premiership drew the biggest national TV audience for a grand final since 2021, with 3.422 million viewers tuning in across the country on Sunday night.

The ratings for the closely-fought match between the Panthers and the Melbourne Storm were up by 0.3 per cent on last year’s NRL centrepiece, but were easily outstripped by the TV audience for the lopsided AFL grand final a week earlier, which pulled 4.05 million viewers despite the on-field contest being a total mismatch.

The television audience for Sunday night’s NRL grand final, broadcast live on Channel 9 and live-streamed on 9Now, was boosted by the presence of the Victorian team which guaranteed a higher viewer engagement in that state.

Figures provided by OzTAM show that 762,000 viewers watched the game on 9Now, a jump of 26 per cent on the 2023 NRL grand final.

The NRLW grand final drew a national TV audience of 691,000 viewers.

The highest rating NRL grand final on free-to-air TV of the past two decades remains the 2005 clash between the North Queensland Cowboys and the Wests Tigers, which drew a national television audience of 4.1 million.

The AFL grand final in that same year, between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles, also holds the record for that code’s highest rating season finale, with a TV audience of 4.49 million.