AFL grand final thriller trounced by Matildas in ratings
Collingwood’s nail-biting AFL grand final win over the Brisbane Lions on Saturday delivered the Seven Network the biggest TV audience of the year – outside the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Ratings figures released on Sunday show an average of 3.86 million people tuned in for the game, including 2.46 million in metropolitan areas, 949,000 in regional Australia and 443,000 watching on the 7plus app. Over the course of 80 minutes, 4.98 million people watched the final, Seven said.
It was a 22 per cent bigger audience than last year’s match between the Geelong Cats and the Sydney Swans, which had one of the lowest audiences in AFL history at 3.06 million.
Collingwood won by four points over Brisbane, spurred by Bobby Hill, who kicked four goals to take the team ahead 12.18 (90) to 13.8 (86) in front of 100,024 fans at the MCG. Collingwood now equals the record of 16 premierships.
It was the team’s first premiership since 2010, after losing both the 2011 and 2018 grand finals.
To put the game’s TV audience into perspective: Seven says 97.4 per cent of the TV audience in Melbourne were watching the game. The equivalent figure was 79.5 per cent in Sydney, and 87.9 per cent in Brisbane.
But the figures pale in comparison to the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which drew more than 7 million Australians for the Matildas’ 3-1 defeat to England in August’s semi-final. Over the course of the 90-minute game, 11.15 million people tuned in, the highest number since the current ratings system, run by industry-owned company OzTAM, began in 2001. There were 7.13 million viewers on average.
Matildas fans at a Sydney live site in August.
Likewise, the team reached 4.9 million viewers on average against France and 3.63 million against Denmark. Those
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