AFL Grand Final draws biggest TV audience since 2016

Nathan Jolly

September 29, 2025 10:47

AFL Grand Final draws biggest TV audience since 2016

The 2025 AFL Grand Final drew record TV crowds

Saturday’s AFL Grand Final managed to pull the largest TV audience of 2025, with over six million viewers tuning in to watch Brisbane trounce Geelong over the weekend.

According to the Oztam ratings, the game was the most-watched AFL Grand Final since 2016, pipping last year’s Brisbane Lions finals victory by just 9,000 viewers. It was also the most-watched TV program of the year, beating State of Origin III’s 5.7 million viewership on Nine.

Not only did the game itself draw 6.1 million viewers to Seven — with an average audience of over 4 million watching at any given point — the entire day’s viewing was dominated by footy finals fever, with 12 hours of AFL programming throughout the day. From 6am to 6pm, Seven held 81.1% of commercial TV share (Nine, Seven, Ten).

The post-game presentations were watched by 5.46 million (with an average of 3.8 million throughout), while Seven’s ‘on the ground’ coverage was watched by 3.755 million.

The pre-game entertainment provided by Snoop Dogg drew 3.86 million — surpassing the 3.54 million that tuned in last year for Katy Perry’s pre-game show — while the preparatory AFL Grand Final countdown drew 1.24 million.

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Even Seven’s ‘AFL Grand Final Brunch’ was watched by over 1 million viewers, while 908,000 stuck around after the trophy presentations for the post-game analysis. Weekend Sunrise, which started the finals coverage at 6am, scored 779,000 viewers.

Last year’s Grand Final was the first time that Seven had the digital rights to the game – meaning that finally antenna-poor footy fans could tune into the game through 7plus.

The 2024 Final saw 655,000 digital viewers, while this year saw 969,000 — an impressive increase that actually says more about the shifting viewing habits of the general populace. On the flipside, this digital increase also means that 224,000 less viewers tuned into the final through Seven’s linear station this year – a statistic that wasn’t noted in Seven’s media release.

Cleverly, Seven used the power of the AFL to launch its reboot of ’90s stalwart Healthy Wealthy Wise, starring radio favourite Chrissie Swan.

The show’s first episode was scheduled in the plum 7pm slot, with 1.84 million leaving their TVs on Seven, and an average audience of 628,000 throughout. Quite a debut!

Seven followed this warm bath of a show with mass bloodshed. A screening of the 1988 thriller Die Hard kept 1.37 million viewers locked to Seven, with an average audience of 366,000 riding the John McClane train until 10.45pm. Yippee ki-yay, indeed.

Saturday’s TV ratings – click to enlarge

Next weekend will be Nine’s turn, with the NRL Grand Final expected to draw millions to the network.

Last year’s Grand Final drew an audience of 5.35 million, and an average of 3.42 million throughout. Next Saturday’s match will be interesting, though — there isn’t a NSW-based team in the final, for the first time since 2017 — which could impact audiences in the NRL-mad state.

And while we’re on the topic of NRL-mad states, it was Brisbane’s participation in this weekend’s AFL Grand Final that saw the second NRL preliminary final between Brisbane Broncos and reigning premiers Penrith Panthers scheduled on the Sunday — in order to avoid a clash that would greatly diminish the Queensland audiences for both codes.

It is interesting to see how this sidestep impacted Sunday’s NRL ratings. Last year’s second NRL preliminary final was played on the same day as the AFL Grand Final, and pulled an impressive 2.16 million viewers, with an average of 1.16 million. This year’s game kicked off at 4pm on Sunday afternoon — it’s not exactly prime time, but this also means less programming competition — and had an audience of 3.21 million, with an average of 1.96 million.

Perhaps Nine and the NRL will take note, of both this, and the AFL’s Saturday afternoon ratings, and consider bringing back the daytime NRL/ARL/NSWRL Grand Finals of old.

The AFL’s impact on the Rugby Union viewership on Saturday was also crystal clear. Game 1 of the Bledisloe Cup drew just 1.125 million to Nine, with average audiences of just 481,000.

This mirrors a similar scheduling conflict for the Union during last year’s AFL Grand Final – where a Test Match between the Wallabies and New Zealand managed audiences of just 722,000, with an average of 359,000.