From the 2022 Annual Report
It was also the second year of our agreement with Nine Entertainment Company and Stan Sport and, with a full season of Super Rugby Pacific and Wallabies, we were able to see major increases in ratings across both of those pillars – topping out with our Thursday night Bledisloe Cup clash in Melbourne, which saw over a million viewers tune in.
The quality of the coverage is the envy of the Rugby world, and we have seen steady growth in Stan Sport subscriptions and viewership over 2022, with a viewership increase of 58% for the England Series compared with 2021 averages.
For our six home Test matches (five of which were broadcast on the main Nine channel), we saw a strong average audience of 891,475 – up 21% from 2021.
The Super Rugby Pacific competition’s weekly cumulative average was 159,7241 across Stan Sport and 9 GEM on Saturday nights, while Australian Club home matches saw a 9% increase in Stan viewership to a total of 74,497 per game, up from 68,127 in 2021. We were the first sport to strike a broadcast deal combining free-to-air television with streaming and subscription services within the one media house, and NEC has truly led the way in innovating in this space with Rugby
Flipsnack is a digital catalog maker that makes it easy to create, publish and share html5 flipbooks. Upload a PDF or design from scratch flyers, magazines, books and more.
www.flipsnack.com
Later in the report
Broadcast Audience
IN THE SECOND YEAR OF RUGBY Australia’s broadcast partnership with Stan Sport and Nine Entertainment Company, viewership across matches showed healthy increases in most cases.
The Super Rugby Pacific competition’s weekly cumulative average was in excess of 100,000 across Stan Sport and 9 GEM on Saturday nights.
Comparable Australian Super Rugby matches (excluding the Fijian Drua who were based in NSW) saw a 9% increase in Stan viewership.
While the Hospital Cup viewership on Stan saw a slight decrease of 14% in viewers, the Shute Shield saw an impressive 112% increase YoY.
Viewership of the July Series and The eToro Rugby Championship showed strong growth with an increase of 58% alone for the England Series on Stan, compared to 2021 averages. The England Series enjoyed an average audience of over 1m viewers across the three matches, (note that Stan do not publicly release standalone broadcast figures).
Five of the six home Test matches for the Wallabies aired on Channel Nine’s main network, with only the match at Allianz featuring on 9 Gem, resulting in a strong average audience of 891,475¹ across the six tests. This compares to 736,019 in 2021, an increase of 21%