Numbers show night GF could be here to stay

The AFL’s first ever prime time Grand Final has comfortably surpassed its NRL rival in the TV ratings.

In a massive win for Channel 7, the historic night Grand Final between Richmond and Geelong drew 3.812 million viewers, the biggest audience for an AFL game in four years.

And it easily got bragging rights over rugby league with 2.967 million tuning into Channel 9 to watch the Melbourne Storm defeat the Penrith Panthers.

Sunday night’s NRL audience was up from 2019 ( 2.65 million) with the breakdown including 608,000 viewers in Melbourne and 848,000 in Sydney. But the AFL was the big winner at the weekend and the TV numbers will certainly put pressure on AFL chief Gillon McLachlan over the timing of next year’s Grand Final.

In Melbourne alone there were 1.58m viewers - the biggest GF audience ever in Melbourne – followed by Sydney at 413,000. And Seven drew a phenomenal 65.8 per cent share for Seven – the highest ever recorded since OzTAM began in 2001.

The prime time match- up – the game started at 7.30pm – also drew almost 1 million more watchers than the 2019 Grand Final ( 2.94 million).

Understandably Channel 7 is already on the front foot urging the AFL to go prime time again in 2021. “Imagine what we’ll be able to do in 2021 with a fully- loaded prime time schedule, a full AFL season and of course, the Tokyo Olympics – set to be the biggest event ever,” Seven’s director of programming Angus Ross said.