NRL Grand Final loses 170,000 viewers as a third of fans move to 9Now

The night's numbers

The Sydney Roosters defeated the Newcastle Knights 19-18 at Accor Stadium on 4 October 2026, with Daly Cherry-Evans kicking the match-winning field goal in the final moments of his last NRL game before a move to Hull in the Super League.^[1] James Tedesco took the Clive Churchill Medal as player of the match.^[2] Cherry-Evans told reporters after the game: "I've been chasing that moment and that feeling my whole career."^[1]

Nine's broadcast averaged 4.29 million national Total TV viewers, a figure that folds together traditional free-to-air ratings and Broadcast Video on Demand (BVOD) viewing on 9Now under OzTAM's consolidated VOZ measurement system.^[3] The full programme arc ran: pre-match entertainment 2,252,000; the match proper 4,286,000; post-match coverage 1,851,000.^[3]

Where the audience fell year-on-year

The 2025 NRL Grand Final, when the Brisbane Broncos defeated the Melbourne Storm, drew a record 4.46 million total viewers, with 1.316 million of those on BVOD, per Nine for Brands' own post-match release.^[4] The 2026 match came in 170,000 short of that record. BVOD grew to 1.5 million, a year-on-year rise of 184,000 viewers, pushing streaming's share of the total audience from 29.5 per cent to 35 per cent, a six-percentage-point shift computed by this publication from figures reported by TV Blackbox and Nine for Brands.

What a Sydney-Newcastle final cost Nine in Melbourne and Brisbane

Metro audience splits published by TV Tonight show the geographic shape of the night.^[5] Sydney averaged 1.16 million; regional markets combined for 1.59 million. Melbourne managed 441,000 and Brisbane 737,000, a combined 1.178 million across the two largest non-Sydney cities, barely more than Sydney alone. Adelaide returned 130,000 and Perth 160,000.^[5]

The 2025 Grand Final pitched two clubs from different states against each other; the 2026 match was a de facto New South Wales state occasion. Nine has not published its own audience statement, so the comparison with 2025, when a Brisbane-versus-Melbourne final naturally spread interest across two of the three biggest metro markets, cannot be made precisely. The soft Melbourne and Brisbane numbers are consistent with that pattern rather than with any broad disengagement from rugby league.

The market read for Nine

Nine's share price had already fallen 8.75 per cent in the week before the Grand Final, as reported by this publication in late September 2026, making the ratings result a live commercial question heading into the television buying season.^[6] Seven's AFL Grand Final, broadcast on 27 September 2026, drew 4.52 million national Total TV viewers, 230,000 more than Nine's NRL number, sharpening the comparison at exactly the point when agencies are allocating budgets for the year ahead.^[7]

Nine's counter-argument sits in the streaming column. A BVOD share of 35 per cent makes 9Now a larger part of the pitch to advertisers than it was twelve months ago. Whether agencies price that growth at a premium or discount it against the softness in Melbourne and Brisbane metro will shape Nine's first upfront conversations of the buying season. Same-night Nine News drew 1.43 million viewers, against Seven News on 1.19 million and Gogglebox on 371,000.^[5]