The most interesting audience figure last week was the more than 1.5 million people who watched Friday night's Rugby League test between Australia and NZ from Auckland. Sports luvvies and some in the media with an axe to grind bagged Nine for delaying the broadcast because it started earlier in NZ. Well it started at 6.15 pm Sydney time, which is right in the middle of the news.
As it was the moans fell on deaf ears and the biggest football audience of the year so far watched it, with 516,000 people in Sydney, 365,000 in Brisbane and a huge 615,000 in regional NSW and Queensland alone.
That, more than any other football audience this year, tells us that the NRL deserves to get more money from the TV networks than the AFL. Rugby League is far more popular than AFL. And it has an international flavour with the test and the involvement of the Auckland team every week.
The high audience for regional NSW and Queensland was bigger than the Sydney audience. That won't have escaped notice at Seven and other networks. It is the key difference with the AFL. It's only regional strength is in country Victoria, and parts of South Australia and WA.

Crickey