AFL - Australian Football League TV Ratings, NRL - National Rugby League TV Ratings, FFA - Football Federation Australia TV Ratings, ARU - Australian Rugby Union TV Ratings.
The 2026 Toyota AFL Finals Series is off to an unbelievable start with huge crowds and TV audiences witnessing two big finals across the weekend.
A total of 172,769 fans attended the first ever Wildcard Finals across two historic nights at the MCG.
Friday night’s Western Bulldogs and Collingwood thriller attracted 81,036 through the gates, while 91,733 packed out the MCG on Saturday night to see Carlton victorious over Melbourne.
A total of 7.4m viewers tuned into Seven and Foxtel broadcasts across the two nights.
Across both Friday and Saturday, the Wildcard Finals were the most watched programs across all audiences on TV nationally.
Over 3.8m viewers tuned into Collingwood v Western Bulldogs on Friday night across all platforms, with the broadcast across the screens of Seven and Foxtel generating an average audience of 1.6m.
The match was the most viewed premiership fixture of any code across 2026 to date.
On Saturday night, over 3.5m viewers tuned into Melbourne v Carlton across the screens of Seven and Foxtel, generating an average audience of 1.5m. The match was the second most watched game of the season behind only Friday night’s Wildcard Final.
The crowd of 91,733 was also the highest crowd attendance for both Melbourne and Carlton for the 2026 season.
Across New South Wales and Queensland, audiences tuned in strongly across both Friday and Saturday nights. Viewership in these markets were up more than 50% on the 2026 season average.
The strong start to the 2026 Toyota AFL Finals Series follows the highest home-and-away attendance in VFL/AFL history, with 7,772,015 fans attending matches during the 2026 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said he was thrilled to see fans embrace finals footy.
“The opening weekend of finals delivered us the best of our game – the footy was unbelievably competitive and passionate fans turned out in record numbers.
“It was a fantastic way to kick off the 2026 Toyota AFL Finals Series, we’re looking forward to another four big matches this coming weekend and seeing more of our fans at the footy across September.”
