Huge domestic audiences tuned in to watch Australia's two-day victory against England in the first test of cricket's 2025-26 Ashes series, held in Perth.
The game, the first of five Ashes encounters between now and early January, was covered live by free-to-air broadcaster Channel Seven and its 7plus Sport streaming service, as well as by pay-TV heavyweight Foxtel and its streaming site Kayo Sports.
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Seven holds home test cricket rights in Australia through 2030-31 alongside Foxtel and has said that the match, which Australia won by eight wickets, successfully chasing 205 on the second evening – reached 5.8 million Australians in total.
The average TV audience for that network, meanwhile, hit 1.17 million, a 60% increase from the equivalent figure for last year's opening test of the Australian summer, against India.
In terms of the session (out of the six in total, across two days) that delivered the largest audience, that fell to the last one of the game, the last one on the second day. That passage of play, as Australia chased down the total, had a national reach of 2.97 million and an audience of 1.6 million.
It has also been announced that 7plus Sport delivered a record cricket streaming audience for both days of the Perth clash – it pulled in, on average, 190,000 viewers for each of the six sessions played, up 238% year-on-year.
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By GlobalDataAgain, the final session of day two, in which the home side raced to victory, brought in the biggest audience, drawing in 245,000 viewers – the largest cricket audience in 7plus Sport history.
Joel Starcevic, head of cricket at Seven, has now said: "These results reinforce that the Ashes remains the biggest stage in world cricket, and fans are choosing Seven and 7plus in extraordinary numbers."
Kayo Sports, meanwhile, registered its most-streamed test ever, with the second day alone delivering 90 million minutes streamed – it has become, therefore, that platform's most-viewed test on record.
Kayo and Fox Sports hold rights through the same cycle as Seven, between 2024 and 2031, and cover all home games played by the Australian representative men's and women's national teams.
Foxtel is reportedly paying A$140 million ($90.2 million) annually, close to double Seven's fee each year.
The series now moves to Brisbane, with the second test scheduled to start on December 4.
The Ashes is being shown live in the UK, meanwhile, on pay-TV's TNT Sport.
