Kayo Sports, the sports streaming platform of Australian pay-TV operator Foxtel, has posted record viewership for the 2026 regular season of the NRL, Australia’s top-tier rugby league competition.
Average audiences on Kayo Sports increased 9% year-on-year with a total of 6.4 billion minutes streamed — making it the most watched season ever across all Foxtel group platforms.
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Overall, the league delivered its ninth consecutive year of audience growth on the streaming service.
In terms of individual games, the Wests Tigers’ clash against the Brisbane Broncos was the most-watched of the season and of all time.
The Broncos also featured in the second most-watched game of the season, which was their 38-24 loss against the Sydney Roosters.
The season opener in Las Vegas also delivered two of the five most-watched matches of the season (Newcastle Knights vs North Queensland Cowboys and Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs vs St. George Illawarra Dragons).
Rounding out the top five was North Queensland’s win over the Roosters.
All teams recorded year-on-year viewership growth across the season, with the Broncos recording the biggest average audience of the season and the Dolphins having the biggest year-on-year audience growth across all teams.
The Penrith Panthers and the Cowboys had the second and third highest audiences across the season, respectively.
This year’s Magic Round was the most watched regular season NRL round of all time on Kayo Sports with 304 million minutes streamed.
Steve Crawley, Fox Sports managing director, said: “Nine consecutive years of growth is an outstanding result and speaks to the strength of the coverage we continue to deliver on Kayo Sports every week, the strength of rugby league and the passion of its fans.
“We’ve been proud partners of the NRL for 30 years and this year recommitted to that partnership through to 2034. Every year we invest more than $1 billion in sports rights and production, making us Australia’s largest investor in sport outside of government.
“With the competition expanding in 2027 and DAZN extending the reach of the NRL into 200 markets around the world, we have an opportunity to build on that momentum and take the game to more fans than ever before.”
The NRL season continues into the finals series, which begins on Friday. The grand final will be played on October 4.
The 2025 NRL grand final delivered record-breaking viewership for commercial broadcaster Nine Network, drawing 6.41 million and an average audience of 4.46 million – a 33% increase from the 2024 title match, which had an audience of 3.36 million.
Every game of the finals series up until the grand final will be broadcast on Kayo Sports and Foxtel.
In July, the NRL announced a record domestic media rights agreement with Foxtel, Nine, and Sky New Zealand worth A$5.3 billion ($3.8 billion).
The new seven-year contract, which runs through 2034, is claimed to be the largest broadcast and media partnership in Australian sporting history.
The agreement will begin in 2028 and represents a 90% uplift per annum compared to the current deal and returns control of competition scheduling and structure to the Australian Rugby League Commission.
Under the present deal through 2027, worth a total of A$1.7 billion, Nine is the exclusive free-to-air home of the NRL, the grand final, and the iconic State of Origin series between New South Wales Blues and Queensland Maroons, as part of a deal running through 2027.
Foxtel holds the main rights to the league, airing all eight games each round, with five exclusive games each weekend, across its linear channel and Kayo Sports.
