The 2016 NRL season is off to a strong start with a lift in television and social media audiences.
The Harvey Norman Indigenous All Stars match attracted a national audience of 817,000 viewers last weekend – an increase of 7 per cent on last year.
A highlight of the match was the Indigenous war cry video which attracted more than 1.2 million views on the NRL’s Facebook page.
This made the “war cry” one of the most popular videos ever produced on the NRL site.
The Australian television audience for the Downer NRL Auckland Nines was 320,000 – up four per cent on last year.
NRL Head of Football, Todd Greenberg said the figures reflected the enormous interest in this year’s Rugby League season.
“There is no doubt fans are counting down to the start of the Telstra Premiership on March 3,” he said.
“We already have one of the closest competitions in world sport and, with the introduction of the shot clock and reduced interchange this year, we expect the game to be even more exciting in 2016.”
