The Cronulla Sharks maiden NRL premiership victory was watched by a record metropolitan audience of 2.65 million Australians on Channel Nine, smashing the competition's previous record of 2.62 million when the Rabbitohs won in 2014.
This included a national average audience of 3.73 million and a national peak audience 4.23 million.
Although a tad short of AFL’s 3.04 million viewers on Saturday, it’s an impressive return considering that one of the teams is Melbourne-based and not from the rugby league heartland of NSW and Queensland.
What will particularly please NRL and Nine chiefs is the 641,000 people who watched the game on TV in Melbourne, further evidence that the Storm and game’s popularity is growing down south. In Sydney, 1.06 million people tuned in and in Brisbane it was 720,000.
The game itself was riveting, the Sharks dominant in possession and pinning back the Storm in their own half for most of the first stanza but failing to capitalise and only leading 8-0 going into the sheds.
The Storm were more competitive in the second period, and looked to cause a massive boilover when Will Chambers crossed over to give them an unlikely 12-8 lead. But Cronulla's dominace and fight throughout this battle was fittingly rewarded when Andrew Fifita muscled through several Storm players to score the match-winning try and send the Shire into delirium with a thrilling 14-12 win.
It’s the first time the Sharks have won in their 49-year history, and a new record audience for Nine.
This weekend has seen a mammoth combined national audience of 7.82 million Australians watch two sporting fairytales unfold on the box, highlighting the importance of live sport to free-to-air television.
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