At the heart of Australian culture lies an unwavering passion for sport.
Come winter, the nation is divided, split between the love of the NRL or a passion for AFL, a division which is deeply felt but largely geographical.
The age-old debate over which code deserves the title of ‘Australia’s game’ remains a staple of pub discussion.
As the fanfare for both codes continues to grow and expansion strategies evolve, the line that once defined the rivalry has begun to blur.
Historically, both codes have stayed somewhat true to their heartlands.
Rugby League was first played in Australia in 1908 in Sydney, before spreading north to Queensland the following year.
Aussie Rules Football is native to Australia and was created in Victoria in 1858, branching out more into the western states.
The professional clubs haven’t strayed far from those early years.
Note: Both the Western Australian NRL club and the Tasmanian AFL club have both been approved to enter their respective competitions, but neither are officially in yet. The NRL also has one club based in New Zealand
The 10 AFL clubs in Victoria and the 10 NRL clubs in New South Wales have highlighted each code’s dominance in its state.
Note: Based on number of professional clubs in each state
Although this has long been true, it’s becoming less black and white. Last year’s AFL grand final featured teams from Sydney and Brisbane, and one of the NRL’s most successful teams in modern times is the Melbourne Storm.
AFL NSW Illawarra participation manager, and coach of the Wollongong Lions Women’s Premier Division team, Will Judd has experienced the changes firsthand.
“The improvement or growth has been huge,” Judd said.
“I’ve been up here for seven years now, the club I’m involved in playing-wise when I first started.
“We had a senior side and would struggle to get 5 or 6 extra ressies players to training, whereas now we’ve got 65 – 70 registered blokes from the men’s side of things, we’ve got 50 plus registered girls and we’re seeing juniors come through at a massive growth rate now.”
He believes the AFL is making smart inroads into expanding its territory.
“I think (the AFL) is doing a lot of things right,” Judd said.
“They’re targeting audiences that probably aren’t traditionally AFL audiences, but we’re not just talking other sports but other cultures (as well).”
Judd is optimistic about whether the AFL and NRL could achieve a 50/50 split support in these regions.
“I think after an extended period of time that it definitely is possible,” he said.
“There’s obviously a lot of groundwork that needs to go in because rugby fans, like AFL fans are probably generational, so parents support them, and kids support the same sports.”
On the flip side is president of the Albury Thunder Rugby League Club, Rick O’Connell who has seen how difficult it is to sustain a rugby league club in AFL-dominated Albury.
“In 2004 when I joined the committee, we were almost at the point of folding,” O’Connell said.
We still have a photo in our clubrooms of our Reserve Grade that had five players.”
Now, two decades later, the club is thriving.
“We’ve got a high percentage of local content playing through our senior grades, we’ve got women’s teams and Under 18’s, O’Connell said.
“We’re in a good position we believe… we’ll only continue to get stronger.
In the local junior club they’ve got over 400 registrations.”
While Albury has long shown interest in rugby league, O’Connell pointed to wider growth.
“There has always been interest in rugby league and people coming to watch, our crowds are as good as anybody’s in Group Nine,” he said.
But his view on the game’s future further away from league territory is perhaps telling.
“Juniors-wise, in Melbourne the growth there is very, very strong. You’ll get more NRL players with a Melbourne or Victorian upbringings moving forward,” O’Connell said.
It’s clear both codes are expanding and that state-line barriers are less rigid than ever.
So what’s the best measure of national fanfare? One obvious indicator is live crowds, and here the AFL dominates.
Source: Ministry of Sport
Note: The spike between 2022 – 2023 can be attributed to the end of the pandemic
The AFL’s ascendancy here is obvious, getting almost double the amount of fans through the gate on game days in 2024, compared to attendance of NRL games in the same year.
In 215 games last season the AFL drew an average crowd of 37 741, with the NRL reaching an average of 20 605 fans in attendance for each of their 207 games.
There is a clear difference in stadium capacity too. The AFL regularly uses four venues with eating over 50,000, while the NRL has just two.
The biggest attendance gap is an average of 17,136 spectators.
Fighting back against this, the NRL’s total crowd attendance grew 4.4 per cent from 2023 to 2024, more than double the AFL’s 2.1 per cent growth. Despite this, the overall gap in numbers remains wide.
However, live attendance isn’t everything. In today’s digital era, broadcast audience tells its own story, where the NRL has the edge.
Sources: 2022, 2023, 2024 AFL Annual reports & 2022, 2023, 2024 NRL Annual Reports
Note: Data includes both free-to-air and subscription broadcast viewers
Since 2022, the NRL has consistently had a larger cumulative TV audience and has grown that audience faster than the AFL.
A key factor is New Zealand. The NRL’s New Zealand Warriors allow it to tap into an entirely different rugby league loving market, one the AFL cannot currently access.
Despite this, the AFL recently signed a seven year broadcast deal worth $7.5 billion, the biggest in Australian sport.
That deal began in 2024 and controversially placed all Saturday games behind the paywall of Kayo and Foxtel for the first eight rounds.
Channel Seven continues to air the same number of games, but Saturday match coverage has shifted to Thursdays.
The NRL’s deal with Channel Nine, Fox Sports and Sky NZ, worth over $400 million per season, similarly avoids free-to-air Saturday games until the final rounds of the regular season.
But sport is dramatic, and perhaps it’s less about the totality of spectatorship these leagues are able to put together each season, and more about how much passion they generate on the big occasions.
Here’s where the argument becomes murkier, with both codes delivering marquee events on the Australian sporting calendar.
The AFL grand final between Sydney and Brisbane was the biggest sporting event of the year in both TV viewership and live attendance.
Yet the next four top TV events were dominated by rugby league.
Source: The Guardian
Note: Average free to air viewers for duration of program
The AFL grand final, between the Brisbane Lions and Sydney Swans, comfortably topped the year, but each of the next four biggest events belonged to rugby league.
No comparison is complete without mentioning the State of Origin. It’s not just a rugby league event, it’s a national spectacle.
Game three in 2024 drew over 90,000 fans to the MCG, in the heart of AFL territory. That’s Melbourne, a city with one NRL team to the AFL’s nine, turning out in full force to watch New South Wales take on Queensland.
All three State of Origin games rank among the top broadcast events of the year. It’s a rare product with nationwide reach and a major win for rugby league’s relevance.
So, which code is truly ‘Australia’s game’? Realistically, there’s no definitive answer. The AFL dominates in attendance, the NRL leads in TV viewership. Both are expanding. Both are winning hearts in new places.