Rugby league is more popular than ever: here’s what must happen next

In Australia, they’ll tell you rugby league peaked in the 1990s, when Tina Turner was singing, Mal Meninga was romping through the centres and Origin averaged five biffs a half.

In the UK, they might tell you it was the 1980s, when everyone from the Prime Minister down knew who Ellery Hanley was, or perhaps the 1950s, when flat-capped terraces were filled from Bradford to Barrow.

Nostalgia is never what it used to be, of course, and the truth is that we’re probably living through the greatest era of the sport ever, right now.

These things are subjective, but on an objective, pure numbers level, there’s a decent argument that the Easter rounds on both sides of the world was the most viewed weekend of rugby league that has ever been played.

On Friday, the all-time record for an Australian first grade attendance was broken as 65,000 fans piled into Stadium Australia for Canterbury’s win over South Sydney – which wasn’t even the best rated fixture, as the Dolphins’ spectacular comeback win over Melbourne actually did better numbers on TV.

Before that match had even finished, a sold out Hull derby had started in Yorkshire, which was followed by a similarly bunged Wigan-Saints clash in Lancashire.

Saturday had a huge crowd in Auckland as the Warriors beat the Broncos, then the Super League single-round attendance record was smashed in France for the Catalans’ victory over Salford.

To avoid abusive comments from the Merry City, let’s not ignore a sellout at Wakefield for their meeting with Castleford, too, and that bumped the cumulative Super League crowd figures past 500,000 for the season, adding a full 10% onto Super League’s average gate for the season.

All in the NRL and the Super League both broke their attendance records, which gets you back to 1998 and 1996 respectively, and given that there was comparatively little television exposure before that, the chances are that more people watched a game of rugby league in the five days than ever have at any point since 1895.

Why are so many people watching rugby league?

For a sport that has been declared dead about once every two weeks for over a century, good news stories like this are not normal.

The weekend was great and came on the back of record ticket sales for the Ashes in November, and before what is surely set to be a sellout month of Pacific Championships when Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand do their dance at the end of the year.

The running total for average attendances in the Super League is 10,741 per game, almost a thousand more than the previous high, set almost 20 years ago.

The NRL already topped their mark last year and are about 100 ahead of it through the first two months of the season, at the very least confirming that 2024 was not a fluke.

There’s one obvious question behind all this good news: why?

Rugby league is, both mythically and literally, a sport of the working class, so for these records to be set at a time when election cycles are dominated by the increased cost of living suggests that the sport isn’t just growing, it is doing so in unhelpful economic conditions for its own supporters.

Peter V’Landys might point to the rules, which (he would tell you at least) were changed in 2020 to make the game more exciting.

Excitement is in the eye of the beholder, however, and plenty would tell you that the on-field product isn’t any better than it was in 2019, or 2009, or 1999, or whenever they think it peaked.

A smarter answer might be a greater knowledge of data, and how it can be used for marketing purposes.

The NRL in Australia and the Super League – particularly since the inclusion of IMG at a strategic level – have been incredibly successful in driving engagement on social media, making matches into events and pitching the live experience better than they have in the past.

That might be live bands at Leigh Leopards, the Vegas extravaganza, must-attend events like Magic Round or simply driving a culture of going in-person in a sport that has often been happy to watch on TV.

Super League clubs have massively improved their social media offering, which in turn increases excitement around fixtures – something that can also solely be put down to IMG.

Though they have received little fanfare for their work, the RFL’s strategic partners have incrementally improved everyone’s output and thus the sport in the UK as a whole.

Moreover, their gradings system forced clubs to actually invest in infrastructure – y’know, the places where games take place and where fans spend money – in a way that didn’t happen at all for 20 years.

If you want a third, all but one club has seen either outside or increased investment, both in terms of finances and external ideas, since IMG came into the game.

The simple composition of the league has helped too. Out went London, who averaged around 3,000 fans per game, and in came Wakefield, who have double that.

Not to labour the IMG point, but Wakey weren’t much better than London for a lot of years until the new regime forced them to be, and are now about 1,500 punters a game better off.

Outwith Trin, Hull FC are no longer completely rubbish and, off the sample size of so far, are posting an average attendance that would be their biggest since leaving the Boulevard in 2002 and, indeed, since they last won the championship in 1980.

Is this rugby league or just society?

That’s the rugby league bit. But what if it was just a general thing that rugby league benefits from, but has little to no influence over?

Attendances at sporting events everywhere, globally, are up since the pandemic. In fact, they’re up despite restaurants and the cinema, arguably the two biggest competitors for the leisure pound/dollar, dropping.

In a previous life as a marketer at a major global fashion company, your columnist wrote reports on the purchasing habits of millennials and Gen Z – the overwhelming majority of in-person sports crowds – and all of it pointed to those generations as valuing experiences over things.

Nobody cares if your Instagram story is you watching footy on the telly, but plenty of people will like that shot of you and the boys on the hill.

At the risk of turning Love Rugby League into Gary’s Economics, there’s a wider point here about the pointlessness of saving in a increasingly unequal landscape, which has in itself built a culture of spending what little cash you have on leisure pursuits above putting aside a deposit for a house you’ll never be able to afford.

Interestingly, concert ticket sales are also up. Have the latte, buy your ticket, live a little.

Where rugby league might be successful is in convincing those people to go to their events above someone else’s.

A recent report from Two Circles, a sports data analysis firm, suggested that the overall growth of football in the UK had been massive since the pandemic, but almost none of it had happened in the Premier League.

Likely that’s because there was nowhere to go – occupancy is at 97% of capacity – but that demand found a home elsewhere, with Women’s Football and non-league growing massively.

For rugby league, this is interesting: it means people who probably didn’t go to football at all are now attending, but with a different product.

If you were running the NRLW you might look at the more diverse audience that comes through your gate as new customers. If you’re the Newtown Jets, you already know this. If you’re working a food truck at Craven Streat in Hull, you do too.

These are people who are rugby league fans, but unlikely to stand on the hill at Brookvale or the terrace in Warrington. They’re coming for the entertainment experience as much as the pie and the pint.

Super League also reported record viewing figures, with a 52% rise across all platforms. The NRL hasn’t yet done its numbers, but as per the excellent Footy Industry on social media, they’re about 9.5% up on an already-elevated 2024 across free-to-air channels.

In the UK, the simple standard of coverage is better and the availability of games is higher, with all six now televised at some level and given proper production values.

That investment – again championed by IMG – is paying off. They now have a vaguely watchable TV product and can swamp social media, ensuring all the great stuff that fans knew was happening is eminently more shareable, increasing the footprint of the game as a whole.

The NRL doesn’t need that, but it is benefitting from a surfeit of cut-through stories that sell well with the casual audience.

It’s anecdotal and unknowable, but the sugar hit of Vegas, followed by contract dramas around three highly marketable, well-known stars – Dylan Brown, Daly Cherry-Evans and Lachlan Galvin – have played into the rugby-league-as-soap-opera narrative that keeps the semi-committed punter engaged.

As a counterpoint, the AFL had its season launch overshadowed by Vegas and a literal cyclone in Queensland, then has bumbled along through a totally normal state of affairs rather than the controversy-athon that is the weekly NRL.

The news cycle runs on match content from Thursday to Sunday, then gossip from Monday to Wednesday, and has been overflowing with storylines throughout.

It all serves to increase the prevalence of the NRL in daily life in a virtuous way, even if it is fairly overblown and tedious at times.

Where do we go from here?

The record-breaking round over Easter was the culmination of a strong start to the year.

There are always bad news stories – Salford’s financial issues and Super League’s boardroom intrigue on one side of the world, the NRL’s refereeing and expansion issues on the other – but the general good vibes are undeniable.

Things will dip as Origin decimates schedules in Australia and loop fixtures dull interest in the UK, making it vital that positivity is maintained.

Rugby league, as every scholar knows, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

At a time when the NRL is negotiating a TV deal and potentially buying into Super League, the game has to look into the successes of the recent past and learn from them, while also striving to improve in new areas.

If they can, there’s no reason why Easter 2026 can’t top this year – and on to 2027 and beyond.