State of Origin III draws 5.7m to score highest ratings of 2025
Game 3 of the State of Origin managed to pull the largest free-to-air TV audience this year.
According to the Oztam VOZ ratings, Wednesday night’s Origin decider drew 5.657 million footy fans to Nine, with an average audience of 3.9 million at any given point.
This makes it the most-watched show of the year so far, and the highest-rating Game 3 since 2013. It was also the most-watched of any Origin match since 2016.
Viewership was up up 9.3% year-on-year.
In addition, the game pulled the biggest BVOD audience of all time, with 978,000 watching through 9Now – just pipping the Matildas’ loss to England in the Women’s World Cup semi-final in August 2023, which drew 970,000 BVOD viewers to 7plus.
The first two matches of the State of Origin also drew massive audiences — 5.467 million for Game 2 and 5.449 million for the first game — with the opener the most-watched Game 1 since 2016, and Game 2 the most-watched since 2015.
The average audience for Game 1 was up 11.2% from 2024, with Game 2 up by 17.5%.
Given the massive audiences, this viewership record for Game 3 is likely to hold until this year’s AFL Grand Final. Last year, Seven managed to draw 6.09 million viewers to the final – while the NRL Grand Final pulled 5.35 million for Nine.
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