We’re meant to be a sport-mad nation, but that really depends on
which sport you’re talking about – and where you live. The Sydney
Swans AFL team was on prime time TV in Sydney on Saturday night, yet
more people tuned into offbeat cooking show Iron Chef on SBS (110,400 viewers versus 94,200). It’s the
biggest TV market in the country and the AFL can’t take a trick.
League, union, cricket and even a cooking show were more popular
than the Swans in their home town.

In Brisbane the AFL game involving the Lions was a narrow winner on
total audience over the Sunday afternoon NRL game: 210,600 for the
Lions and 208,000 for the rugby.

It was no better for Nine on Sunday afternoon, with just 60,900 watching
the AFL game from 1pm to 4pm in Sydney. The biggest audience for all football
broadcasts is Friday night from 8:30pm. More than 1.3 million watched
football on Nine last Friday night: 381,000 and 176,600 watched the NRL
game in Sydney and Brisbane, 423,900 watched the AFL game in
Melbourne, 149,600 watched AFL in Adelaide and 246,500 in Perth.