Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby XIII in non-Anglophone Europe and South America, and referred to colloquially as football, footy or league in its heartlands, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 m (74 yd) wide and 112–122 m (122–133 yd) long with H-shaped posts at both ends. It is one of the two major codes of rugby football, the other being rugby union. It originated in 1895 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, as the result of a split from the Rugby Football Union (RFU) over the issue of payments to players. The rules of the game governed by the new Northern Rugby Football Union progressively changed from those of the RFU with the specific aim of producing a faster and more entertaining game to appeal to spectators, on whose income the new organisation and its members depended.
The National Rugby League is a professional rugby league competition in Australasia which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand.
Football in Australia refers to numerous codes which each have major shares of the mainstream sports market, media, broadcasting, professional athletes, financial performance and grassroots participation: Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union and soccer. There are four pre-eminent professional football competitions played in Australia: the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League, Super Rugby and the A-League (soccer). By most measures, including attendance, television audience and media presence across the most states, Australian football is the most popular nationally. However, in the states of New South Wales and Queensland, rugby football is overall the most watched and receives the most media coverage, especially the Rugby League State of Origin contested between the two states referred to as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry". In recent times, there has been an increase in popularity in Australian football and corresponding decrease in popularity of Rugby union in New South Wales and Queensland. Soccer, while extending its lead in participation rate, particularly in the large cities, and improving its performance at the FIFA World Cup and at the FIFA Women's World Cup, continues to attract the overall lowest attendance, as well as media and public interest, of the four codes.
The Adelaide Rams was an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The team was formed in 1995 for the planned rebel Super League competition. The Rams lasted two seasons, the first in the Super League competition in 1997 and the second in the first season of the National Rugby League (NRL) in 1998. The Rams were not a successful club, winning only 13 out of 42 games. However crowd numbers in the first season were the fifth highest of any first-grade club that year, but dwindled to sixteenth in the second season. The Adelaide club was shut down at the end of the 1998 season as a result of poor on-field performances, dwindling crowd numbers, financial losses and a reduction in the number of teams in the NRL. They remain the only team from the state of South Australia to have participated in top-level rugby league in Australia.
Rugby league in Australia has been one of Australia's most popular sports since it started being played there in 1908. It is the dominant winter football code in the states of New South Wales and Queensland. In 2022, it was the most watched sport on Australian television with an aggregate audience of 137.3 million viewers. The premier club competition is the National Rugby League (NRL), which features ten teams from New South Wales, four teams from Queensland, and one team each from Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The premier representative competition is the annual Rugby league State of Origin featuring two sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons is often referred to as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry", it is one of Australia's premier sporting events, attracting huge interest and television audiences.
Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a sports league's premiership winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals series. Synonymous with a championship game in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of Australian culture. The earliest leagues to feature a grand final were in Australian rules football, followed soon after by rugby league. Currently the largest grand finals are in the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL). Their popularity influenced other competitions such as soccer's A-League Men and A-League Women, the National Basketball League, Suncorp Super Netball and European rugby league's Super League to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.
Sport is an important part of Australia that dates back to the early colonial period. Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union, association football, cricket and tennis are among the earliest organised sports in Australia. Sport has shaped the Australian national identity through events such as the Melbourne Cup and the America's Cup. Australia also holds the record for the largest attendance at a Rugby Union match with almost 110,000 spectators watching the Wallabies play the All Blacks in 2000.
This is a list of crowd figures for 2006 Australian football codes.
The history of the National Rugby League (NRL), the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia, goes back to December 1997, when it was formed in the aftermath of the Super League war of the mid-1990s. The NRL has, in its relatively brief history, enjoyed growth and record attendance figures.
The Barassi Line is an imaginary line in Australia which approximately divides areas where Australian rules football or rugby league is the most popular football code. The term was first used by historian Ian Turner in his 1978 Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture. Crowd figures, media coverage, and participation rates are heavily skewed in favour of the dominant code on both sides. Non-football sports in Australia do not share this separation; for instance, cricket has been played on a national scale by state representative teams for more than 100 years.
This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2007. It includes several different competitions and matches from the following football codes: Australian rules football, rugby league, football (soccer) and rugby union.
Australia is home to four professional football codes. This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2008. It includes several different competitions and matches from Australian rules football, rugby league, football (soccer) and rugby union. Sydney and Brisbane have teams represented in all four codes. Hobart and Darwin are Australia's only capital cities without a professional football team.
Rugby league football has been played and watched by people in the Australian state of Victoria since the early 20th century. While for most of its history there the game's popularity has been marginal due to the dominance of Australian rules football in Victoria, rugby league's popularity has rapidly increased in recent years in the state's capital of Melbourne, due mainly to the introduction of a professional Melbourne-based team in the national competition.
The 2009 NRL season was the 102nd season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the twelfth run by the National Rugby League. For the third consecutive year, sixteen teams competed for the 2009 Telstra Premiership title. The season commenced with the first match played on 13 March and ended with the grand final, played on 4 October. The Grand Final was won by the Melbourne Storm in their fourth consecutive grand final appearance. However, they were stripped of their Premiership on 22 April 2010 after they were found to be guilty of breaching the league's salary cap.
Australia is home to four professional football codes. This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2009. It includes several different competitions and matches from Australian rules football, rugby league, football (soccer) and rugby union. Sydney and Brisbane have teams represented in all four codes. Hobart and Darwin are Australia's only capital cities without a professional football team.
Australia is home to four professional football codes. This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2010. It includes several different competitions and matches from Australian rules football, rugby league, football (soccer) and rugby union. Sydney and Brisbane have teams represented in all four codes. Hobart and Darwin are Australia's only capital cities without a professional football team.
Australia is home to four professional football codes. This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2011. It includes several different competitions and matches from soccer, Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union. Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have teams represented in all four codes. Hobart and Darwin are Australia's only capital cities without a professional football team. Crowds exceeding 80,000 gathered 11 times for football games in Australia during 2011: 9 of them for Australian rules matches and 2 for rugby league matches.
Australia is home to four professional football codes. This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2012. It includes several different competitions and matches from Australian rules football, Association football (Soccer), rugby league and rugby union and International rules football which is hybrid game played between Australian & Ireland which takes aspect from Australian rules football & Gaelic football. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have teams represented in all four codes. Hobart and Darwin are Australia's only capital cities without a professional football team though they are home to professional games of Australian Football.
Australia is home to four professional football codes. This is a comprehensive list of crowd figures for Australian football codes in 2014. It includes several different competitions and matches from Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union and soccer. Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have teams represented in all four codes. Hobart and Darwin are Australia's only capital cities without a professional football team.
This is a list of crowd figures for 2022 Australian football codes.
