The A-League season kicked off last weekend with a rise in viewership watching the penultimate 20th anniversary.
The biggest increase was the Sydney Derby where the number of viewers on 10 Play became the most-viewed regular season fixture in the league’s history with a 46% increase from the same match last season as recorded by The 10 Network.
A couple of factors can be associated with this result. Importantly, it was the first game of the season, building on the start-of-the-season excitement.
The Sydney Derby has been one of the most watched and attended fixture in the A-league since the addition of the Western Sydney Wanderers in the 2012/2013 season.
Last season, it was only beaten in attendance and viewership by the top-of-the-table clash of Wellington Phoenix vs Melbourne Victory which recorded 33,000 attendees.
However, this isn’t just a sudden rising trend but has been growing from season-to-season. The 2023-2024 season recorded the largest amount of viewership in the league’s history with 53 per cent on Paramount+ and 33 percent on 10 Play, while free-to-air TV saw a 16 percent rise on Network 10.
The 2023/24 Final Series had a sell-out attendance every game and The Grand Final averaged 316,000 on 10 and 10 Play (29,000), with a reach of 731,000.
In total, the Grand Final had a reach of around 1.17 million, making it the most-watched finals series since the 2009-2010 finals.
The overall viewership for both the A-League Men’s and Women’s 2023/24 seasons reached 5.72 million Australians across all modes of media.
A key part of last season’s success was the increase in viewership of the Women’s Liberty League (now the Ninja Women’s A-League). The biggest stat was the 611% increase in club memberships. A big part of the increase in support is credited to the rise of support in women’s football following the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
Another point to argue is the arrival of high-profile players in the league with West Sydney Wanderers’ new marquee signing ex-Manchester United and Chelsea player Juan Mata and Sydney FC’s ex-Juventus and Brazil International Douglas Costa. These players’ arrival to the league has gained massive interest from the reflective teams and the league as a whole.
Their debuts in a Sydney Derby pitted against each other was an event that would, of course, gain huge traction and kick off the league with some big ratings. It’s still up in the air whether their star status and hopeful exciting impact can maintain viewership throughout the season.
This A-League Season has also introduced a new club with Auckland FC. Their first home game of the season vs Brisbane Roar held 24,400 spectators only a couple thousand shy from the WSW spectators at the derby.
The inclusion of a new team representing New Zealand’s most populated area is a promising move towards more A-League spectators from NZ and increasing the overall number of viewers.
From all six A-league games of the first round, the number of spectators from last season (not counting Auckland FC) went up 53%.
Now this is the beginning of the season, and a true measure of success can only be recorded at the end of the season.
To add to this, other than the top 3 most attended games, the rest of the league recorded similar if not more negative results for the first-round attendance and presented a huge gap between the top three watched games and the lower three.
Though with the goal of a year-on-year rise in fan engagement, the success of last season and the obvious steps taken by the clubs and the leagues to further enrich the league (marquee signings, an added NZ derby and more investment) one can be confident that the Isuzu A-league and Ninja Women’s A -League are promising another record-breaking season for the game.