National survey reveals AFL is Australia's national sport, NRL third
More than 1000 people across all states and territories were asked which code they regarded as the “national sport� and the AFL was the overwhelming winner.
Nearly 46 per cent of respondents picked the AFL, which has teams in five states compared with the NRL’s three, despite rugby league boasting an international presence and amid claims from ARL Commission boss Peter V’landys that his code had eclipsed their rivals as talks ramp up for a new TV deal
Nationally, cricket came in as the second pick (20.5 per cent) with rugby league (14 per cent) third.
Only in one state, NSW, was rugby league chosen ahead of other sports.
Even in NSW, only 27 per cent picked rugby league as the national sport, marginally ahead of cricket (24 per cent) and AFL (21 per cent).
The most respondents in the survey came from NSW.
In Queensland, a state long thought to be a rugby league stronghold, AFL came out on top, with just less than 35 per cent of the vote, on the back of the growth of the Brisbane Lions, last year’s premiers, and the emerging Gold Coast Suns.
In the Sunshine State, which boasts four NRL teams and only two AFL teams, rugby league came in third, behind the AFL and cricket, with only 20 per cent of those surveyed choosing it as the national sport.
Worryingly, ahead of the NRL’s push into Perth in 2028, less than 5 per cent of West Australian respondents chose rugby league as the national sport compared with 69 per cent choosing AFL.
The results of the “sports perception� survey, conducted by Net World Sports, come after V’Landys said the NRL had “overtaken� their AFL rivals.
“They always looked down at us as the poor cousin, but we’ve overtaken them in audience. They thought we were inferior, but we’re not,� he said.
That’s despite the AFL smashing the seven million mark for match attendance in 2025, with crowd averages of 37,000 spectators per game compared with the NRL’s 20,000.
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