What is the most popular sport in Australia?

Depending on definition, the most popular sport in Australia is either Australian rules football, cricket, tennis or football.

The most popular sport in Australia is Australian Rules Football. Or cricket. Or tennis. Maybe football. Well, it depends how you measure it, really.

Finding out the most popular sport in Australia

But before trying to sort out that fight, let’s look at the pretenders. We’ll use the year 2018 for comparisons, as this was pre-Covid, and there was a football World Cup.

Rugby league and rugby union would all like to pretend to be the most popular sport in Australia. Indeed, in New South Wales and Queensland, rugby league probably is the most popular sport. But it has minimal imprint elsewhere in the country.

Rugby league attendances in Australia

The NRL is Australia’s main rugby league competition. According to the NRL’s 2018 figures, the average attendance in the NRL is 16,620.

In rugby union, the NSW Waratahs get the highest attendances, but their average attendance is just 14,372.

Cricket attendances in Australia

For football, the average A-League attendance a mere 10,423. For cricket, the Sheffield Shield four day game attendances are notoriously tiny. The Big Bash T20 league pulls in respectable attendances, though – with an average of 26,528 in the 2017/ 18 season. This average has been dropping considerably since, however.

AFL attendances in Australia

So that leaves Australian Rules Football. The average attendance for an AFL game in 2018 was 36,884. Some clubs – notably Collingwood and Richmond – had much higher attendances.

Those with much lower attendances – the Gold Coast Suns and Brisbane Lions are the biggest culprits for bringing the average down.

Most popular sports in Australia: Biggest attendances at sporting events

But what’s the most popular sport in Australia when it comes to the big games? Well, this is a bit tricky as Aussie Rules is not an international sport and rugby league is only nominally one. Nevertheless, we can use grand final attendances for both.

In 2018, the AFL Grand Final had an attendance of 100,022 inside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This is the biggest stadium in Australia.

Melbourne Cricket Ground - Australia's biggest sports stadium — The Melbourne Cricket Ground – Australia’s biggest sports stadium. Photo by David Whitley/ Australia Travel Questions

The NRL Grand Final at ANZ Stadium had an attendance of 82,688. The biggest rugby union game – between Australia and New Zealand at Stadium Australia – drew a crowd of 66,318.

Biggest sporting event in Australia

The biggest game of the year in cricket was the Test between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. That drew a total attendance of 176,539. But Test matches go on for five days. The largest single day’s attendance was 73,516.

Second place, however, goes to… horse racing. The Melbourne Cup attendance was 83,471.

Most watched sport on TV in Australia

But is a sport’s popularity solely measured on in-stadium attendance? Surely there’s an argument for it being about TV audiences?

In that case, we can look at the end of year TV ratings. The top five sporting events, in reverse order, are…

Tennis: Australian Open Tennis men’s final – 1,739,000
Horse-racing: Melbourne Cup – 1,908,000
Multi-sport: Commonwealth Games opening ceremony – 2,037,000
Rugby League: State of Origin match one – 2,347,000
Australian Rules Football: AFL Grand Final – 2,615,000

Biggest participation sport in Australia

That’s just watching sport, though. What about actually playing it? What is the most popular participation sport in Australia.

Let’s look at the results of the AusPlay survey designed to work out exactly that. According to this survey, the biggest participation activity among adults is recreational walking, which 46.5% of Australian adults take part in.

However, that’s clearly not a sport, and many of the others are largely done for exercise rather than competition, too. You can rule out jogging, cycling, swimming and yoga for those reasons.

This means the most popular participation sports in Australia are tennis, (5.8%), football (5.7%) and golf (5.7%).

Amongst children, football is easily on top, with 13.8% of children playing.