Challenge Cup Final TV viewing figures revealed

Much has been made of television viewing figures this season with every game being televised but the Challenge Cup Final has shown that it still holds its spark with almost 1,000,000 fans watching it.

Questions of whether the Challenge Cup had lost its spark emerged after disappointing attendances and viewing figures for the two semi-final games back in May. Both matches had a combined attendance of approximately 21,000 with Warrington and Huddersfield’s clash failing to break 10,000 fans.

The final had no such issue with 64,845 turning up at Wembley, the largest attendance since 2017 and a 6,500 increase on the 2023 final’s attendance. That increase can likely be attributed to the huge number of Wakefield Trinity fans who went to go watch their side feature at the national stadium for the first time in years.

Trinity lifted the 1895 Cup with a convincing 50-6 win over Sheffield Eagles, that game being broadcast on SuperLeague+ who are yet to release viewing figures, however, the BBC have done so for the Challenge Cup Final.

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Challenge Cup Final grabs eyes of almost 1,000,000 fans

Coverage of the Men’s Challenge Cup Final began at 2:00 pm on BBC One with the Women’s Final having been played on BBC Two up until that time, having kicked off at 11:45am.

The Men’s Final wouldn’t kick off until 3:07 pm in honour of Rob Burrow with much of the build-up celebrating his life after he passed away the Sunday prior following his battle with Motor Neurone Disease.

Coverage ended at 5:4o pm with the near-four-hour coverage drawing an average audience of 745,000, representing a 12.6% audience share. The coverage also had a peak audience of 877,000, as reported by RugbyLeagueOnTV via their X profile.

RugbyLeagueOnTV also revealed that the audience share peaked at 15%, an impressive figure and especially so when compared to the figures recorded for the semi-finals.

The Woman’s Final on BBC Two drew a 5.5% audience share with a peak of just shy of 400,000 and an average of 241,o00, figures also reported by RugbyLeagueOnTv.

How do the Challenge Cup Semi-Final figures compare?

Despite the poor attendance figures for the two Challenge Cup semi-finals, the TV audience was actually respectable albeit less than the Final, at least for one game.

The clash between Wigan Warriors and Hull KR on the Saturday drew an average of 492,000 with a peak of 540,000, representing an audience share of 9.6%.

Meanwhile, Sunday’s game between Warrington and Huddersfield fared worse with a peak of just 337,000 and an average audience of 260,000 which represented an audience share of 3.7%.

That was far more in line with the quarter-final viewing figures that averaged under 400,000 with an audience share of 3.5%.