How the Challenge Cup viewing figures compare to the Premiership Rugby Union Final

The Challenge Cup Final was played out on Saturday in front of 64,845 fans with close to 1,000,000 fans watching along at home too, but how does that compare to 2023 and crucially to the Rugby Union Final at the same time?

Rugby League Commercial and the RFL made the decision to bring the Challenge Cup Final forward in the year with last year’s Final not played until August, a two-month difference. That decision saw Magic Weekend pushed back in the season but it also saw the Challenge Cup Final clash with a huge Rugby Union game.

The Gallagher Premiership Final, effectively the equivalent of Super League’s Grand Final, was played at the exact same time, even in the same city, as the Challenge Cup Final on Saturday. Whilst attending fans likely wouldn’t have to choose given the lack of overlap between fans, the casual audience on TV did have to choose.

BBC One aired the Men’s Challenge Cup Final whereas ITV and TNT aired the Rugby Union Final and now the stats are in to see how Rugby League fared against the 15-man code.

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Challenge Cup Final records higher average but lower peak than Union showpiece event

As revealed earlier, the Challenge Cup Final drew an average audience of 745,000 and a peak of 877,000. That average audience represented a 12.6% audience share, notably higher than the semi-finals which sat at 9.6% (Wigan vs Hull KR) and 3.6% (Warrington vs Huddersfield).

It’s also a far higher audience share than the Rugby Union Final had on ITV with that coverage drawing an average of 535,000 viewers and an audience share of 8.8%. That was fleshed out with TNT’s coverage that boasted an average of 116,000, representative of a 2% share.

Those figures are courtesy of RugbyLeagueOnTV who shared the figures via their X profile and whilst the average viewing figures are certainly in the favour of the Challenge Cup Final, the peak audience sways to the Rugby Union Final.

RugbyLeagueOnTV revealed that ITV’s coverage of that game drew a peak audience of 931,000 which was again boosted by the 201,000 on TNT, meaning that there was a likely peak of over 1,000,000 watching that game.

By contrast, the Challenge Cup Final peaked at 877,000 and that figure has declined from 2023.

Peak audience drops from thrilling 2023 Final

With the Challenge Cup Final this year being nowhere near the drama of the 2023 one, it should be no surprise that the peak audience has dropped but it’s still disappointing.

The average is also slightly lower, something that can certainly be attributed to the Rugby Union Final taking place, with 2023 boasting an average of 784,000. Whilst that’s higher than this year, the audience share was actually lower last year and sat at just 10.9%.

However, the peak figure of 1.1 million viewers is over 200,000 viewers more. The harm of going up against the Rugby Union Final seems very apparent and will hopefully be something that is avoided in the future.

A final featuring two of the top teams in the game certainly deserves at least 1,000,000 viewers.