Only days after the NRL inked a new $5.3 billion broadcast deal, the most lucrative in Australian sporting history, its host broadcaster Channel Nine flagged another record had been broken.
A total audience of 4.29 million, calculated as the average number of people tuning in at any given time, watched NSW stun Queensland to reclaim the Origin shield on Wednesday night.
The game edged out this year's Origin II, which attracted 4.286 million viewers, to become the highest-rated fixture across 45 iterations of the three-match series.
This year's figure of 4.29 million represents a 9.2 per cent increase on the numbers from last year's decider.
In total, 6.032 million viewers watched for some part of the match.
By total viewership numbers, the match was the highest-rating TV program of 2026, and the top program of the night in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
Some 1.685 million viewers streamed the match, a 70.9 per cent year-on-year increase from the corresponding game in 2025.
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