It´s been a fantastic, almost unparalleled, weekend for Super League.
A Super League side was crowned best in the world after St Helens went down under and against all the odds and predictions beat the mighty Penrith Panthers in the World Club Challenge with a sensational drop goal in Golden Point extra time win.
Crowds were up for the opening weekend with tremendous turnouts at Warrington, Hull KR, Hull FC and Leigh Leopards with some great games for them to enjoy. TV audiences were great too with Channel 4 peaking at almost half a million viewers during the Hull KR versus Wigan Warriors game.
Few but the most die-hard of St Helens fans thought that they could enter the Panthers back yard and beat consistently the best side in Australia over the last two years. The weather conditions were dreadful but Saints held their nerve and despite a small fright at the ends of normal time they took their opportunity to slot over the one pointer to stun the entire nation and bring back the trophy.
There were five Super League games over the weekend with; 11,082 at Warrington on Thursday, 4,077 at Wakefield, 9,800 at Hull KR, 8,589 at Leigh, and 15,383 at Hull FC for a total of 48,931, and an average of 9,786. This is up 1,520 on the average attendance in 2022, some 17.4%. It´s very early in the season to set the church bells ringing, but it is a great sign that things are moving in the right direction.
Channel 4 were reported to be delighted with the preliminary viewing figures for their Saturday lunchtime game between Hull KR and the Wigan Warriors which turned out to be a thriller and a resounding win for the home side. The game average 306,000 viewers and peaked at 496,000 following in from the 202,000 average and 290,000 peak which the same channel had commanded for the World Club Challenge earlier in the day. With Sky averaging just 107,000 for their broadcast of Thursday night´s Super League opener, IMG will be cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming media rights discussion with many rugby league fans believing that a wider exposure of free-to-air is the way to grow the sport to a larger audience.
All in all, a great start to the season for our great sport.
