Rugby World Cup 2023 final: How many Kiwis tuned in to watch the All Blacks v Springboks?

If you got up on Sunday morning to watch the All Blacks take on South Africa in the Rugby World Cup 2023 final, chances are you spent most of the match glued to your seat.

And though it may not have been the result New Zealand wanted to see, the nail-biting final proved to be both riveting viewing and a ratings winner.

Sky has now revealed that more than 1.5 million Kiwis in the 5 and over age bracket watched the final on Sky Sport and the free-to-air Sky Open, according to Nielsen data.

On-demand platforms Sky Go and Sky Sport Now also saw more than 485,000 streams.

A total of 2.5 million of us tuned in to the World Cup matches throughout the tournament on Sky Sport and Sky Open, with a whopping seven million streams across Sky Go and Sky Sport.

The ratings also reveal that more than 71,000 Kiwis watched the rugby with te reo Māori commentary on Sky Sport, with nearly 25,000 streaming the matches with te reo Māori commentary on Sky Go and Sky Sport Now.

A Sky spokeswoman confirmed to the Herald that the number of viewers for the final made up the largest audience for any of their programmes this year.

It’s not yet clear how many rugby fans from across the globe tuned into the final, but earlier this month, the World Cup’s official website revealed that in-person attendance at the matches had already hit 1.8 million, breaking the Japan-hosted 2019 tournament’s record of 1.7 million.

The 2019 World Cup was the most-viewed rugby event to date, with more than 857 million people tuning in across World Rugby broadcast partners.

It comes after a record 1.3 million Kiwis watched the Black Ferns triumph over England in the 2022 Rugby World Cup final last November.

It’s broken records for tournament free-to-air broadcaster Three, whose coverage was watched by 1,206,300, according to data supplied by Three’s owners Warner Bros. Discovery.