IN AN extraordinary sign of each city's parochialism and of Melbourne's sporting fanaticism, more Melburnians watched the rugby league grand final than those in the game's Sydney heartland.
And, almost as surprisingly, the AFL grand final between Sydney and West Coast attracted a higher peak audience in Sydney than the rival code's grand final, in which the Melbourne Storm were beaten by Brisbane.
According to OzTam figures, a staggering peak audience of more than 1 million Melburnians watched the Storm — nearly 100,000 ahead of the Sydney peak (872,000).
The belief that Melbourne is more passionate about sport was upheld by the ratings: while the Swans rated extremely well in Sydney — with a peak of 994,000 and an average of 779,000 — the Storm had a higher average audience in Melbourne.
The figures indicate that Sydney people were much less interested in a league grand final that didn't involve a local team.
Indeed, not only did more Melburnians watch the Storm v Broncos, but the Brisbane audience (peak 889,000) almost matched that of Sydney.
The absence of a Victorian team did not prevent Victorians from watching the AFL final, with a peak of 1.352 million and an average of 1.18 million.
Nine Network chief executive Eddie McGuire has warned the AFL his network will aggressively support rugby league in Melbourne.
Nine's director of sport, Steve Crawley, said Mr McGuire, who only moved to Sydney in February, was the best thing to happen for rugby league in Victoria.
"Eddie warned (AFL chief executive) Andrew Demetriou last week we're going to put all our money and effort behind the rugby league now and they better watch out," Mr Crawley said.
"Then we got over a million (peak audience), so that will make him more aggressive."
Even though ratings fell slightly for the AFL grand final, it is set to be the most popular television event of the year — outside the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony — with an average audience of more than 3.15 million (down from 3.39 million last year).
The NRL grand final's national audience of 2.56 million (identical to last year) makes it the fifth most-watched event of the official 2006 ratings year.
With ANDREW STEVENSON
