In short:

The finale of the State of Origin series has broken broadcast records, with figures showing it was the highest-rating game in Origin history.

Game III, which was the highest-rating TV program of any kind in 2026, with a total audience of 4.29 million.

In total, 6.032 million viewers watched for some part of the match, including a streaming audience of 1.685 million viewers.

The 2026 State of Origin decider was the highest-rating game in the television broadcast history of the interstate rugby league series.

Days after the NRL inked a $5.3 billion broadcast deal — the most lucrative in Australian sporting history — broadcaster Channel Nine flagged that 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.

AAP