There are four types of foot-meets-ball "footy" sports in Australia: soccer, rugby league, rugby union, and AFL. Of those sports, the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) are the most popular, battling it out for the top broadcasting numbers depending on the event being played. For NRL and NRLW, it's a mix of the State of Origin and the NRL Grand Final.
If you're keen to get your rugby league footy fix in Australia, scroll on for your streaming options.
How to watch the NRL live
Kayo Sports is the home of rugby league in Australia. With a Kayo subscription, you'll get live coverage for every round of the men's NRL Premiership, including every match in the Finals Series, except for the Grand Final. On-demand replays are available for all NRL matches, including the State of Origin and Grand Final games. The men's NRL Premiership typically kicks off in March and finishes in October each year.
There are a couple of subscription options for Kayo. The cheapest is Kayo Standard, which costs $29.99 per month for one stream in up to HD quality. Alternatively, pay $45.99 a month for Kayo Premium, which has two simultaneous streams in up to 4K quality. NRL matches on Kayo are broadcast in 4K resolution, so if you've got a 4K TV and want the best resolution, consider Kayo Premium.
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Foxtel Now
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Foxtel Now
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For an identical rugby league offering, you can also subscribe to Foxtel Now. While you do get more non-sports content, there's a big price discrepancy between Kayo Sports and Foxtel Now. It's either $84 a month for Foxtel Now Sports + Movies or $104 per month for Foxtel Now Ultimate. Either subscription offers two streams in Full HD quality.
How to watch NRLW live
The NRL Women's Premiership (or 'NRLW' for short) is also part of a Kayo subscription. Unlike the men's league, every NRLW match is available live on Kayo, from the first game to the Grand Final. The NRL Women's Premiership typically takes place between September and November each year.
If that's not enough rugby league for you, Kayo also has live matches for the NSW Cup, QLD Cup, and the Under 19s State of Origin.
How to watch the NRL and NRLW Finals
As covered above, the NRLW has more simplified broadcasting rights, with every match available on Kayo Sports, including the Finals Series and the NRLW Grand Final. It's trickier for the men's NRL. A Kayo subscription will get you live and on-demand matches for all of the NRL Finals Series, but not the Grand Final unless you're happy with delayed coverage.
To watch the NRL Grand Final, you'll want to either tune in to Channel 9HD or sign up for a 9Now account. Both options offer free live streaming of the men's NRL Grand Final. The NRL Grand Final for 2026 is set for Sunday October 4th, 2026.
How to stream the State of Origin
For live and on-demand replays of State of Origin from 2020 to 2025, sign up for a 9Now account. Until at least the end of the 2027 NRL season, Nine has exclusive live broadcasting rights to State of Origin for the men's and women's matches. Kayo Sports has on-demand replays for men's and women's Origin matches.
The men's State of Origin is a three-match series that typically takes place between June and July each year. For the Women's State of Origin, it's also a three-match bout that generally happens between May and June each year.
What is Kayo Sports?
Kayo Sports is a standalone version of the Sports add-on for Foxtel Now. With a Kayo Sport subscription, you'll get access to the greatest number of sports in Australia, including AFL, NRL, cricket, tennis, and American sports like NFL, basketball, and baseball. The big disclaimer is that DAZN is now the owner of Foxtel, so it's anticipated that Kayo content will eventually shift to DAZN.
How does Kayo Sports compare?
Kayo is still the best sports streaming service in Australia if you're after a quantity of popular sports. While the price keeps creeping up, Kayo is the only place to watch the vast majority of AFL, NRL, and cricket matches in Australia.
It's improved since launch, offering a mix of live channels – including dedicated options for popular sports – individually highlighted live matches and replays. For popular sports, the replays are typically available as full matches or shorter 'Minis' (highlights packages). If you miss a live match that you're keen to experience fresh, Kayo has a no-spoilers toggle that's well worth enabling. Alternatively, skip to key match moments on longer replays.
Most Kayo content streams at Full HD resolution, but more 4K content is appearing for Kayo Premium subscribers, most notably for AFL and NRL matches. Like Netflix and other entertainment streaming services, Kayo also offers user profiles, which helps personalise the sports you're being fed on the homepage. And if you've got a compatible device, Kayo also offers SplitView so you can stream multiple sports at the same time on the one screen.
Compare Kayo Sports to other popular sport streaming services.
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Paramount+
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Prime Video
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Disney+
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Stan
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Link not supplied
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Binge
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beIN Sports Monthly Plan
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DAZN
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Apple TV
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Kayo Sports 
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Foxtel Now
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Editor's pick: Great NBN 100 plans for streaming
To get the most out of Kayo Sports, we advise considering an NBN 100 plan to stream at home. If you're a Kayo Premium subscriber, 4K streams use 25Mbps, which becomes 50Mbps of required download speed if you're streaming at 4K resolution on two devices. Note that whenever you add a SplitView stream, additional download speed is required.
That's why we advise NBN 100 instead of one of the slower, cheaper speed tiers, as it means you can happily stream Kayo content and still have download bandwidth leftover for other online tasks. Here's a look at popular NBN 100 plans from our database that can comfortably tackle a Kayo Premium subscription.
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#1
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Superloop
FTTN, FTTB, FTTC
Family nbn100/20
$74/mth
Min. cost $74
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#2
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iiNet
FTTN, FTTB, FTTC
nbn Home Fast Liimitless
$69.99/mth
+ $10 Upfront
Min. cost $79.99
Link not supplied
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#3
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TPG
FTTN, FTTB, FTTC
nbn Home Fast Unlimited Plan
$74.99/mth
Min. cost $74.99
Link not supplied
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#4
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Aussie Broadband
FTTN, FTTB, FTTC
Fast nbn - Unlimited
$79/mth
Min. cost $79
Link not supplied
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#5
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Optus
FTTN, FTTB, FTTC
Optus Fast nbn®
$84/mth
Min. cost $84
Link not supplied
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More streaming deals
Looking for something to stream tonight but don't want to pay full price? We've rounded up the best deals from Australia's major streaming services.
- Kayo deals: $1 for one month or seven days free
- Netflix deals: Bonus Netflix with Optus NBN
- Foxtel packages and deals: Save up to $55 per month
- Max deals: Free Max with Foxtel
Nathan Lawrence
Freelance Contributor
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