Rugby league in Australia

In Australia, rugby league is a popular spectator and participation sport which has been played since 1908. It is the dominant winter football code in the states of New South Wales and Queensland. According to Ausplay in 2024, there were 174,343 adult and 93,287 children playing it across five states at a participation rate of 0.8% per capita. Just under half of adult players are female. It is governed by the Australian Rugby League Commission based in Sydney.

In 2022, it was the most watched sport on Australian television with an aggregate audience of 137.3 million viewers. The premier club competition is the National Rugby League (NRL), which features teams from four states/territories: ten teams from New South Wales; four teams from Queensland; and one team each from Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. The premier representative competition is the annual Rugby league State of Origin featuring two sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons is often referred to as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry", it is one of Australia's premier sporting events, attracting huge interest and television audiences.

Australia has a rich history of rugby league, first taking up the sport in 1908, it has been dominant over the other rugby league-playing nations for many years, but enjoys a strong rivalry with New Zealand.

Commonly known as "league" or "football", and sometimes referred to as "the greatest game of all", it is traditionally seen as a "working man's sport" with its roots in the working class communities of Northern England, compared to rugby union which has its roots in prestigious English public schools.

The National Rugby League Hall of Fame names the greatest Australian players of all time, with 14 declared Immortals, all male, of which eight are from New South Wales and four are from Queensland and include: Clive Churchill, Bob Fulton, Reg Gasnier, Johnny Raper, Graeme Langlands, Wally Lewis, Arthur Beetson, Andrew Johns, Dave Brown, Frank Burge, Mal Meninga, Dally Messenger, Norm Provan and Ron Coote.