NRL Grand Final

NRL Grand Final

Location	Sydney, New South Wales
First meeting	29 Aug 1908
Latest meeting	2013
Next meeting	2014
Broadcasters	Nine Network (1960s-1970s, 1992-present) Seven Network (1970s-1980) Network Ten (1981-1991)
Statistics
Meetings total	105

The National Rugby League Grand final which determines the season's premiers, is one of Australia's major sporting events and is one of the largest attended club championship events in the world. Since 1999 it has been contested at Sydney's Stadium Australia, which was the primary athletics venue for the 2000 Olympic Games. The first year it was held at Stadium Australia, the NRL Grand Final broke the record for attendance at an Australian rugby league game, with 107,999 people attending.

The Grand Final had traditionally been played on Sunday afternoons until 2000, the following year saw the game shifted to an evening start. From 2008, a compromise was reached between official broadcaster Nine Network's preferred starting time of 7 pm and the traditional starting time of 3 pm, with the Grand Final beginning at 5 pm AEST. In 2013 the evening start resumed, the match commencing at 7:15 pm.

Each year the Grand Final Breakfast, a function that is attended by both teams, hundreds of guests and screened live on Australian television is held during the week before the game.

The game itself is usually preceded by an opening ceremony featuring entertainment and the singing of the national anthem by well-known Australasian and international musical acts. After the pre-game entertainment it is traditional for the NRL trophy to be delivered to the field by an Australian Army helicopter shortly before kick off.

At the conclusion of the Grand Final there is a presentation ceremony where the winning team are awarded premiership rings. The player judged to be the man-of-the-match by the Australian national team selectors is awarded the prestigious Clive Churchill Medal and the Prime Minister of Australia is typically on-hand to hand the trophy to the winning captain.

In 2010 the Government of New South Wales secured the grand final for Stadium Australia until 2022 for $45 million.

Game history

See also: Grand Final

Qualification and prize

The two Grand Finalists qualify via finals series play-offs at the end of the season. In the current system, the eight teams finishing highest on the ladder after all the home and away rounds qualify for the four-week long finals series culminating in the Grand Final. The team that finishes the regular season at the top of the ladder is said to have won the minor premiership.

See also

• List of Australian rugby league grand final records
• List of NRL Grand finals
• List of NRL Premiers