Although traditionally most popular in Australia's rugby football strongholds of New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, it is played throughout the nation.

Rugby union holds the match attendance record of any football code in New South Wales (109,874), Western Australia (61,241) and the Australian Capital Territory (28,753).

[13][14] A decade after the first club was formed, a body called the Southern Rugby Union was formed as a result of a meeting at the Oxford Hotel in Sydney,[15] a Sydney competition was established, which was administered from the England Rugby headquarters at Twickenham[citation needed].

[18] On Saturday 23 June 1877, 3,000 spectators watched Waratah beat Carlton at rugby at the Albert Cricket Ground in Redfern.

[18] The first inter-colonial game occurred on 12 August 1882, when players from the four Queensland clubs (who played both rugby and Australian rules football) travelled to NSW.

[19] Later that same year, the Southern Rugby Union undertook its inaugural tour of New Zealand, winning four of its seven matches.

As a result of the formation of the new body, several prominent grammar schools took up rugby as opposed to Melbourne Rules.

In 1892, the rugby bodies in Australia dropped Southern and Northern from their titles, adopting New South Wales and Queensland respectively.

In 1899, the national team of Australia played their first match, and the Hospital's Cup became an annual competition in Queensland.

[citation needed] In 1907, Australia again played New Zealand, at the same venue as the 1903 match, with crowd numbers reaching 50,000.

[citation needed] This figure would not be surpassed again in Australian rugby union until after the game turned professional.

An event that was to greatly shape rugby union's future in Australia was the onset of World War I in 1914.

Until the late 1940s, the administration of the Australian team, including all tours, was handled by New South Wales, being the senior union.

With rugby union becoming an openly professional sport in 1995, after more than a century of a professed amateur status, major changes were seen in both the club and international game.

Australia entered three sides into the competition; ACT Brumbies, Queensland Reds and the New South Wales Waratahs.

The game attracted a then world record crowd for a rugby union match of 107,042 to see Australia win with its greatest margin over New Zealand by 28–7.

Matches were played all across the country, in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Townsville, Gosford, Wollongong and Launceston.

The Australian Rugby Union said that revenues exceeded all expectations, the tournament surplus was estimated to be at $44.5 million.

The AFL and NRL have also made significant inroads into the sporting landscape of New South Wales - the state in which Rugby Union has historically been most popular.

[25] Unlike its rival leagues, almost all rugby union matches in Australia are broadcast on subscription-based streaming services, rather than free-to-air television, making the sport less accessible to prospective fans.

Rugby union has also suffered from its perceived association with Australia’s upper class, as its professional teams continue to rely largely on elite private schools to supply talent and fans.

[26] Commentators widely regard Super Rugby, the tournament in which its domestic teams play, as moribund.

Better competition and more lucrative contracts in Europe and Japan routinely siphon potential stars abroad.

[28] Despite this, the NRL and AFL's lack of viable overseas competition means that the Wallabies remain prestigious and popular, with international fixtures in Australia maintaining good match attendance and high television viewership.

[29] Australia will also host the 2027 Rugby World Cup which, depending partly on the Wallabies' performance, is expected to boost the sport’s popularity.

[31] Rugby in Australia has enjoyed traditional support within inter-school competitions with the first school match being played by Newington College against Sydney University in 1869.

Rugby was introduced to other cities and regions at around the same time but Melbourne rules (now Australian football) was preferred in the southern states.

The country's previous attempt to launch a national domestic competition came in 2007 in the form of the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC).

[45] Within the first year of the new deal, Super Rugby games were regularly gathering more than 120 000 on 9Gem and Stan Sport had more than 250 000 subscribers.

The Super Rugby AU Final between Queensland and the ACT pulled more than 1.3 million viewers across all platforms.