Six NRL Players: What Their Audiences Reveal for Brands

Almost three quarters of Mark Nawaqanitawase’s Instagram followers are men, yet women make up more than half of the audience liking his content. For a brand considering a partnership, that difference could change the brief.

Ahead of the NRL grand final, we used Fabulate Discovery to explore the Instagram profiles of six players: the Sydney Roosters’ Mark Nawaqanitawase, Sam Walker and James Tedesco, and the Newcastle Knights’ Kalyn Ponga, Bradman Best and Dane Gagai.

All audience and performance data in this article comes from Fabulate Discovery, using Instagram reports updated on 29 September 2026. These profiles illustrate different audience patterns rather than rank the players. Family, fashion, food and travel feature alongside sport, while the people liking their content can look different from those following them.

For brands, understanding those differences helps connect a player’s public profile with a more specific partnership opportunity. 

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Mark Nawaqanitawase

Nawaqanitawase’s audience shows why followers and likers deserve separate attention. Men account for 74% of his followers, while women make up 52% of his likers.

The geographic picture changes too. Around half of his followers are Australian, rising to almost two thirds among likers. Sport leads follower interests, while friends, family and relationships comes first among likers, with travel and fashion also prominent.

His recent collaboration with Sleeping Giant Australia provides an example of how that sporting profile can extend into a home and lifestyle partnership.

A brief built around a predominantly male sports audience could therefore overlook some of the people responding to his content. Looking at both audience views gives marketers a fuller starting point, with content review helping establish which ideas fit.

TL;DR: Who follows a player and who likes their content can point towards different creative opportunities.

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Sam Walker

Walker has the smallest following in this group at 53,800, yet his Reels average 128,200 plays. His overall engagement rate of 10.32% is also the highest of the six.

That combination gives brands a reason to look beyond account size. A shortlist with a 100,000-follower minimum would miss him, despite average Reel plays exceeding twice his following. Plays are not unique reach, but they show why content consumption deserves its own assessment.

Around 81% of his followers are Australian, adding geographic relevance for domestic campaigns. Interests spanning sport, family, travel and food then give the team more context for developing a suitable idea.

His recent collaboration with Drink Super Boost offers a look at how he brings a brand into his video content.

TL;DR: A smaller following can still warrant a place on the shortlist when content performance and audience fit support it.

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James Tedesco

Choosing the player is only part of the decision. Tedesco’s profile shows why the intended format needs attention too.

His overall engagement rate is 6.26%, while his Reels engagement rate is 0.49%. Those measures describe different aspects of performance, making the format-specific view relevant when planning a video partnership.

His collaboration with KFC, stepping behind the counter to promote the Parmi Burger before delivering it to his nonna, brings a family relationship into the creative. It offers a concrete example of an athlete partnership built around something beyond the game.

Friends, family and relationships leads his follower interests, just ahead of sport, with food and travel also prominent. Those signals provide context for the creative approach, without establishing how the campaign performed.

TL;DR: Audience fit helps shape the idea; performance in the proposed format helps inform its execution.

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Kalyn Ponga

Ponga brings the largest following in this group at 393,400, alongside its highest average Reel plays at 191,200. His listed partnerships include Nike, WHOOP and Sodii, spanning apparel, performance technology and hydration.

His day-in-the-life collaboration with Sodii shows how the hydration brand fits into his routine, with a timed sequence following his day.

The audience behind that scale adds another dimension. Women account for around 31% of followers but 47% of likers. Among likers, fashion-related interests sit close to sport, while friends, family and relationships leads both audience views.

For brands, those signals create several directions to investigate beyond the sporting profile. They help guide creative exploration without establishing what the audience will buy or how a future campaign will perform.

TL;DR: Ponga’s scale attracts attention, while his audience composition helps brands consider what to do with it.

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Bradman Best

For brands focused on Australia, Best’s geographic concentration is a useful starting point. Australian followers make up approximately 90% of his audience, the highest share in this selected group.

His 75,200 followers sit alongside 57,800 average Reel plays, giving marketers context for account size and video consumption.

The interests help develop the brief further. Sport leads among followers, with fashion and fitness also prominent, while friends, family and relationships comes first among likers. That combination gives a domestic campaign several creative directions to assess against the player’s actual content.

His collaboration with Elite Supps provides an example of that fitness connection, featuring him holding the brand’s shaker bottle.

TL;DR: Geographic concentration can strengthen relevance to a domestic brief, with audience interests helping shape the creative.

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Dane Gagai

Gagai has a similarly sized following to Best at 73,500, but his Reels average 22,200 plays. The comparison shows why similar account sizes should not be treated as equivalent content performance.

Location adds another distinction. Brisbane is his leading listed audience city among both followers and likers, ahead of Sydney, reinforcing the value of checking audience geography rather than inferring it from club location.

Friends, family and relationships leads both audience views, with food and travel also featuring. Together, those details provide a more specific basis for assessing regional and creative fit.

TL;DR: Similar follower counts can sit alongside different content performance, locations and partnership possibilities.

Across these six profiles, the useful insight is the detail that could change a brand’s decision: who responds, which format performs or where the audience lives.

Fabulate Discovery brings those signals together, helping marketers move from recognising a player to understanding their potential fit. That gives the partnership a clearer starting point and the brief a stronger foundation.

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