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Report: State of Origin at Eden Park confirmed
Sport Nation •  February 5th, 2026 6:00 am
Photo: Mark Evans/AAP
State of Origin is coming to New Zealand according to The Australian and Code Sports.
News came out in October last year that the NZ Government were in discussions to bring a game of the three match series between Queensland and New South Wales, The Australian are now reporting it is a done deal.
The News Corp Australia publications report that the deal, worth in the vicinity of $5 million, will see game two of rugby league's iconic representative series be held at Eden Park.
While an agreement was reached in principle back in December, the initial report by Peter Badel states: "Code Sports can reveal the New Zealand government has formally backed plans to host State of Origin in 2027 as part of a $70 million funding project to bring marquee events to the Shaky Isles."
That project includes the 'Events Attraction Package' which recently helped to secure Raglan as the fourth stop of the World Surf League's 2026 Championship Tour, along with the FIFA Series at Eden Park, a Wellington music festival, plus Linkin Park's sold-out Spark Arena concert.
Appearing on 2GB's Wide World of Sports, NRL chief executive officer Andrew Abdo was unable to verify the reports.
"I can't confirm anything yet because we haven't had any finalisation of that," Abdo said.
"But how good is it in terms of the game in New Zealand? Rugby league is growing and New Zealand is an incredibly important market for us and there's strong demand and great interest.
"The opportunity to showcase something like State of Origin, we see the success in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide; to add Auckland to that I think would be fantastic so hopefully that's something we're able to confirm and officially announce soon."
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