NHL Playoffs Viewership Numbers Leave Gary Bettman in Shock

NHL TV viewing dipped this season, with year-to-year season-long viewing 12% below that of the 2023-24 season.

The initial returns of the Stanley Cup postseason are less promising, too, with postseason coverage at a mere 718,000 viewers, off 27% compared to last season.

Others predicted that U.S. viewership would dip with more Canadian teams involved in the playoffs.

Nationally, north of the border, however, there are steady numbers. The Canadiens-Capitals Game 1 drew 1.68 million viewers at TVA Sports, a credible count with a French-speaking population of some 11 million in Canada, a viewing group roughly equivalent to the NFL conference championship television audience in the States.

Games on ESPN, ABC, TNT, and truTV averaged 445,000 viewers per game in the fourth year of the seven-year, $4.5 billion U.S. pact with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, a drop from 504,000 a year earlier.

It is the first season-long viewership drop since the current deal and the lowest average to date by both ESPN and TNT. Exclusive games that only were seen on ESPN+ and Hulu were not included, since that data is not public.

There was a bright spot to this season with the new 4 Nations Face-Off. The U.S.-Canada championship game drew 9.3 million viewers on ESPN, an all-time record NHL TV audience in the U.S.

All the weak regular-season ratings notwithstanding, that game demonstrated the potential of the league to deliver blockbuster crowds.