The Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Florida Panthers had the lowest viewership for a Cup-clinching game in 30 years. The cable broadcasts on TNT and TruTV averaged 2.72 million viewers, marking the smallest audience for a Game 5 of the Cup Final in 29 years. The only Cup Final Game 5 with lower viewership was in 1994 on ESPN, which incidentally was the last Final shown entirely on cable before this year.
Last year’s Stanley Cup Final, which aired on ABC and lasted six games, averaged 4.6 million viewers. None of this year’s Final games on TNT/TBS/TruTV reached that figure, with Game 1 having the highest average audience at 2.8 million viewers. Although seen in many circles as a breakthrough moment in hockey’s reach into the American South, the ratings could have been hit by having two non-traditional markets in Las Vegas, Nevada and Miami, Florida playing in the Stanley Cup Final, potentially subduing interest in the series from hockey hotbeds in cooler climates like Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, and the country of Canada, which has seen a 30-year drought since its last NHL champion, the 1993 Montreal Canadiens.
The NHL has signed seven-year media rights deals with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, set to expire at the end of the 2027-28 season. Under these agreements, Disney’s ABC network will broadcast the Final in even years, while WBD Sports (Warner Bros. Discovery) will air the Final in odd years on cable’s TNT, with simulcasts on TBS and TruTV.
WBD Sports has the rights to stream NHL games on HBO Max (now called Max) as part of the NHL rights deal, but it has not yet utilized the streaming service to broadcast games. Given the decline in viewership on cable this year, executives may consider simulcasting future games on the popular streaming platform.
According to WBD Sports EVP and CCO Craig Barry, fans and viewers are becoming more accustomed to accessing games through various platforms due to the fragmentation of media and content platforms. This suggests that making NHL games available on multiple platforms, including streaming services, could be a strategy to reach a broader audience.
