Featuring a pair of Sun Belt teams for the first time, ratings and viewership hit new lows for the NHL Winter Classic.
Wednesday’s Predators-Stars NHL Winter Classic averaged a 1.15 rating and 1.96 million viewers on NBC, marking the lowest rating and viewership in the history of the game (dates back to 2008).
The Stars’ win declined 29% in ratings and 33% in viewership from last year (Bruins-Blackhawks: 1.6, 2.95M) and 19% and 21% respectively from the previous lows set in 2018 (Rangers-Sabres: 1.4, 2.48M). Including streaming, the game averaged 1.97 million.
It should be noted that the game started 40 minutes later than usual at 2 PM ET. NBC’s ratings were measured from 1 PM, meaning that the numbers include an hour of pregame coverage.
While the competing Citrus Bowl was up 82% on ABC (to 14.00M) and the Outback Bowl up 22% on ESPN (to 3.99M), the college football competition was actually less than last year, when there were three competing games. The combined audience of 17.99 million trailed last year’s mark of 19.44 million for the Citrus, Outback and Fiesta bowl games.
Even with the lower numbers, the Winter Classic remains the dominant draw of the NHL season. This year’s game outdrew every indoor NHL regular season window since the opening day of the lockout-shortened 2013 season.
Locally, the game averaged a 5.1 rating in Nashville and a 4.3 in Dallas, each market’s highest for a regular season NHL game on NBC.
In other action, Wild-Avalanche averaged 242,000 on NBCSN last Friday.
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports, with additional info from ShowBuzz Daily 12.30, 1.3]
