An all-Sun Belt, all-cable Stanley Cup Final opened as one would expect, with sizable year-over-year declines.
The first two games of the Panthers-Golden Knights NHL Stanley Cup Final averaged 2.75 and 2.44 million viewers respectively across TNT, TBS and TruTV Saturday and Monday night, both down just over a third from Lightning-Avalanche on ABC last year (4.20M; 3.75M).
Game 1, which peaked with 3.3 million viewers, was the most-watched Cup Final opener on cable since Hurricanes-Red Wings on ESPN in 2002 (4.02M) and second-most watched on record. Keep in mind it was just the seventh Game 1 on cable in that 21-year span and 11th in the past 30 years.
Stanley Cup Final Game 1 viewership on cable
(Past three decades)
Among all Cup Final games on cable, Games 1 and 2 were the most-watched since Bruins-Blues Game 3 on NBCSN in 2019 (2.93M) — with the caveat that the intervening games took place in the COVID-affected seasons of 2020 and 2021.
Game 1 did not deliver the largest audience of the playoffs, trailing Panthers-Bruins Game 7 on TNT in the first round (3.1M) and barely edging Kraken-Stars Game 7 on ESPN in the second (2.753 to 2.746M). That is not necessarily unusual; neither of the first two NBA Finals games rank as the most-watched of that postseason (though it should be noted that the high water mark was set later in the playoffs).
Game 2 ranks fourth for the postseason behind Game 1 and the two aforementioned game sevens.
If on the soft side, Game 1 still delivered Saturday’s largest primetime audience and dominated the rest of television in the key young adult demographics of 18-49 (0.8), 18-34 (0.7) and 25-54 (1.0). Game 2 was not the most-watched show of the night — ranking outside of the top seven — but similarly dominated in the young demos at a 0.8, 0.65 and 1.0 respectively.
TNT was the most-watched network for both games, averaging 1.95 million viewers on Saturday and 1.68 million on Monday, followed by TBS (540K and 535K) and TruTV (261K and 235K).
