Fueled by a big increase on ESPN, the NHL regular season was the most-watched in eight years — and the most-watched on cable in 30.
NHL regular season games averaged 504,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN and TNT, up 8% from last year and the most-watched season since 2015-16 on NBC and NBCSN (505K). ESPN was the driving force behind the increase, as its average viewership increased 25% to 486,000. TNT was up 1% to 363,000 and ABC was actually down 8% to 934,000.
The cable average of 410,000 viewers is the highest for any NHL season in 30 years — since 1993-94 (474K) — surpassing the previous high of 392,000 for the lockout-shortened 2013 season on NBCSN. (As with any multi-year high of that sort, keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not tracked prior to 2020.)
While ABC finished down for the season, the network still accounted for four of the season’s top five audiences. The February 18 Rangers-Islanders Stadium Series game on ABC finished as the most-watched with a 0.8 rating and 1.57 million viewers, followed by Blackhawks-Penguins on ESPN Opening Night — Connor Bedard’s debut — at a 0.8 and 1.43 million.
TNT’s top game was the Golden Knights-Kraken Winter Classic (1.10M), which ranked just seventh for the season — not only the lowest ranking ever for the game, but the first time that it has not finished as the top game of the season in which it was played.
