The NHL’s regular season finale won the night against minimal competition from the rest of the sports world.
Thursday’s Kraken-Wild hockey game averaged 591,000 viewers on ESPN, the largest sports audience of the day and up 51% from Blues-Stars (391k) last year, though the window for this year’s doubleheader shifted up one hour to 7PM ET. Similarly, Oilers-Avalanche later in the evening was up big over last year’s comparable game, drawing 482,000 viewers, up 24% versus Golden Knights-Kraken (367K) a year ago.
Over on ESPN2, primetime coverage of the national semifinals for Women’s College Gymnastics averaged 224,000 viewers, up 16% from last year’s semifinals (193K). Afternoon coverage of the event drew 104,000 viewers, down slightly from last year (107K). Overall, the semifinals averaged 165,000 viewers, up 11% from 148,000 last year.
Afternoon golf coverage of the RBC Heritage on Golf Channel drew 314,000 viewers for the first round of the PGA Tour’s signature event, down 8% from last year’s first round coverage (343K). Later that evening, the LPGA Tour drew 175,000 viewers for late first round coverage of the Chevron Championship, the season’s first of five major championships. Early coverage of the tournament on Golf Channel reached 105,000 viewers at 10AM ET.
On the baseball diamond, a late starting west coast matchup between the Diamondbacks and Giants on FS1 averaged 301,000 viewers. Earlier in the day, MLB Network averaged 150,000 viewers for either Rangers-Tigers or Angels-Rays, up 8% from last year’s comparable afternoon window of Red Sox-Rays or A’s-Orioles (139K).
Thursday, April 18 sports ratings
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Original chart below:
