After a mixed regular season, the Stanley Cup Playoffs got off to a strong start with a double-digit increase Monday night.
Monday’s opening night of the Stanley Cup Playoffs averaged 672,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, up 17% from last year. Panthers-Bruins Game 1 led the way with a 1.07 million viewers on ESPN, up 25% from Bruins-Hurricanes last year (857K) and the largest audience on record for a first round opener on cable.
Boston’s win, which peaked with 1.3 million, surpassed the previous high of 1.04 million set by Penguins-Rangers on ESPN last year.
The competing Islanders-Hurricanes Game 1 on ESPN2 averaged 642,000 viewers, up 38% from Lightning-Maple Leafs a year ago (466K).
Later in the night, Kings-Oilers averaged 483,000 on ESPN — down 23% from Blues-Wild last year (626K). Compared to last year’s first round opener between the same two teams, which aired on ESPN2, viewership unsurprisingly increased from 352,000.
Notably, the Kings’ win was outdrawn head-to-head by Wild-Stars on ESPN2, which averaged 561,000 — up 59% from last year’s aforementioned Oilers-Kings game (352K).
The strong start to the playoffs follows a mixed regular season. Regular season games on ESPN and ABC averaged 583,000 viewers, per Sports Business Journal, down 2% from last year. The ESPN cable networks were responsible for the decline (ABC was up 19%), as the ESPN networks carried a number of games on NFL Sundays — and one on ESPN2 on Final Four Saturday.
TNT averaged 364,000 for its 61-game schedule, up 1% from last year despite airing a number of games that were blacked out in local markets.
(Nielsen estimates from network PR, ShowBuzz Daily 4.18, Sports Business Journal 4.18)
