The NHL season got off to a far slower start in the ratings than last year, when Connor Bedard’s debut boosted the numbers.
Tuesday’s NHL Opening Night tripleheader averaged a 0.29 rating and 559,000 viewers on ESPN, down 39% from last year. (Compared to 2022, when ESPN carried two games, the primetime windows were up 3%.)
Bruins-Panthers topped the Opening Night slate with a 0.41 rating and 790,000 viewers on ESPN, down 47% in ratings and 45% in viewership from Blackhawks-Penguins last year, which marked the career debut of #1 pick Connor Bedard (0.8, 1.43M). Compared to Lightning-Rangers two years ago, ratings dipped 5% (from 0.43) but viewership increased 6% (from 744K).
Keep in mind the Panthers’ win — which peaked with 957,000 viewers in the 8:45 PM ET quarter-hour — co-existed with local RSN coverage due to Hurricane Milton-related adjustments, a change in plans from the original exclusive broadcast.
All three Opening Night games declined sharply from a year ago. The Chicago-Utah nightcap, which marked the NHL’s Utah debut, averaged a 0.28 and 522,000 — down 24% in both measures from Kraken-Golden Knights a year ago (0.37, 691K). Ratings and viewership also trailed Golden Knights-Kings on ESPN two years ago.
Blues-Kraken opened the day’s slate with a 0.17 and 348,000 in a late afternoon window, down 45% and 42% respectively from Predators-Lightning in a later window last year (0.31, 598K).
None of the three NHL games on ESPN had as many viewers as the night’s winner-take-all WNBA playoff game on ESPN2, as Sun-Lynx Game 5 drew a 0.58 and 984,000 viewers. They also trailed the night’s competing Major League Baseball Postseason games on FS1, as goes without saying.
The soft start can be explained in part by the lower-profile matchups, featuring a defending champion in Florida that has never been a particularly strong draw, a Kraken squad that missed the playoffs last season, and a Utah club that hardly moved the needle when it was known as the Phoenix Coyotes.
