Despite airing on ESPN instead of ABC, the NHL Stadium Series delivered the top audience of the season outside of the Four Nations Face-Off.
Saturday’s Red Wings-Blue Jackets NHL Stadium Series game from Ohio Stadium averaged 1.59 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest audience for an outdoor NHL game since the 2023 Winter Classic on TNT (Penguins-Bruins: 1.78M) and the top audience for the Stadium Series since 2019 (Flyers-Penguins: 1.94M).
Viewership outpaced both of last year’s Stadium Series games, which aired on ABC (Rangers-Islanders: 1.57M; Flyers-Devils: 1.13M). (Given Nielsen’s expansion of out-of-home viewing last month, it is likely last year’s Rangers-Islanders game would rank ahead all things being equal.)
The Stadium Series nearly doubled the Blues-Blackhawks Winter Classic, which averaged 920,000 on TNT Sports New Year’s Eve. This year marks the second-straight in which the Stadium Series outdrew the Winter Classic, but last year’s occurrence could be explained by the games airing on broadcast rather than cable.
The Blue Jackets’ win, which peaked with 1.8 million viewers, ranks as the most-watched NHL game this season outside of the Four Nations Face-Off. The previous high was 1.27 million for Golden Knights-Bruins on ABC last month. Even including Four Nations, it ranks fourth behind the Canada-United States final on ESPN (9.3M), the United States-Canada round robin game on ABC (4.4M), and the United States-Sweden round robin on TNT Sports (1.8M).
Though there were some complaints on social media about college basketball running long and preempting pregame coverage, the game likely benefited from its Alabama-Tennessee lead-in, which averaged 1.97 million.
Earlier in the day, ABC averaged 1.1 million for Bruins-Penguins — up 30% from Panthers-Red Wings last year (847K). ABC is now averaging 1.03 million viewers for its “ABC Hockey Saturday” package, up 22% from last year, excluding the Stadium Series.
