With at most two games left, the viewership trend for the Stanley Cup Final remains pretty much unchanged from the start of the series.
Saturday’s Panthers-Oilers NHL Stanley Cup Final Game 5 averaged a series-high 2.7 million viewers across TNT and truTV, down 34% from the same matchup on ABC last year (4.1M) and slightly below Panthers-Golden Knights Game 5 on TNT Sports two years ago, making this year’s game the least-watched Cup Final Game 5 since 1994.
Keep in mind it was just the second Game 5 on cable since 1994, with all of the intervening games on either ABC, NBC or FOX.
The Panthers’ win, which peaked with 3.2 million in the 10:30 PM ET quarter-hour, still delivered the fourth-largest NHL audience ever on TNT Sports — behind Games 1 and 5 of the 2023 Cup Final and a Panthers-Bruins Game 7 in the first round of that postseason (3.1M).
On a night that included a Yankees-Red Sox Major League Baseball game on FOX, Game 5 was the top sportscast of the night in the key young adult demographics. The Cup Final has won the night in those demos in all five games.
Including viewership on Canadian television, Game 5 averaged 7.01 million across the U.S. and Canada — down 18% from last year (8.5M). Game 4 last Thursday night had a combined U.S. and Canadian audience of 7.10 million. (As might go without saying, the combined U.S./Canadian figures are up about a quarter from two years ago, when there was no Canadian team in the final.)
