The Stanley Cup Final finished as it began, with another viewership low.
Tuesday’s Oilers-Panthers NHL Stanley Cup Final Game 6 averaged a series-high 2.8 million viewers across TNT and truTV, down a third from the same matchup on ABC last year (4.2M) and the least-watched Cup Final Game 6 since Rangers-Canucks on ESPN in 1994, a telecast that was non-exclusive (2.37M).
Keep in mind it was the first Game 6 on cable since Stars-Sabres on ESPN in 1999, which drew 4.45 million.
The Panthers’ title-clinching win, which peaked with 3.3 million viewers, still delivered the largest Cup Final audience on TNT Sports (11 telecasts) and the company’s second-largest NHL audience overall. The top spot is held by a Panthers-Bruins Game 7 in the first round of the 2023 playoffs (3.1M).
The full, six-game Panthers-Oilers Stanley Cup Final averaged 2.5 million viewers — down 40% from last year’s seven-game series between the same teams, which aired on ABC (4.2M). Compared to the previous TNT Sports Cup Final, the five-game Golden Knights-Panthers two years ago, viewership declined slightly from 2.6 million.
While viewership declined from the 2023 series, the share increased 15 percent. (As television usage declines, live sports will tend to account for a greater and greater share of the viewership pie.)
Panthers-Oilers was just the second Cup Final to air exclusively on cable in the past 31 years, joining the 2023 series. Under the NHL media rights deal that began in 2021, TNT Sports acquired exclusive rights to three Cup Final series, with the last set for 2027. All other Cup Final series in the deal air exclusively on broadcast network ABC.
All 11 Cup Final games on TNT Sports have averaged fewer than three million viewers, while all 13 on ABC have topped the three million mark. It should be noted that Cup Final games tended to perform better on cable during the previous media rights deal. Nine of 18 Cup Final games on NBCSN topped the three million mark from 2013-21.
Including a Canadian audience of 3.91 million across CBC, SportsNet and TVAS, the Cup Final averaged 6.44 million viewers — down 27% from last year’s combined seven-game average of 8.8 million. That includes a combined U.S. and Canadian audience of 7.09 million for Game 6, down 27% from last year’s 9.7 million.
The full Stanley Cup Playoffs averaged a combined 3.24 million viewers across the U.S. and Canada, including 2.155 million in Canada (which would put the U.S. audience around 1.085 million). In Canada, it was the most-watched postseason since 2011.
