As the puck drops on the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, the league is enjoying its hottest ratings streak in eight years, as Disney and TNT Sports both put up their biggest in-game deliveries of the current media-rights cycle.
According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, the 2023-24 regular season averaged 504,000 viewers per game across ABC, ESPN and TNT, good for an 8% lift versus the year-ago period. This marked the highest TV turnout for the NHL since 2015-16, when national coverage was shared by the NBC broadcast flagship and the now-defunct cable channel NBCSN.
ESPN accounted for the lion’s share of the NHL’s growth, averaging 486,000 viewers per game, good for a 25% boost versus last season’s deliveries. Bristol also improved its performance in the dollar demo by 20%, with an average draw of 211,000 adults 18-49 per telecast.
Across the board, the Disney nets averaged a somewhat infernal 666,000 viewers per game, good for a 13% lift. As expected, the broadcast flagship ABC earned bragging rights for the most-watched NHL game of the regular season, as the Feb. 18 Rangers-Islanders Stadium Series game averaged 1.57 million viewers, good for a 38% boost. The Rangers prevailed in overtime in front of 79,690 fans at MetLife Stadium.
The Broadway Blueshirts’ OT win also marked the most-watched regular-season NHL outing since Disney inked its seven-year, $2.8 billion pact with the league in 2021. In the local market, Rangers-Isles averaged 559,000 viewers, making it the most-viewed regular season NHL telecast in the New York DMA in 10 years.
For its part, TNT’s Wednesday night NHL games were up 16%. Together, ESPN and TNT combined to give the league its highest-rated suite of regular-season cable telecasts in 30 years.
All told, the NHL’s three TV partners generated an estimated $67.5 million in in-game ad revenue on the season, as official league backers Honda, Geico and Verizon led a roster of blue chippers that also included the likes of Progressive, AT&T and Taco Bell. Ad spend was up 27% compared to the previous season.
The enthusiasm on the TV side was in keeping with the NHL’s on-site turnout, as the league set an all-time record for attendance. More than 22.9 million fans spun the turnstiles in 2023-24, as arenas were working at 97% capacity. Among the 15 clubs that operated at 100% capacity—or better—were Minnesota (104%), Vegas (104%), Nashville (101%), Carolina (101%), Colorado (101%), Boston, Dallas, Seattle, Tampa, Montreal and the Rangers.
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