Gary Bettman dismisses Stanley Cup ratings concerns

Predictions that this year’s Stanley Cup Final might not be the ratings juggernaut the NHL would hope for aren’t far off base. The series is a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup Final, featuring the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers, which means, for a second consecutive year, there will only be one American media market with skin in the game.

The emergence of Canadian teams in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs has already proven detrimental from a viewership perspective so far, with both TNT Sports and ESPN experiencing declines of approximately 20-30%, partly due to the lack of American teams.

But perhaps even more important for this year’s Stanley Cup Final is that the series is airing on TNT, a cable channel, rather than ABC, a broadcast network. Under the NHL’s current media rights agreements, ABC and TNT alternate years in which they air the Stanley Cup Final, and viewership takes a predictable hit in years the series is broadcast by TNT.

Here are the last three Stanley Cup Finals by viewership, dating back to the first year of the new media rights agreements, per Sports Business Journal:

• 2024: Panthers-Oilers on ABC, 4.17 million viewers per game
• 2023: Golden Knights-Panthers on TNT, 2.64 million viewers per game
• 2022: Avalanche-Lightning on ABC, 4.62 million viewers per game

Of course, this is what the league signed up for when agreeing to its deal with TNT. And as such, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman doesn’t seem too phased by what is likely to be a pretty substantial ratings drop for this series.

“You get some in the media in the U.S. saying, ‘Well, the ratings are going to be soft in the U.S.’ They’re going to be great in Canada, they’ll be fine in the U.S,” Bettman said on NHL Network Radio, as transcribed by SBJ.

So far, Bettman’s assertions are spot on. Despite declines of well over 10% stateside, Canadian viewership has more than made up for the drop-off. Per the league, combined North American viewership this year is on par with last season. As long as that trend continues throughout the Stanley Cup Finals, the NHL will have nothing to worry about, aside from the expected drop in audience from broadcast to cable.