TV ratings in the NHL’s regular season were down 12% compared to the 2023–2024 season. Early returns from the Stanley Cup playoffs are not providing optimism about reversing that trend.

Through Monday’s games, postseason broadcasts were averaging 718,000 viewers, which is down 27% from last year.

With a stronger presence of Canadian teams in the playoffs, it was expected that U.S. viewership might struggle. 

In Canada, though, the TV ratings appear to be doing better. Game 1 of the Canadiens-Capitals series averaged 1.68 million viewers on the French-language TVA Sports. When looking at Canada’s French-speaking population of around 11 million, that would be considered close to NFL conference championship-level reach in the U.S.

Report Card

In the fourth season of the NHL’s seven-year, $4.5 billion U.S. media-rights deals with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, games across ABC, ESPN, TNT, and truTV averaged 445,000 viewers per broadcast, a noticeable dip from the average of 504,000 per game last season. ESPN+ and Hulu also had some exclusive national streams, but viewership figures for those games don’t get released to the public.

It’s the first time under the current media-rights deals that season-long viewership has declined, and also the lowest combined average figures on ESPN and TNT Sports platforms. However, the 445,000 average game number is still above the 391,000 NBC Sports drew in the COVID-19-impacted 2020–2021 season, the broadcaster’s final one with NHL rights.

While the regular-season numbers are down, there is a big caveat when grading the NHL’s TV ratings this year. The debut of the 4 Nations Face-Off was an enormous hit across multiple metrics, including TV. ESPN averaged 9.3 million viewers for the U.S.-Canada final of the seven-game tournament, which is the most-watched NHL game ever in the U.S.

The blockbuster Disney-Fubo deal reached earlier this year is now being formally reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice for potential antitrust issues, according to sources and multiple reports. 

The ESPN parent company agreed in January to acquire a controlling interest in Fubo and merge it with its own Hulu + Live TV streaming service. The pact, which included a $220 million payment by Disney to FuboTV and a $145 million loan scheduled for next year, helped resolve legal claims stemming from the introduction of the now-shuttered Venu Sports, the joint streaming service previously contemplated by ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Three months later, however, potential anti-competition issues, particularly around sports streaming, are again surrounding Disney. 

Even before the latest inquiry, however, several lawmakers viewed the proposed transaction suspiciously. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), in particular, urged the DOJ to probe the deal. The agreement, if it goes through, would create a service with more than 6.2 million North American subscribers and the second-largest streaming-based television provider on the continent behind YouTube TV. 

“Disney’s proposed acquisition of Fubo appears to allow Disney to simultaneously circumvent the lawsuit while gobbling up a competitor,” Warren wrote the department in February. “This proposed acquisition raises significant concerns under antitrust law, would give Disney increased market power and incentives to increase costs for viewers, and should be regarded as another data point in Disney’s history of anticompetitive behavior.”

Puck initially reported the pending DOJ action. None of the principals involved have commented, but Fubo is due to make its next quarterly earnings report on May 2, and Disney will do so on May 7. 

On the eve of the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay, final preparations are wrapping up for one of the most unique editions of the traveling event yet.

With a population of roughly 105,000, the league’s smallest market is set to welcome more than double that this week, with around 250,000 fans expected to attend the draft in person from Thursday to Saturday. That’s a stark contrast to previous editions of the draft, which have typically visited larger metropolitan areas with much bigger footprints.

A 250,000-square-foot stage—the NFL Draft Theater—has been constructed around the east and northeast sides of the iconic Lambeau Field, which will be featured prominently in the background of crowd shots on TV and social media.

To Lambeau Field’s western side sits the 800,000-square-foot NFL Draft Experience that annually travels to the league’s biggest offseason event, offering fans a plethora of activities and food and beverage options. The campus extends into Green Bay’s Titletown entertainment district, which opened in 2017.

Players and VIPs attending the draft will walk the red carpet inside Lambeau Field on Thursday afternoon. Fans can watch the draft from inside the stadium on its giant scoreboards.

Showtime

The NFL named the Packers and Green Bay as the hosts of the 2025 draft nearly two years ago, in May 2023.

It was always known that the small Wisconsin town wouldn’t be able to attract record-breaking crowds—this year’s projected total is about a third of last year’s high-mark numbers in Detroit. But 250,000 fans would still be tied for fifth among draft crowds since the NFL started taking it on the road in 2015.

• Detroit (2024): 775,000 
• Nashville (2019): 600,000
• Kansas City (2023): 312,000
• Las Vegas (2022): 300,000
• Philadelphia (2017): 250,000
• Chicago (2016): 225,000
• Dallas (2018): 200,000
• Chicago (2015): 200,000
• Cleveland (2021): 160,000
• Virtual (2020): N/A

As draft week approached, the average hotel price for remaining vacancies in the area was around $630 for Thursday night, and roughly $475 per night for stays throughout the entire weekend, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Roku is attempting to resolve the increasing fragmentation of live sports content—a situation that has quickly become one of the most troublesome issues for fans. 

The streaming company introduced a series of new software and hardware products Wednesday, in part designed to get viewers efficiently to the games of their choice, regardless of which networks are showing them.

Among the efforts are an expansion of its existing league-oriented sports zones that help direct fans to specific games, as well as newly introduced mobile notifications that will be personalized based on the team preferences of individual fans and also include tune-in information. The sports zones will additionally become available this year in Mexico for the first time, further accelerating Roku’s global presence. 

The company also rolled out a new line of more compact and efficient streaming sticks with simpler setup functions.

“As more viewers turn to streaming to keep up with their favorite teams, the experience can often feel fragmented and frustrating. … So we are laser-focused on continuing to solve pain points for our sports fans,” said Roku senior director of product management Neala Gollomp.

The scale of Roku’s efforts is already significant, as the company is in more than 90 million U.S. households, representing more than half of those in the country with broadband internet access. 

“When I think about what we do for the viewer and the advertiser, and what we call the streamer’s journey, our job is to help you find your game, wherever it is, in a delightful way and provide the path there,” Roku president of media Charlie Collier told Front Office Sports. “If you are an NFL fan, for example, and you’re not in the business, you have to find your team across Thursday night, Sunday day, Sunday night, and Monday night. So you need a curator and a path to get your fandom.”

Exclusive Rights

Roku, meanwhile, is taking a more cautious approach to acquiring exclusive sports rights, instead leaning more into that curation-based strategy. The company is about to start the second season of its early Sunday rights deal with Major League Baseball, beginning May 11 with a Cubs-Mets game. There is no interest, however, in buying additional MLB rights, particularly those being abandoned by ESPN after this season. 

“We’re not bidding on the ESPN package,” Collier said. “We like the relationship we have with Major League Baseball, we love the package we have, and we’re committed to building Major League Baseball, whether it’s on ESPN or anywhere else it falls across the apps. We root for every app and every show ever made.”