NHL Drawing Larger TV Audiences Thanks to ESPN, TNT Deals

This season, the NHL will cross the halfway point of its seven-year, $4.37 billion media-rights deals with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, which have led to strong U.S. viewership gains for the league.

After leaving NBC Sports following the 2020–2021 season, game broadcasts on ABC, ESPN, and TNT have been drawing larger audiences for the last three years. Here are the per-game viewership averages (which include digital viewing) for the NHL’s last four regular seasons:

• 2020–2021: 391,000
• 2021–2022: 448,000
• 2022–2023: 468,000
• 2023–2024: 504,000

Last season’s figure, which was up roughly 8% over 2022–2023, was the NHL’s best since 2015–2016 (505,000 average on NBC Sports channels). Next week, ESPN will drop the puck on a new season with a tripleheader Tuesday, and TNT will have a doubleheader Wednesday.

Playoff Viewership Surging, Too

The NHL has been drawing strong TV numbers in the postseason, too. The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs were the second-most-watched on record, averaging 1.54 million viewers per game. 

However, despite the Stanley Cup Final going seven games, viewership of the Panthers-Oilers series on ABC, a 4.2 million average, was slightly down from the broadcast network’s previous Stanley Cup Final—the six-game Avalanche-Lightning series in 2022 averaged 4.6 million viewers. It should be noted U.S. viewership is typically lower when a team from a Canadian media market plays.