{"id":589119,"date":"2026-06-02T05:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/589119\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T05:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:27:15","slug":"nhl-viewership-maintains-post-olympic-glow-through-conference-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/589119\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL viewership maintains post-Olympic glow through conference finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL is maintaining its strong viewership pace heading into the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n<p>Viewership for each of the league\u2019s conference finals saw near-50% increases on both NHL broadcast partners. ESPN\u2019s coverage of the Western Conference Finals, a Vegas Golden Knights sweep over the Colorado Avalanche, <a href=\"https:\/\/espnpressroom.com\/us\/press-releases\/2026\/06\/espn-scores-most-viewed-stanley-cup-playoffs-western-conference-final-since-2015-the-latest-viewership-successes-headed-into-the-stanley-cup-final\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">averaged 2.2 million viewers<\/a>, up 44% versus last year\u2019s Western Conference Finals on ESPN (Oilers-Stars), which went five games. Meanwhile, the Eastern Conference Finals between the Carolina Hurricanes and Montreal Canadiens on TNT Sports averaged 2 million viewers through its first four games, up 49% versus last year\u2019s Eastern Conference Finals (Panthers-Hurricanes). Viewership data for Friday\u2019s Game 5, which sent the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup Final, is not yet available.<\/p>\n<p>Still, viewership for this year\u2019s postseason has followed a remarkable trend. According to the league, <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nhl\/huge-viewership-increase-first-round.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first-round viewership increased by 68% year-over-year<\/a>, averaging 1.2 million viewers per game, while second-round viewership shot up by 55% versus last year, averaging 1.9 million viewers per game.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s reason to believe this year\u2019s Knights-Hurricanes Stanley Cup Final will be a ratings winner as well. For one, the Cup Final is back on broadcast television this year as the rotation flips back from TNT to ABC. Throughout the course of the NHL\u2019s current media rights deals, Stanley Cup Finals on ABC have performed much better than those on TNT, which require a pay-TV subscription. Last year\u2019s Stanley Cup Final, for instance, averaged just 2.5 million viewers on TNT, down 40% from 2024 on ABC.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s matchup is also the first to feature two non-Canadian teams since 2023, which will provide an additional home market for ABC to lean on. (Canadian viewership is not included in Nielsen\u2019s measurements.)<\/p>\n<p>The NHL\u2019s renaissance comes in the afterglow of the United States\u2019 gold medal campaign in February\u2019s Winter Olympics. Interest in the league\u2019s television product has skyrocketed in the months since and shows no signs of slowing down.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s Stanley Cup Final doesn\u2019t feature the two sexiest teams or the two biggest markets, but it would be surprising to see anything other than a continuation of the post-Olympic trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL is maintaining its strong viewership pace heading into the Stanley Cup Final. Viewership for each of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,5,4,4459,2722,1828,16413,4302,39],"class_list":["post-589119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-on-abc","tag-nhl-on-espn","tag-nhl-on-tnt","tag-nhl-viewership","tag-stanley-cup-final","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116678862070167341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}