Report Unveils Disturbing Decline in NHL Viewership as WNBA Overtakes Numbers
Photo credit: NHL
It has been officially announced that the WNBA Playoffs have more viewers this year than the NHL, which has seen a concerning decline in viewership.
The NHL experienced a "sharp decline" in viewership at the beginning of the season, with its major games trailing far behind the likes of the MLB and... the WNBA, according to a report by Drew Lerner of the sports broadcasting blog "Awful Announcing."
Just 559,000 people watched the NHL's opening night three-game slate on average, which is 39% fewer than the opening night of the 2023 season.
In an interesting programming decision, two teams situated west of the Mississippi River opened the season while it was still afternoon on the East Coast. The St. Louis Blues and Seattle Kraken opened the action during the late afternoon window, averaging 348,000 viewers, down 42% from last season's Nashville Predators-Tampa Bay Lightning game (598,000 viewers).
Game two of the tripleheader was the top hockey audience of the night, as the Boston Bruins and defending champions Florida Panthers averaged 790,000 viewers. The game was down 45 percent from last season's Chicago Blackhawks-Pittsburgh Penguins game that averaged 1.43 million viewers and included Bedard's debut.
The NHL closed out the night featuring its new franchise, the Utah Hockey Club, up against the Blackhawks. The game averaged 522,000 viewers, down 24 percent from the Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights nightcap last season (691,000 viewers).
As many have pointed out, all three NHL games were beaten out by Game 5 of the Minnesota Lynx-Connecticut Sun WNBA semifinal series over on ESPN2, which averaged 984,000 viewers, and continued a strong postseason for that league.
- Drew Lerner
Game two of the tripleheader was the top hockey audience of the night, as the Boston Bruins and defending champions Florida Panthers averaged 790,000 viewers. The game was down 45 percent from last season's Chicago Blackhawks-Pittsburgh Penguins game that averaged 1.43 million viewers and included Bedard's debut.
The NHL closed out the night featuring its new franchise, the Utah Hockey Club, up against the Blackhawks. The game averaged 522,000 viewers, down 24 percent from the Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights nightcap last season (691,000 viewers).
As many have pointed out, all three NHL games were beaten out by Game 5 of the Minnesota Lynx-Connecticut Sun WNBA semifinal series over on ESPN2, which averaged 984,000 viewers, and continued a strong postseason for that league.
- Drew Lerner
Losing viewers to the allure of postseason baseball is one thing, but losing to the WNBA, a league that has never been more popular, is quite another. A more youthful and diverse audience is looking elsewhere for their sports fix, indicating a new slipping landscape in sports entertainment.
It's obviously not the NHL's ideal start to the season. The market for all of the major professional sports, including the NHL, is getting older. The NHL's core audience is just not interested enough to seek out content like younger generations are, and keeping up with all the ways to subscribe, stream, or even pirate NHL games is a confusing mess.
It's amazing to see women's sports at this level, as it may increase interest in the PWHL's second season. However, the NHL should be concerned, as Gary Bettman has suggested that streaming services could be the league's future. In any case, this is undoubtedly bad news for the NHL, but with so many ways to watch games, it's difficult to overlook the fact that the league is making it nearly impossible for fans to do so, which may be a significant contributing factor to the decline.
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