NHL
Report: Penguins Ratings Best in NHL, but DOWN 30%
The Sports Business Journal released the season’s NHL TV ratings, and it’s a mix of good and bad news for both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the league.
The Penguins again had the highest ratings in the NHL and the third-largest audience in raw numbers behind Boston and New York. However, the Penguins’ ratings and the rest of the league’s TV viewership nosedived. The Penguins’ top-rated broadcasts were down 30%.
The apparent reasons for the drop were the full-length season compared to the 56-game sprint of 2020-21. Games in a short season mean more. The shortened season also featured division opponents exclusively.
Here’s the full report from Sports Business Journal.
The Pittsburgh Penguins games averaged a league-best 5.43 rating, and the dropoff to second and third was significant. The St. Louis Blues had the second-highest ratings at 4.28, and Buffalo was third at 3.78.
NHL TV Ratings:
And in the glass half-full, heart half broken category, the Florida Panthers TV ratings soared to the highest level ever. After more than 25 years in the NHL, the Florida TV ratings hit .46. That number has doubled in 10 years.
The expansion Seattle Kraken didn’t perform well, either. The Seattle market reached an average .96 rating. Anaheim had the worst TV ratings in the league at just .15.
Some good news for the NHL: the nationally televised games had a significant increase over the final season at NBCsn. ESPN, TNT, and ABC were up 18%, and the TNT broadcasts were up 29% over NBCsn.
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Be curious to see what happens with the ratings if Malkin/Letang/Rust go.
Dish and Direct tv dropping att sports and 4 games on ESPN +
didn’t help ratings!
I was just going to say anyone with Dish can’t watch ATT SportsNet! I didn’t know DirectTv did too!
I have direct TV and ATT
ESPN doing the games did not help.
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Lifelong born and bred Penguins fan but now live in Pac NW. Looked forward to watching some Kraken games this season (especially against Pens) but they were mostly blacked out for me when I wanted to watch and see how McCann and Tanev were doing in particular. I don’t even live in WA–guess I’m expected to drive 8 hours over the Cascades in a snow storm in order to watch a game live. Same for Vegas when they came into league (and at that time I lived an hour from Canadian border!!!). How do you build a fan club and… Read more »
Wow impressive FLA .46! Hockey hotbed!