The local NHL TV story was a hit this season, as regular season games on US RSN saw a 23% drop in viewers compared to last year’s shortened season, according to Nielsen’s data analyzed by my SBJ colleague David Broughton.
The main reason for such a big drop - only four teams showed an increase in ratings - is the length of the season. Due to the COVID pandemic, last year’s NHL season began in mid-January and lasted only 56 games.
This season started in October and lasted 82 games. Historically, in the MLB, NBA and NHL leagues, shorter seasons mean that individual games are more significant and give a higher rating for each game.
The analyzed data includes 23 teams based in the USA in 20 markets, covering 42% of the country. Viewership data was unavailable for the Carolina Hurricanes, the Nashville Predators and seven Canadian teams (which includes three playoff teams and the Montreal Canadiens, who had the worst record in the league).
The Penguins have returned to the top of the local ratings.getti images
Let’s start with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their games continue AT&T Pittsburgh had the highest league rating for the second season in a row, with an average score of 5.43, but still 30% below the previous season. The Penguins have published the highest league ratings nine times in the last 16 seasons.
Matches St. Louis Blues Ball Sports Midwest (4.28 average) and Buffalo Sabers games MSG (3.78) rounded out the top three positions of the season.
In Minnesota, Wild games on Balli Sports North jumped 14% largely thanks to the team’s performance on the ice which included a record 53 wins. The Wild’s 3.04 has grown by 50% in the past three seasons.
And the team with the best record in the league - the Florida Panthers - announced its highest local rating ever. Panthers games included Balli Sports Florida have risen 6% this season, although their average rating of 0.46 is still among the lowest in the NHL.
The Panthers have doubled their local TV ratings in the past 10 years, which is why the team signed a new media rights deal with Balli Sports Florida that more than doubled the fees for rights, which rose from one of the lowest in the league to about $ 6 million per season to one who is in his teens.
Boston Bruins games NESN attracted the largest audience of all NHL teams for the third season in a row with 661,000 hosts. That comes after the Bruins Games published the lowest average rating (2.8 on NESN), which fell by 33%.
The ratings of the first season of the Seattle Kraken reached 0.96 Root Sports, which suggests that the team has plenty of room to grow in that market. When the previous NHL expansion team - the Vegas Golden Knights - debuted in 2017-18, it had a score of 1.87 on AT&T Rocky Mountain.
The The Anaheim Ducks, who suffered their fourth consecutive season of defeats, had the lowest ratings in the league (0.15 at Balli Sports SoCal) for the fifth time in the last six years. And Arizona Coyotes games Arizona Balls recorded the biggest drop among all teams, almost 60%.
Views of NHL games broadcast on national television ABC, ESPN i TNT was higher by about 18% compared to the last season of the league with NBC Sports in 2020-21. The average of 460,000 spectators per game was the highest rating of the league from 2016-17.
TNTwhich made up the bulk of the league’s cable schedule this season with 51 games, had an average of 361,000 spectators, an increase of 29% over games on NBCSN in the 2020-21 season.
John Ourand can be reached at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @ Ourand_SBJ and read his weekly newsletter and listen to his weekly podcast.