It is still too early to tell whether the NHL will draft off of the momentum from the Olympic Games, but the early returns were promising.
NHL games averaged 603,000 viewers across the first eight telecasts on ABC, ESPN and TNT following the league’s Olympic break, up 23% from the league’s pre-Olympic average. Last season, NHL viewership rose 5% over the two months following the midseason “Four Nations Face-Off,” an increase small enough to be explained fully by Nielsen methodological changes. (A comparable figure for the first few days back was not available.)
Prior to this year, the last time the NHL sent its players to the Olympic Games was in 2014, and the last time that the Olympics ended with a matchup of the United States and Canada was in 2010. While complete averages from the 2009-10 season were not available, there was no obvious ‘Olympic bump’ following the 2010 gold medal game.
Last weekend, ABC averaged 1.09 million viewers for Bruins-Flyers — on par with Bruins-Penguins on the same weekend last year — preceded by Penguins-Rangers at 973,000. Those figures are actually down from the network’s final pre-Olympic doubleheader on January 31 (Rangers-Penguins: 1.4M; Avalanche-Red Wings: 1.2M).
In its first games back from the Olympic break, ESPN last Sunday night averaged 668,000 for Panthers-Islanders and three nights earlier drew 615,000 for Flyers-Rangers — ranking eighth and ninth for the season respectively on the ESPN cable networks (21 telecasts). Including an average of 1.2 million for games on ABC, the ESPN networks are now averaging 785,000 viewers for NHL coverage this season (27 telecasts), up 17% from last year.
TNT Sports averaged 428,000 for Lightning-Maple Leafs and 221,000 for Golden Knights-Kings in its first post-Olympic doubleheader February 25, followed by 470,000 for Golden Knights-Penguins this past Sunday. For the season, TNT Sports is averaging 353,000 viewers, up 6% from last year.
Figures for Tuesday’s Panthers-Devils game, pitting U.S. Olympians Matthew Tkachuk and Jack Hughes, were not immediately available.
