Stanley Cup Final had record-low viewership for Golden Knights-Panthers series

The ratings for Stanley Cup Final between the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers were some of the lowest the NHL has seen in some time.

The Golden Knights captured the organization’s first-ever Stanley Cup on Tuesday night with 2.72 million viewers between TNT (2.47M) and TruTV (253,000) tuning in for the historic moment, marking the lowest viewership for a Game 5 in 29 years. 

The Stanley Cup Final — shown only on cable channels with no over-the-air component — averaged 2.6 million viewers through the five-game series across TNT, TBS and truTV, which was down 43 percent from last year’s Colorado Avalanche-Tampa Bay Lighting series that drew an average of 4.6 million viewers on ESPN and ABC. 

The 2.72 million that watched Game 5 were the fewest since the 1994 Stanley Cup Final between the Rangers and Vancouver Canucks, which aired exclusively on ESPN and was the last time the NHL’s championship series aired on cable only. 

It also marked the least-viewed cup-clinching game in the past 30 years, falling below the previous mark of 2.90 million in 2007 when the Anaheim Ducks beat the Ottawa Senators in Game 5. 

Series viewership did surpass both in 2020 and 2021 iterations of the Stanley Cup Final, which were played out of season due to COVID, but other than those two years, the overall ratings were the lowest since the 2007 Cup (1.8 million).

Still, that doesn’t tell the whole story for the NHL, which has historically been a league where matchups have a significant link to national TV ratings.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs finished with an average of 1.23 million viewers, a decline from last year, but still finished as the most watched playoffs on cable for the NHL, according to Sports Media Watch. 

And before the Cup Final began, postseason games in 2023 had averaged 1.14 million, which marked a five-year high. 

Under the NHL’s national broadcast deals with ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, the two networks will alternate which carries the Stanley Cup Final.