The NHL’s viewership struggles are continuing into 2025.
After the league got off to a poor start to the season, seeing a steep 39% year-over-year decline in Opening Night viewership, then drawing a record-low audience for the Winter Classic a few months later, the NHL is putting up some truly dreadful numbers as it enters the doldrums of its regular season.
According to Braylon Breeze of Sports Media Watch, last Thursday’s game between the San Jose Sharks and Seattle Kraken averaged just 175,000 viewers on ESPN — the least-watched NHL game of the year for the network and the lowest-viewed program on ESPN for the entire day.
The game, which began at 10:30 p.m. ET — already not a prime television viewing window — was outdrawn by its lead-in, an Iowa State-Kansas State women’s basketball game, more than 2-to-1. The Cyclones and Wildcats averaged 390,000 viewers, per Programming Insider.
Thursday’s Sharks-Kraken contest on ESPN averaged just 175,000 viewers, the lowest-viewed NHL on ESPN game for this season to date.
The game received a small lead-in, for ESPN standards, which was a women’s college basketball game between Tennessee-Texas (390K).
Sharks-Kraken…
— Braylon Breeze (@Braylon_Breeze) February 3, 2025
Wednesday’s viewership didn’t look much better. A Philadelphia Flyers-New Jersey Devils game on TNT and truTV averaged 253,000 viewers, which was actually a 59% increase versus last year’s comparable window (though that game was non-exclusive, meaning fans could watch their normal local broadcasts). Later that night, TNT and truTV averaged a paltry 138,000 viewers for a Pittsburgh Penguins-Utah Hockey Club game, which itself was a non-exclusive broadcast.
Needless to say, these figures do not look good for the NHL no matter how you slice them. ESPN has regularly been drawing nearly a million viewers recently for a brand new property like TGL. Even Thursday’s East-West Shrine Bowl on NFL Network (a 25-0 thumping) outdrew the NHL on ESPN by about 10,000 viewers.
If there’s a silver lining for the NHL, it’s viewership on ABC. According to Breeze, ABC’s Saturday game between the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins drew a season-high 1.1 million viewers on the network. The NHL’s few broadcast windows this season have generally performed well.
ABC Hockey Saturday Viewership:
Blackhawks-Panthers averaged 723,000 viewers in the opening window, while the Rangers-Bruins drew a season-high 1.1 million viewers in the later window. There was no comparison to last year.
ABC’s season average stands at 888,000 viewers, with…
— Braylon Breeze (@Braylon_Breeze) February 4, 2025
Of course, leagues like the NHL, NBA, and MLB are largely judged by their postseason success, not what regular season viewership looks like. It’s difficult to generate national interest during regular seasons with 80+ games. But given where hockey viewership is trending at the moment, postseason success is looking less and less likely for the NHL this year.