The NHL is once again taking a new strategy with one of its tentpole events.
The Winter Classic — which has traditionally been contested on New Year’s Day up until this season when the league opted to play on New Year’s Eve to avoid direct College Football Playoff competition — will now be played on January 2nd. The league announced Wednesday that the Florida Panthers will host the New York Rangers for next season’s edition of the game.
Of course, the announcement comes on the heels of a record-low audience for the Winter Classic. This season’s game between the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks drew just 920,000 viewers between TNT and truTV according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. That’s the first time ever, since the event began in 2008, where the audience failed to eclipse one-million viewers.
Last week’s game was also the first time that the NHL had moved off its traditional New Year’s Day date (aside from a few years where January 1st fell on a Sunday, in which case the game was played on New Year’s Day observed, January 2nd, to avoid NFL competition).
Now, in response to the record-low audience, the league is again trying something different. The Winter Classic has struggled to regain footing after moving to TNT from its old broadcast home of NBC. Since moving channels, the Winter Classic has averaged just 1.29 million viewers. During its run on NBC, the game averaged 3.39 million viewers.
2025 is certainly a much different environment for live sports on television than 2008, but losing two-thirds of your audience in that time would be concerning for almost any league.
The NHL now hopes that playing the game in Florida, rather than the more traditional winter locales of the Midwest and Northeast where the game is typically played (sans one year in Texas), will drive some interest in the fledgling event.
“Stanley Cups, strings of sellouts and the exponential growth of youth and high school hockey throughout the state have demonstrated that Florida is a hockey hotbed. Outdoor NHL games in the Sunshine State? Never let it be said that our League isn’t willing to accept a challenge,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said in the announcement.
The league will hold an additional outdoor game in Florida one month later, when the Tampa Bay Lightning will take on the Boston Bruins on February 1st.
Outdoor hockey in Florida is just crazy enough that some casuals might tune in. But it seems that the days of the Winter Classic being a must-watch event on the sports calendar are long gone.