U.S. Stanley Cup Final Viewership Cause for Concern?

The 2025 Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Emonton Oilers has been a treat for hockey fans everywhere, with three of five games going to overtime in a gritty, hate-filled series.

A series as good of this deserves a massive audience, but as it often is, the reality is far more disappointing.

According to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, the viewership numbers in the U.S. have been quite underwhelming - with Game 1 averaging 2.4 million viewers, Game 2 averaging 2.5 million, Game 3 averaging 2.3 million and Game 4 averaging 2.6 million across TNT and TruTV. Game 1 was the least-viewed opener to a Cup Final since 2008, excluding the two COVID-altered finals in 2020 and 2021.

Those numbers represent a 25 percent decrease from last year, where each of the first four games averaged well over 3 million viewers on ABC.

In fact, the network may be the main culprit for the low ratings. TNT, a cable channel, also struggled with low ratings for the 2023 Stanley Cup Final while ABC, a broadcast channel, has consistently pulled in stronger ratings in 2022 and 2024. NBC, another broadcast channel that exclusively held national broadcasting rights before new media rights deal began in 2021-22, also saw stronger ratings in the Cup Final.

Former NBA executive Ed Desser - who now runs his own consultancy, Desser Sports Media - pointed to the difference in reach between cable and broadcast channels as a reason for the ratings decline, particularly among casual fans.

“This is an issue that every sport is contending with, and you only get an opportunity to do course corrections every decade or so in a very fast-moving industry,” Desser told The Athletic. “Has there been a fall off (in cable) faster than most people anticipated? Yes. On the other hand, the pay TV business is still where the lion’s share of the revenue is coming from.

"The NHL, just like other leagues, is always looking to try and find a balance between revenue and exposure. An additional kind of twist to this is how they’re able to develop HBO Max. That’s a part of the equation that wasn’t really there early on in the deal. In some ways that becomes the solve for the decline in distribution via cable. But it may not be quite equivalent anytime soon.”

It also doesn't help that there's only one American team in the Cup Final once again, and one that plays in a relatively small market at that. However, that also leads to better ratings in Canada, where 4.5 million viewers tuned in for Game 1 and 4.8 million for Game 2. Canada has a lower population than the U.S. by roughly 300 million, but is still drawing nearly double the viewership per game.

Maybe the ratings will improve for Game 6 and a potential Game 7, but with how great this series has been so far, it's disappointing to see so few people tuning in south of the border.