Television ratings discussion around the NFL, the NBA, MLB, and the NHL is usually focused on the United States, and there’s some logic to that. All of those leagues are headquartered in the U.S., all NFL teams are based there, and all but one NBA and MLB team are based there. But the ratings discussion often takes some turns when Canadian teams are involved.
This is seen in MLB and the NBA when their Canadian teams (the Toronto Blue Jays and Toronto Raptors, respectively) are in the postseason. And the twists get bigger still in the NHL when one of the seven current Canadian teams (of 32 teams overall) is involved. The recently-concluded Stanley Cup Final, which saw the Florida Panthers finish off the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 Monday , provided some interesting data points to feed into the overall conversation about Canadian teams on U.S. TV in the NHL and beyond. Here’s a look at some of the claims regularly heard in that discussion and what this series says about them:
Claim: Canadian teams are always disastrous for U.S. ratings
Rating: Mostly false
This is a difficult one to fully evaluate, as there are many interconnected variables in any comparison here. Those include (but aren’t limited to) the length of the series, the network it aired on, the specific teams involved, and other sports and non-sports TV competition. But the overall takeaway from this series is that series length (and the story that played out around that, with the Panthers winning the first three games, then the Oilers almost pulling off the first Cup Final comeback from a 3-0 deficit since 1942) and network seem to matter much more than the markets involved.
Looking at only the U.S. ratings on ABC/ESPN+, this series was consistently well ahead game-by-game compared to last year’s five-game Panthers-Vegas Golden Knights series on Warner Bros. Discovery cable networks TNT, TBS (games 1-4 only), and truTV. Through those first five games, its game-by-game averages produced 4.203 million more viewers (17.372 million overall). So a broadcast TV series featuring a Canadian team was much stronger than a cable-only series with two U.S. teams.
What if we take the cable factor out? This series was down game-by-game from the ABC/ESPN+ broadcast of the Colorado Avalanche’s six-game win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2022, with game-by-game averages through the first six games producing 6.089 million fewer viewers through the first six games. It only edged 2022’s 27.611 million total average viewers thanks to drawing 7.66 million for Game 7 (hitting 29.182 million overall). And its 4.165 million viewer average overall was below that series’ 4.602 million, even with this one going seven.
Thus, the Tampa Bay-Colorado series was certainly a better overall performer for U.S. TV on a game-by-game basis. And some of that may be about having two teams with local U.S. markets to count; the big problem with a Canadian team’s involvement, which has come up in all these conversations, is that their local market isn’t included in U.S. viewing. However, the dropoff from 2022 to 2024 certainly isn’t awful or disastrous for ABC and ESPN.
It’s worth keeping in mind that 2022 was a shift from what had come before as well. The numbers here were much stronger than what NBC drew for 2020 and 2021 (12.023 million and 12.026 million total average viewers). However, those years had their own strangeness; 2020 (Tampa Bay over the Dallas Stars in six games) took place in a bubble environment due to COVID-19, while 2021 (Tampa Bay over the Montreal Canadiens in five games) also featured a Canadian team. And both of those years saw two games only on NBCSN.
We can find some additional comparisons by going back further. 2018 (the Washington Capitals over the Golden Knights in five games) and 2019 (the St. Louis Blues over the Boston Bruins in seven games) are reasonable comparisons when not looking at the two cable-only games in those series (games 2 and 3 in both). And those series’ broadcast games were much stronger than the ones this year, and they averaged higher numbers (4.786 million and 5.333 million respectively) than this series even with the low-drawing games on cable. But they also beat the 2022 all-broadcast series average, albeit by less. So there may be somewhat of a downward trend in U.S. NHL viewership overall from 2019 impacting the numbers here, which wouldn’t be specifically about the inclusion of a Canadian team.
The general summation of all that? A Canadian market in the Stanley Cup Final is likely not ideal for U.S. TV numbers. However, the drop-off there from an all-American market series looks to be a smaller factor than if a series runs shorter or is largely or entirely carried on cable. (And, from a financial side for networks, the series length is by far the most important thing; ESPN and ABC cashed in big-time with this Game 7.)
Thus, while a Canadian team probably isn’t who the U.S. networks would prefer to see, and probably will draw lower U.S. ratings than a U.S. one if everything else is held equal, that’s not the biggest thing for anyone to worry about. This is similar to what we’ve seen with Canadian teams making runs in the NBA and MLB playoffs. And for the NHL overall, this seems just fine (and potentially quite good), as our next point will discuss.
Claim: Any Canadian team is a huge boost for Canadian ratings
Rating: Mostly true
With the NFL, the NBA, and MLB, Canadian ratings are worth discussing, but they’re far less significant to those leagues than they are to the NHL. The league used to be making more annually from its Canadian TV deal with Rogers (around $290 million U.S. a year) than its American one with NBC ($200 million a year). And while it’s now making more from ESPN and WBD ($625 million a year combined ), that balance could shift again when those Canadian rights come up (after the 2025-26 season).
Given that, how well the playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final draw in Canada absolutely matters to the NHL. And that makes notes like those on how several games of this series drew massive North American viewership quite significant. While all-U.S. series still do well for Canadian broadcasters (and have been described as still profitable by Rogers executives), ones with Canadian teams draw much better and matter quite a bit .
And the numbers for this Game 7 in particular are huge for Rogers. They drew an average of 7.55 million English-language viewers across cable channel Sportsnet and broadcast networks CBC and CityTV, with a total reach of 15 million. Those numbers marked 19.3 and 38.4 percent of the total Canadian population of 39.1 million respectively. And this was Sportsnet’s most-watched broadcast ever, and Rogers’ overall playoff numbers were up 128 percent year over year, helped significantly by the Oilers’ run.
That’s a big windfall for the company, and comes at an important time ahead of those Canadian rights coming up for renewal or bid (which could see competitor and previous national NHL rightsholder TSN make a run at them again). This is also similar to what we’ve seen with Canadian teams’ runs in the NBA or MLB playoffs.
And it’s notable that this happened with the Oilers. Yes, there’s a proud history and a notable fandom there. But this is Canada’s fifth-largest city, and a team that’s more recent than the likes of the Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens. So it’s significant to see these kinds of landmark numbers for this team.
Claim: U.S. networks need to show Canadian teams more during the regular season
Rating: Inconclusive
While the NHL’s U.S. ratings usually aren’t on par with those from the NFL, the NBA, or MLB, it has long had some of the most interesting discussions about how it is and isn’t covered on U.S. TV. Those have included claims from ESPN executives that it “ didn’t transfer to a national conversation ” (which was defending their lack of coverage while they didn’t have rights), other claims (before they got rights) on how much they loved hockey inside Bristol , and then many discussions about how their morning shows don’t usually cover the sport (and how odd it can be when they try to ). But beyond that, there’s the larger question of if regular-season coverage should emphasize the most popular teams or try to show all teams, especially those with big stars. And the Oilers are maybe the most interesting possible case in point there.
That team represents the rare combination of likely the sport’s the biggest star playing in one of the markets least desired by U.S. television. That star would be Edmonton captain Connor McDavid, who became just the sixth player (and the first since Jean-Sébastien Giguère in 2003, and just the second non-goalie overall, after Reggie Leach in 1975) to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the NHL’s playoffs MVP despite losing the Stanley Cup Final.
McDavid led all players with 42 postseason points and 34 assists (teammate Evan Bouchard was second with 32 and 26 respectively), and was third in the league with 132 regular-season points. He’s won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s top point-getter five times, including last year, and also won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy last year as the league’s top goal-scorer. He’s won three Hart Trophies as regular-season MVP, and is a finalist again this year . And he also sparked media dialogue thanks to Greg Cote’s “ McOverrated ” label and Dan Le Batard’s attempted billboard trolling .
But McDavid plays in the fifth-largest city in Canada , and one in Mountain Time. That in and of itself is far from a ratings bonanza. Thus, the Oilers were only featured three times on ESPN or ABC linear broadcasts this season (two on ESPN, one on ABC), although they did get a lot of ESPN+/Hulu-exclusive games. Some of those games drew well , but there wasn’t necessarily anything conclusive there to illustrate “The Oilers are undercovered!,” especially given that the team made a second-round playoff exit last season.
As with some of these earlier discussions, the amount of linked variables in any regular-season game ratings and in scheduling make it hard to draw definitive conclusions. It can’t be proven that this final would have drawn significantly better if McDavid and the Oilers had been seen on U.S. TV more this regular season. But there is an interesting debate to be had about if national U.S. NHL broadcasters should emphasize markets or stars more, and that’s been going on for decades. And it will be worth keeping an eye on how ESPN and WBD approach the Oilers for this coming regular season, now that they’ve made a Stanley Cup Final run and are perhaps more on the U.S. radar. If they do get more national TV games, it will be quite interesting indeed to see how those draw.
The post What do 2024 Stanley Cup Final ratings say about NHL’s Canadian teams? appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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