It took about 5,566 more air miles than they probably would have preferred, but by securing their first Stanley Cup Final title, the Florida Panthers helped ABC bring their ratings to a comfortable cruising altitude.
According to live and same-day Nielsen data, Game 7 of the back-and-forth series between the Panthers and Edmonton Oilers averaged 7.66 million viewers on Monday night, marking the highest attendance on TV for an NHL game since the decisive period of the 2019 St. Louis Blues-Boston Bruins final. With an average draw of 8.72 million viewers, NBC five years ago claimed the most-watched NHL game since the beginning of the People Meter era (1987) and achieved the fourth-largest draw in the United States in league history.
The Panthers’ televised triumph is now the fifth most-watched Game 7 in the NHL in the last 60 years.
With their 2-1 victory at home, Florida narrowly avoided becoming the first U.S. professional sports team since the 1942 Detroit Red Wings to blow a best-of-seven championship series after taking a 3-0 lead. Instead, the Panthers outlasted Connor McDavid & Co. and earned the privilege of having their names forever engraved on the Cup. (Despite the wasted effort, McDavid became just the sixth NHL player to win the Conn Smythe postseason MVP award after losing the final.)
In Canada, where commercial breaks included an ad from Boston Pizza urging fans of the country’s other six NHL franchises to support their rivals in Edmonton, Game 7 averaged 7.55 million viewers on Sportsnet, which is owned by Rogers. The last time a Canadian team lifted the Cup was in 1993, when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings in five.
Overall, the series averaged 4.17 million viewers on ABC, marking a 59% improvement over last year’s little-watched Panthers-Vegas Golden Knights, set on the Warner Bros. cable networks. That five-game series averaged 2.63 million viewers, which marked the fourth-lowest delivery of the 21st century behind only the 2007 Ottawa Senators-Anaheim Ducks final (1.74 million) and the two pandemic-affected sets in 2020 and 2021.
For all that, this year’s single-market series ended down 9% compared to ABC’s coverage of the 2022 Tampa Bay Lightning-Colorado Avalanche final. In addition to gifting hockey fans with an incredible series, the Panthers and Oilers also helped Disney get out of a jam on the advertising side of the ledger. After the five-game NBA Finals ended, the extended NHL series helped ABC gather an estimated number of US$24.1 million in commercial revenues.
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