Stanley Cup Playoffs TV ratings strong through conference quarterfinals in 2017
Despite the presence of five Canadian teams which don’t count toward United States television ratings and an uncharacteristic early exit for the NHL’s most powerful brand, the TV numbers for the 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs look good through the first round.
It appears that U.S. fans love playoff hockey regardless of which teams are engaged, and merely having the Chicago Blackhawks participate in a minimum number of games is all that is necessary for strong Stanley Cup Playoffs TV ratings.
The four-game series between the Nashville Predators and Blackhawks produced three of the top five Stanley Cup Playoff broadcasts by viewership ever, according to Sports Media Watch.
In similar fashion, the series between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitals represented an increase on last year’s comparable series in all six games. That series produced four of the top six postseason hockey broadcasts this year by viewership.
Individual games spread throughout other series also represented significant increases on 2016. Game 4 of the series between the St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild was up 88 percent in viewership from similar programming (Dallas Stars vs. Wild Game 4) in 2016. Montreal Canadiens vs. New York Rangers Game 5 produced a 20 percent increase from Detroit Red Wings vs. Tampa Bay Lightning Game 5 last season.
The most remarkable things about these increases are that Canadian viewers are not counted in the totals, and many of the strongest performances from this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs conference quarterfinals series were on cable as opposed to broadcast television.
If factored in, the audiences for each series that involved a Canadian team would obviously increase. It’s not difficult to speculate that hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians watched the Maple Leafs push the Capitals to six games, for example.
Traditionally, broadcast numbers are stronger for sports than cable. It’s simply because of greater access and in the age of cord-cutting, the importance of differentiating between broadcast and cable numbers has perhaps never been more important.
While Saturday’s Canadiens-Rangers Game 6, which was broadcast on NBC, did deliver a 0.7 rating and over two million viewers for the broadcast win, broadcast numbers have generally declined as in comparison to the last two seasons. Cable viewership for these series, however, was up 15 percent.
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With two Canadian teams still skating, the Blackhawks eliminated and more broadcast games on the slate in the conference semifinals, these trends bear watching. If the general upticks in viewership continue, it’s great news for the NHL.