We are about to embark on an interesting content experiment: Can Connor McDavid captivate American audiences?
If it were just about skill, the question would be a silly one. There are NHL stars, but McDavid, with his incredible skating, Gretzky-like vision and goal-scoring grit, is like a sports video game character come to life.
I mean, look at this:
Connor McDavid, that was awful! 🤢 #StanleyCup
🇺🇸: Follow (True TV) & Follow ➡️ https://t.co/W9mpYG1lMO
🇨🇦: Sports Net Or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/sEijvXhbA1 pic.twitter.com/IfI2SERE45— NHL (@NHL) June 3, 2024
McDavid is the best player in the sport and is the platform that other professional leagues have leveraged to draw huge audiences, notably LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
but.
But you knew there was one thing.
McDavid plays for the Edmonton Oilers in Alberta, Canada, which doesn’t count toward Nielsen ratings in the U.S., so he would immediately lose his home market in the U.S. for viewership of the Stanley Cup Final. This issue might be mitigated by having a big hockey market on the other side, like Boston, Philadelphia or New York, but Miami isn’t.
Viewership numbers for last year’s Stanley Cup were not encouraging. Vegas’ five-game win over the Florida Panthers (who are back in the finals this year) averaged 2.6 million viewers on Turner Networks, 43 percent lower than the six-game series between the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning (4.6 million), which will air on ABC in 2022. Last year’s Game 5 averaged 2.72 million viewers, the lowest viewership for Game 5 of a Cup Final in 29 years, according to Sports Media Watch, which attributed the series’ length and being cable-only to the ratings.
So how will McDavid and Co. increase our interest? Let’s look at some factors working in the NHL’s favor. First, viewership for this year’s postseason is up. According to Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal, the NHL’s playoff viewership averaged 1.3 million viewers, up 14 percent year over year across TNT, truTV, ESPN and ABC.
The Western Conference Finals between the Oilers and Dallas Stars averaged 1.71 million viewers on Warner Bros. Discovery networks, up 5 percent from last year. Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Panthers and New York Rangers averaged 3.02 million viewers on ABC, the most-watched conference finals game since Game 7 of the Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks on NBC in 2015.
Going deeper
McDavid is a hockey superstar, but will a Stanley Cup finally elevate his status in America?
TNT Sports’ postseason coverage averaged 1.2 million viewers, up 5% from last year, and Karp reported that ESPN’s playoff coverage was up 22% heading into ABC’s coverage of the Finals — very positive results.
What else? The Oilers have had a ton of airtime on U.S. TV this year, so that should help. As the series drags on, there’s one marker: a Canadian team participated in one of the most-watched Game 7s in the modern Nielsen era. That was in 2011, when 8.54 million viewers tuned in to watch the Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-0. (I believe Boston was the main reason for that viewership.)
Perhaps the biggest benefit of this series is that network affiliation makes a difference, with every game of the Stanley Cup Final available on ABC, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes, with ABC reaching roughly 12.5 million more households than WBD’s broadcast.
“My understanding of how ratings work is that when you have two American teams in the game, it drives a lot of ratings in both cities,” said ESPN’s Sean McDonough, who will be calling the series with Ray Ferraro and Emily Kaplan. “Obviously, we don’t have that advantage in Edmonton. … If you look at the ratings growth this year, you know there’s more interest in the NHL regardless of who’s playing. I think people are going to be excited to see McDavid, (Leon) Draisaitl and the rest of the team. There’s a story that the Canadian team is going to win. So I think it’s a great matchup. They’ve got a great defensive team, they’ve got a lot of guys that are very skilled offensively and can compete with McDavid, who to me is one of the best players of all time.”
The downside? First, as we’ve already mentioned, there’s no domestic market to boost Nielsen’s numbers. Miami isn’t a top 10 media market in terms of households. And the recent history of Canadian teams appearing in the Finals has been low in the U.S. In 2021, the five-game series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Lightning averaged 2.52 million viewers on NBC and NBCSN. The 2007 five-game series between Anaheim and Ottawa was the least-watched Finals in history, averaging just 1.74 million viewers on NBC and Versus (remember those?).
“I think this series will be a good indicator of McDavid’s ability to draw viewers,” said John Lewis, editor and founder of Sports Media Watch, a leading sports ratings website. “No disrespect to the Panthers, but judging by last year’s numbers (albeit on cable), I don’t expect the Panthers to be the main reason for viewership. The American side of the game won’t be as important as it was with Florida-Dallas. I expect ABC’s ratings will actually go up because of the low bar they had for the finals on TNT last year, but their numbers here should be lower.”
I agree. Sportico reporter Anthony Crupi predicted that if this series goes to six games, it could be on par with the 2022 Stanley Cup Final between the Avalanche and Lightning, which averaged 4.6 million viewers on ABC and ESPN+. AthleticAs NHL experts say, the series is close and truly fifty-fifty, and that bodes very well in terms of the viewer-centric outcome.
The longer this series goes on, the more likely it is that casual sports fans will want to check out these once-in-a-lifetime athletes.
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(Top illustration: John Bradford/The Athletic; Photo: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
