NHL's Broadcast Ratings for Frozen Frenzy Event Take Shocking Turn

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Liam McCormick
October 25, 2024 (5:37 PM)

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The NHL debuted a brand-new broadcast idea for the first time last week called the Frozen Frenzy, covering all 32 teams in action on one night.

In the United States, ESPN aired the games in the style of NFL's Redzone - quickly jumping back and forth between live games and highlights. Fans the NHL clearly had high hopes to draw more attention to the sport, but the new programming had the opposite effect. According to a new report from Awful Announcing the NHL saw their viewership drop 57% on the Frozen Frenzy, clearly a catastrophic failure.

Not only was the Frozen Frenzy show an abject failure, but ESPN's triple header even saw a significant decline in viewership from the year before, falling by 11%.

The Frozen Frenzy wasn't even available to watch in Canada, but judging from what fans were able to see, the program struggled to make coherent sense while jumping from game to game, highlight to highlight. It certainly didn't help either that the NBA's opening night was scheduled for the same day, and the NHL played only one game the day before and after.

There seems to be a clear pattern of declining hockey viewership all over, as the NHL also reported a 39% decline in viewership on Opening Night. On the NHL's first day, they were handedly outperformed by the WNBA playoffs.

With these concerning drops in viewership from television, it seems more likely that Gary Bettman and the NHL will move away from television entirely and go to streaming services like Amazon in the future.

Hockey in the United States is on a disappointing downturn, and the NHL needs to step up and do something to remedy declining fan interest. Before the next CBA agreement after the 2025-26 season, these revenue figures will be major to avoid a lockout.