Winter Classic Viewing Numbers Released Publicly: Gary Bettman and the NHL Have a Serious Problem

The numbers are in, and the NHL suffered a massive drop in viewership during the recent Winter Classic, signaling a serious problem for Gary Bettman.

This year's matchup on New Year's Eve set a record-low viewership number for the NHL Winter Classic.

The Blues-Blackhawks game from Chicago's Wrigley Field averaged 920,000 viewers across TNT and truTV, the smallest audience in the event's history.

The game peaked at 1.2 million viewers in the 6:45 PM ET quarter-hour, down 16% from last year's low (Golden Knights-Kraken: 1.10M) and 48% from the Penguins-Bruins game two years ago (1.78M).

Previously held on New Year's Day or January 2 (if New Year's Day fell on a Sunday), this year's Winter Classic was shifted to New Year's Eve to get out of the way of the expanded College Football Playoff.

That did not help, as it still aired opposite the Fiesta Bowl and Citrus Bowl featuring Illinois. It scored a 2.5 rating in Chicago, down from a 5.8 for the Blackhawks' 2019 Winter Classic on NBC.

The Blackhawks are currently the worst team in the NHL, which suffered a lopsided loss. The Winter Classic averaged more than three million viewers from 2008 to 2015.

Since then, ratings have ticked downward, thanks in part to changing TV habits and the growing novelty of outdoor games, not to mention the overall shift from broadcast to cable. The viewership levels had remained above one million, until now.

Even with the decline, the Winter Classic still stands as the NHL's most-watched game this season, topping the previous best of 790,000 for Bruins-Panthers on ESPN's Opening Night.

The NHL makes its maiden appearance of the season on ABC this weekend. Will Gary Bettman take these numbers and initiate change next season? Only time will tell, but something clearly needs to be done.

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