Shocking Report Reveals Embarrassing Reality: WNBA Now Attracts More Viewers Than the NHL
This is not a headline that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wants to hear, that more people are starting to tune into the WBNA than the NHL.
Viewership through the start of the year in the NHL has taken quite a significant drop. Major NHL games have fallen behind in rankings, not only lagging behind the MLB but now also shockingly behind the WNBA. Economists are worried due to the fact that this decreased viewership places the NHL in a position of competition not just with other strong sports, but now also with leagues that would traditionally receive less attention, such as the WBNA. This latest development was no doubt a shock to many.
Opening night for the NHL, which had three games on the air, averaged just 559,000 viewers, a 39% decline from last year's opener. That's a steep drop, and it's concerning since the opener was at a pinnacle time in the sports calendar. The NHL could somewhat understand losing to playoff baseball, but being outdrawn by the WNBA reflects a deeper problem with how the league has cultivated its fanbase.
Game two of the tripleheader was the top hockey audience of the night, as the Boston Bruins and defending champions Florida Panthers averaged 790,000 viewers. The game was down 45 percent from last season's Chicago Blackhawks-Pittsburgh Penguins game that averaged 1.43 million viewers and included Bedard's debut.
The NHL closed out the night featuring its new franchise, the Utah Hockey Club, up against the Blackhawks. The game averaged 522,000 viewers, down 24 percent from the Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights nightcap last season (691,000 viewers).
As many have pointed out, all three NHL games were beaten out by Game 5 of the Minnesota Lynx-Connecticut Sun WNBA semifinal series over on ESPN2, which averaged 984,000 viewers, and continued a strong postseason for that league.
It's one thing to lose viewers to the magic of playoff baseball, but not being able to compete with the WNBA, a league that never has been as popular, is a whole new problem. This directionally points out a new slipping landscape in sports entertainment whereby a more youthful and diverse audience is turning elsewhere for their sports fix.
There's a growing difficulty in just how to actually get a hold of games. The league's older core market is hard-pressed to keep up with its confusing array of subscription services, streaming options, and local blackout rules. Younger generations, more technologically savvy perhaps, are quite simply just not invested enough to go through the hassle of trying to find out how to watch games when one can far more easily access other sports or forms of entertainment.
If the NHL wishes to reverse this downward trend, it will need to take a hard look at structural barriers that prevent fans from engaging in its content. Perhaps one of the most flagrant problems is regional broadcasting, which prohibits local fans from being able to watch their own hometown teams. In a world where everything is supposed to be on-demand, on every device, and available, the NHL seems to do what it can to shoot its foot by continuing an archaic process that will eventually alienate the few devout fans it does have. Resolving this would be one of the important steps to garner more viewership before it gets too late.
