The ball was dropped on the NHL’s experiment to stage the Winter Classic on New Year’s Eve.
Tuesday’s game between the St. Louis Blues and the Chicago Blackhawks in the open air at Wrigley Field garnered the worst viewership ratings in the 17-year history of the annual event, averaging 920,000 viewers across TNT and truTV.
The Blues’ 6-2 victory, which peaked at 1.2 million viewers during the 6:45 PM ET quarter-hour, marked a 16 percent drop from last year’s previous low, which was $1.10 million between the Las Vegas Golden Knights and the Seattle Kraken. It was also a 48% decline compared to the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins two years ago, which maxed out at 1.78 million.
This was the first time the NHL decided to play the game on New Year’s Eve as it traditionally is played on New Year’s Day or Jan. 2 if there are conflicts with college football.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – DECEMBER 31: Cam Fowler #17 of the St. Louis Blues scores a goal during the first period against the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2024 NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on December… CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – DECEMBER 31: Cam Fowler #17 of the St. Louis Blues scores a goal during the first period against the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2024 NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on December 31, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. More
The decision to play on Dec. 31 this year was for that same reason as the expanded College Football Playoff has four key Bowl games played in the last two days.
But even having moved the Winter Classic to before the new year, it still clashed with other Bowl games as there was an overlap with the start of the Fiesta Bowl between No. 4 Penn State and No. 9 Boise State and in-state No. 20 Illinois in the Citrus Bowl, which most certainly had a negative impact on the home market in Chicago.
The Winter Classic drew a 2.5 rating in Chicago, a sharp decline from the 5.8 rating for the Blackhawks’ last Winter Classic appearance in 2019, which was broadcast on NBC.
The NHL can’t have their cake and eat it too; the days surrounding New Year’s Day will always be dominated by college football now with more teams competing. The premise of the outdoor winter wonderland they create has always been to target New Year’s as a hockey holiday, much like the NFL has Thanksgiving, MLB on the Fourth of July, and more recently, NBA on Christmas.
Chicago and St. Louis may be two classic franchises in hockey-centric markets that have won Stanley Cups in the last 10 years, but it didn’t help that they are both non-playoff teams and one blew out the other.
The game tied for the largest margin of victory in the history of the Winter Classic. Previous to Tuesday, the only other time a team won by four goals was when the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Boston Bruins 5-1 at Foxborough Stadium in 2016.
The NHL may have saturated the market on outdoor games. With one-to-two other games played outdoors each year in the NHL Stadium Series — in addition to the trends in broadcast television viewership, the Winter Classic has seen a steady decline over the past ten seasons.
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