The clinching Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final in which the Florida Panthers organization won its second consecutive championship over the Edmonton Oilers garnered an average of 2.8 million viewers on TNT and truTV. This game rendered the highest average viewership of the series, but it was still down by 33% compared to the previous year. On top of that, the matchup represented the least-watched iteration of Game 6 in the Stanley Cup Final since the 1994 series when the New York Rangers played the Vancouver Canucks in a game televised on ESPN.
Tuesday night’s game between the Panthers and Oilers peaked with 3.3 million viewers and secured the largest Stanley Cup Final audience in the history of TNT Sports. Furthermore, this represented the second-largest audience for a National Hockey League game in network history, finishing second to the Game 7 matchup between the Panthers and Boston Bruins in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Play-by-play announcer Kenny Albert was on the call for the proceedings alongside analysts Eddie Olczyk and Brian Boucher with reporters Darren Pang and Jackie Redmond for the first Game 6 on cable television since 1999. ESPN televised the Stanley Cup Final in that year between the Dallas Stars and Buffalo Sabres, which had a sixth game that averaged 4.45 million viewers.
TNT Sports accrued an average of 2.5 million viewers across the six-game Stanley Cup Final series, indicative of a 40% diminution compared to the seven-game series featuring these same two organizations last year which aired on ABC. Compared to the last time TNT Sports aired the Stanley Cup Final series, which is when the Panthers fell to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023, the company averaged 2.6 million viewers.
As a result, the average viewership for this series fell by approximately 3.8%, although it should be noted that Nielsen expanded its out-of-home viewership panel earlier this year. The Nielsen Big Data + Panel officially received accreditation from the Media Rating Council in January that brings new technology to tabulate consumption estimates and data gleaned from across the country.
When combined with the Canadian audience viewing the action on CBC, SportsNet and TVAS, the Stanley Cup Final averaged 6.44 million viewers, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. Viewership from Canada averaged 3.91 million viewers across these three networks, and the sixth game amassed an audience of 7.09 million viewers spanning both North American countries. With data combined from the United States and Canada, consumption of the Stanley Cup Final was down by 27% year-over-year.
TNT Sports will air the Stanley Cup Final at the conclusion of the 2026-27 season, the final league championship series for which it has broadcast rights under its existing seven-year media rights deal with the National Hockey League. Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of TNT Sports, reportedly provides remittance of $225 million per season to the league, which also includes rights to one of the Conference Final series, other playoff games and regular-season contests.
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