Update, June 13, 2019 at 1:33 p.m. PT: The viewers have been tallied, and the St. Louis Blue’s Stanley Cup Finals Game 7 win is officially the NHL’s most-watched game ever.
Wednesday’s contest drew 8.914 million total viewers on NBC and streaming. On TV online, the game got 8.723 million viewers, which still easily tops the previous record of 8.537 million viewers. That one was set in 2011, when last night’s losing team the Boston Bruins faced off with the Vancouver Canucks in another Game 7.
Blues-Bruins Game 7 was the most-streamed NHL gave ever, with an average minute audience (AMA) of 191,500 viewers.
Viewership records date back to 1994, when streaming was (obviously) not an option.
Previously, June 13, 2019 at 7:55 a.m. PT:
Wednesday’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals handed Lord Stanley’s trophy to the St. Louis Blues, and record NHL ratings to NBC.
The home loss for the Boston Bruins scored a 6.20 rating in Nielsen’s 56 metered markets. That’s the highest overnight number in recorded NHL history, which dates back to 1994.
The previous record-holder was 2010’s Stanley Cup Finals-clinching Game 6 when Blackhawks-Flyers earned a 5.84 overnight rating. Last night beat that by 6%.
Wednesday topped the most recent Stanley Cup Final Game 7 — 2011’s Bruins-Canucks (5.72) — by 8%.
You would think this all meant last night was a close game, but it really wasn’t. The overnight rating peaked with a 7.25 from 10:15 p.m. ET to 10:30 p.m. ET when the Blues added to their lead on the way to a 4-1 victory.
Helping out was the disappointed-but-large Boston market and the fact that this was St. Louis’ first Stanley Cup victory.
Boston delivered a 30.2 local rating/48 share. That’s big, but we haven’t even gotten to the winning team yet.
The St. Louis market delivered a 41.8 local rating/60 share, meaning six out of every 10 households in the market that were watching television at the time were tuned into Game 7.
Final Nielsen ratings — including a total-viewer tally — will be released later on Thursday.