The start of the 2023-24 NHL regular season delivered record viewership for ESPN and its opening night tripleheader Tuesday.
Connor Bedard’s NHL debut with the Chicago Blackhawks, a 4-2 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, averaged 1.43 million total viewers, making it ESPN’s most-viewed regular-season game on record.
Bedard, the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, had an assist in the victory.
The tripleheader began with the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 5-3 win against the Nashville Predators at Amalie Arena in Tampa and concluded with the Vegas Golden Knights’ 4-1 victory against the Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, where the Golden Knights raised their 2022-23 Stanley Cup championship banner to the rafters.
The three games averaged 909,000 total viewers, peaking at 1.65 million. It was a 40 percent increase from last season’s opening night doubleheader, which featured the Lightning against the New York Rangers and the Golden Knights against the Los Angeles Kings.
ESPN’s two primetime games (Blackhawks-Penguins, Kraken-Golden Knights) were up 64 percent and 71 percent from last year.
