The Los Angeles Kings were crowned as NHL champions for the second time in three years on Friday night/Saturday morning and NBC’s coverage of the 3-2 double-overtime thriller netted a 3.7 household rating and 6 million viewers.
The deliveries from 8:13 p.m. -12:45 a.m., according to Nielsen fast national data, made the June 13-14 telecast the most-watched Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final since 2008, when the Peacock’s coverage of the triple OT contest won by Pittsburgh over Detroit notched a 6.2 million. The game peaked with over 8.5 million viewers from 12-12:30 a.m. (ET).
All told, viewership rose 7% over the 5.6 million viewers for last year’s Game 5 between Chicago and Boston and up 82% from the 3.3 million for the fifth game of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final, which showcased the Kings versus the New Jersey Devils in a potential Cup-clinching game.
Los Angeles delivered a 12.4 rating, ranking as the market’s second-best rating ever on NBC or NBCSN and up 41% vs. Game 5 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final (8.8). The telecast trailed only the Cup-clinching Game 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final (13.6) as the most-watched in the L.A. market’s history for an NHL game on NBC or NBCSN.
New York also scored its second-best NHL rating ever on NBC or NBCSN with a 10.4 rating, behind only another double-overtime game, Game 2 of this series, by a tenth of a rating point (10.5).
The following were the top 10 markets for Game 5:
