History of the Winter Classic on US Television

In October of 2001, a new era began in hockey as the first ever modern-era outdoor game was played. The Cold War was an NCAA college hockey game between Michigan and Michigan State that was played in East Lansing at Spartan Stadium. The event exceeded capacity with an attendance of 74,544 and was a massive success for the sport. With this, the thought of the NHL attempting its first outdoor game instantly gained traction.

It wouldn’t take long for the NHL to shoot their shot at an outdoor game, though. Just around two years later, in November of 2003, the Heritage Classic was born. The first edition of this Canadian outdoor series was between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens, and it was a major success for television. On the CBC, the game averaged 2,747,000 viewers, which is still the second-highest audience for a regular-season NHL game in Canada.

NBC, who was the television partner with the NHL at the time, began pitching the idea for an outdoor game in the United States as soon as 2004, but the NHL was against the concept and said “they didn’t find the concept workable,” per a Yahoo Sports article in 2010. Eventually, NBC would do enough talking to sway the NHL into creating the event, and thus, in 2008, the Winter Classic was born.

On January 1st, 2008, the first edition of the Winter Classic was held in Orchard Park, New York at Highmark Stadium. The game was between the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins and was televised on NBC. For commentary, the great Mike Emrick was the play-by-play commentator with Eddie Olczyk, Pierre McGuire, and Mike Milbury as the analysts. In addition, Bob Costas would be the host of NBC’s coverage. On the ratings side, the game was as expected, a success, as it averaged 3,750,000 viewers, which was easily the most-watched NHL game of the regular season.

With the success of the first Winter Classic, the NHL would bring back the event in 2009. This time around, it was once again held on New Year’s Day and would take place at Wrigley Field, with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings being the participating teams. Dave Strader would serve as the play-by-play commentator on the television side for his only time, as Mike Emrick was dealing with an illness. The original six-matchup averaged 4,400,000 viewers for the second Winter Classic and would increase by 17% in viewership over the first edition. This was the largest regular-season audience for the NHL since 1975.

In 2010, the Boston Bruins would make their first appearance in the Winter Classic, as this time the event was held at Fenway Park. The opponent for the New Year’s Day game would be the Philadelphia Flyers. NBC would average 3,680,000 viewers for the third edition of the Winter Classic, which was a 16% decrease vs. the previous year’s and the lowest-viewed Winter Classic game yet. Even with the decrease, the viewership was still a stunning number for the sport, and the enthusiasm surrounding the event remained extremely high.

The 2011 Winter Classic was held at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, and this would mark the first time weather impacted the event. For the fourth edition of the Winter Classic, the NHL partnered with HBO to produce a four-part documentary series named “24/7: Road to the NHL Winter Classic”, and would go on to produce two more editions of the series in 2012 and 2014. Meanwhile, the 2011 edition of the game featured the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals and was originally scheduled for a 1:00 p.m. ET start time on New Year’s Day. Forecasted rain would move the time of the game to 8:00 p.m. ET, which would result in this edition of the Winter Classic being the first in primetime. The move to primetime would be a benefit to NBC and the league, as the 2010 Winter Classic would become the most-watched yet with an average viewership of 4,500,000 viewers.

For the 2012 Winter Classic, the event was held in Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park. The game would be between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers, who were making their first appearance in the event. This fifth edition of the Winter Classic would be the first time the game was not held on New Year’s Day, as the NHL didn’t want to compete against college football bowl games and the NFL. Instead, it was held on Monday, January 2nd, at 3:00 p.m. ET. Originally, the game was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. ET but was pushed back by a couple of hours due to heat concerns. The 2012 Winter Classic was also highly important for NBC Sports, as post-game coverage would be the debut program on the rebranded NBC Sports Network, formerly VERSUS. For the ratings, the Rangers Winter Classic victory averaged 3,730,000 viewers on NBC, which would only rank above the 2010 edition of the game.

As we all know, the 2012-2013 NHL season was a lockout year, but the announcement of the NHL’s Winter Classic going to ‘The Big House’ was already announced, and as a result, it would be the site of the 2014 Winter Classic. The sixth edition of the game would be between the Detroit Red Wings and, for the first time, a Canadian team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. On the television side, there would be a change for the host of NBC’s coverage as Liam McHugh would make his debut in the role, replacing Bob Costas. The 2014 Winter Classic would be far from the only outdoor game during the 2013–2014 NHL season; in fact, it was only one of the six games played outdoors that year. The newly announced Stadium Series had a total of four different games across three locations that season, along with the third edition of the Heritage Classic. Oversaturation of the outdoor games would already have become a topic of discussion by this point, but the ratings for this edition of the Winter Classic would more than deliver. The 2014 edition of the game averaged 4,404,000 viewers and would become the second-largest audience for an NHL regular-season game since 1975, only trailing the 2009 Winter Classic. In addition, across the United States and Canada, the game combined for an average of 8,234,000 viewers, which would make the 2014 Winter Classic the most-watched regular season NHL game in history.

For the 2015 Winter Classic, the game was held at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., with the teams being the Washington Capitals and the Chicago Blackhawks, both of which were making their second appearances in the event. This time around, the NHL partnered with Epix to air a four-part docuseries named “Road to the NHL Winter Classic”, and would continue this partnership for the next two additions as well. NBC’s coverage remained the same as it was in 2014 with McHugh once again hosting the event, along with Mike Emrick doing play-by-play commentary for his sixth time. The viewership heights that were reached in 2014 and years prior would never be reached again, as the seventh edition of the Winter Classic averaged 3,470,000 viewers, the lowest-viewed edition of the game yet. In regards to the NHL and its outdoor games, the golden era of viewership was over as the over-saturation of such games began taking effect.

The 2016 Winter Classic was held in the Boston metropolitan area for the second time. This time it was held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, with the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens being the teams for the eighth edition of the event. For the Bruins, this was their second appearance in the Winter Classic, and the Canadiens first for the event, but their third outdoor game overall as they participated in two Heritage Classic games previously. As the Canadiens routed to victory, the Winter Classic would once again reach a new record low as the game averaged 2,780,000 viewers, which was 20% lower than the previous record low that was set in 2015.

In 2017, the St. Louis Blues made their Winter Classic debut as the ninth edition of the game was held at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The Blues would play against the Chicago Blackhawks, who were making their third appearance in the event. As a St. Louis native, Bob Costas returned to NBC’s coverage for the first time since 2012 as a host of the event alongside Liam McHugh. This would be Costas’ final time as a part of NBC’s Winter Classic coverage. On the viewership side, the event reached another record-low audience with an average of 2,557,000 viewers, which was down 8% from the record low set a year prior. This marked the third straight year-to-year decrease since 2014’s Winter Classic at ‘The Big House’.

The 2018 Winter Classic was held at City Field in Queens, New York, with the teams being the New York Rangers and the Buffalo Sabres, both of which were making their second appearance in the event. Beginning with the 2018 edition, the NHL began to produce and distribute “Road to the Winter Classic” to NBC Sports, along with airing the episodes on their social media channels. Viewership would decline for the fourth straight year and reach another record low for the Winter Classic with an average of 2,480,000 viewers for the Rangers’ overtime win. At this point, viewership dropped by 44% from the 2014 edition of the Winter Classic.

For the 2019 Winter Classic, the event was held at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana, with the matchup being between the Chicago Blackhawks, who were making their fourth Winter Classic appearance, and the Boston Bruins, who were making their third Winter Classic appearance. This eleventh edition of the game had an attendance of 76,126 people, which was the most-attended Winter Classic since the 2014 edition at ‘The Big House’. In addition, Mike Tirico would make his debut as the host of NBC’s coverage, alongside Kathryn Tappen, who was also making her hosting debut. The duo would replace Liam McHugh, who had Football Night in America commitments prior. For viewership, the 2019 Winter Classic averaged 2,970,000 viewers, which was a 20% increase over the 2018 edition and the most-viewed Winter Classic since 2015.

After seeing a dramatic viewership increase for the previous edition, the 2020 Winter Classic would not continue the trend. The twelfth edition of the game was held at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, and the matchup included the Nashville Predators and the Dallas Stars. This was only the second time the Winter Classic hadn’t featured an original six-team, with the 2011 game featuring the Penguins and Capitals, and the first time the game included two non-traditional hockey market teams. Brian Boucher would also make his Winter Classic debut as an analyst, replacing Jeremy Roenick, who had worked the previous six editions of the game. The Dallas Stars’ victory would not correlate so much in the ratings department, as the 2020 game averaged 1,970,000 viewers, which was a 34% decrease from the 2019 edition and easily the lowest-viewed Winter Classic yet.

The 2022 Winter Classic, which was originally scheduled for 2021 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues being the teams participating. During this time between Winter Classics, however, the NHL had negotiated a new television rights deal, and NBC was no longer a partner with the league. The 16-year relationship with NBC Sports came to an end as the NHL constructed a new contract with ESPN and TNT. With that, the rights to the Winter Classic were given to TNT, which would make this 2022 edition of the game the first to ever air exclusively on cable. The broadcasting crew consisted of Kenny Albert as the play-by-play commentator, making this the first Winter Classic he had called, along with Keith Jones, Darren Pang, and Jennifer Botterill as analysts. This would be Darren Pang’s first time back as an in-game analyst at the Winter Classic since 2012, and Jennifer Botterill’s first as a commentator. TNT’s studio crew, which was still in the Atlanta studio due to COVID concerns, consisted of former NBC host Liam McHugh, along with Anson Carter, Paul Bissonnette, Rick Tocchet, and Wayne Gretzky. To say the least, this seemed like a fresh start for the Winter Classic after being two years away, having a new broadcast partner, and plenty of new personalities calling the game. With the move to cable, this coldest edition of the game also came up cool on the ratings side, as the Blues win averaged just 1,360,000 viewers. This was the lowest-viewed edition of the outdoor event yet, but it did manage to break the record of being the most-watched NHL game on cable in history. Obviously, with the transition to cable, the expectations for viewership had to change for this annual game.

With that, this brings us to the latest edition of the game, the 2023 Winter Classic, which was held at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, for the second time (the first time was in 2010). The teams featured were the Boston Bruins and the Pittsburgh Penguins, which resulted in the first original six-matchup for the game since 2019 (Blackhawks-Bruins). The game was also played on Monday, January 2nd, which would be the first time the game wasn’t played on New Year’s Day since 2012. For commentary, Jackie Redmond would make her debut as a reporter for the event, along with Keith Yandle making his first appearance as an analyst for the TNT studio crew. This time around, TNT’s studio crew would be on-site for the first time under their newly negotiated television deal. The Bruins’ win averaged 1,780,000 viewers on TNT, peaking at 2,100,000 viewers in the final moments of the game. This was up 31% from the 2022 edition, and as a result, it became the most-watched NHL game on cable in history. Since 2014, this was only the second time a Winter Classic game had increased when compared to the previous year. While the game did see an increase, it was still the second lowest-viewed Winter Classic game in history, which was majorly due to cable caveat.

Now, that brings us to the final day before the 2024 Winter Classic, which will be the first to be played on the West Coast, as it is in Seattle. The game will once again feature two non-traditional hockey markets, along with the two newest teams in the NHL, the Seattle Kraken and the Vegas Golden Knights. With the matchup at hand, viewership expectations seem to be low, and the energy surrounding the event feels quieter than normal, but we will have to wait and find out how that correlates with this year’s viewership of the game.