Winter Classic Ratings Show The NHL Still Doesn't Realize Trying To Compete With College Football Is A Dumb Idea

The numbers are in for the 2024 NHL Winter Classic... and they aren't pretty.

The game on Jan. 1 between the Seattle Kraken and the Vegas Golden Knights was the 15th Winter Classic the NHL has held and was the league's 39th outdoor game in its history. However, despite pairing the Kraken — who came into the game riding a substantial point streak — and the reigning Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights, the league did not see the kind of return it would have wanted.

According to Sports Media Watch, the game — a 3-0 Kraken win — drew 1.10 million viewers across both TNT and truTV.

That makes it the least-watched Winter Classic ever and by a significant margin. The next lowest-watched game was the 2022 Winter Classic in St. Louis between the Blues and Wild.

This is bad news, especially when the Winter Classic is supposed to be the league's signature regular-season event. Some would argue the NHL is saturating the outdoor game market. The Winter Classic was the second of four that will be held this season. The Oilers and Flames played in the Heritage Classic back in October while this year's Stadium Series will include a pair of games at MetLife Stadium, one between the Devils and Flyers, and the other between the Rangers and Islanders.

These events typically do well as far as ticket sales go. The game at T-Mobile Park even sold out. So the bigger problems have to do with TV.

And there's one major problem that the NHL seems to ignore...

The 2024 Rose Bowl drew massive ratings and started right in the middle of the NHL Winter Classic. (Photo by Ryan Kang/Getty Images)

New Year's Day Belongs To College Football

The NHL has held the Winter Classic on Jan. 2 if necessary, but it likes to do it on New Year's Day. Why? I don't know, it looks nice on promo materials maybe. But everyone knows that the NHL is competing against college football.

This year's Winter Classic was especially rough on this front because it ran right into the middle of the Rose Bowl which pitted Michigan against Alabama.

I'm not sure if you've heard, but a lot of people watched that game.

Sure, the NHL didn't know that those two teams would play in the Rose Bowl, but it did know when the game would be played.

They could've waited one day and there wouldn't be any major football games on the schedule to contend with. That would've meant making the day all about hockey, but instead, the NHL tried to go toe-to-toe with college football.

What a total goof this was. The only thing dumber would've been to schedule the game during the college football National Championship game.

Sure, it was picturesque, but holding the Winter Classic on the West Coast may have contributed to the poor ratings. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Holding The Winter Classic On The West Coast Posed A Problem

Holding the game on a day synonymous with college football is a mistake. I know the league has been doing it for years, but it's a mistake. Even the NFL didn't schedule games that day.

But what made it even worse was that the NHL held the game on the West Coast, which meant it couldn't get the game started until 3 pm on the East Coast. The Rose Bowl started at 5. That's a problem.

If the NHL needed to hold a game on New Year's Day, it would have made more sense to hold the Winter Classic at MetLife Stadium using one of the upcoming Stadium Series matchups between the Flyers and Devils or Rangers and Islanders. That even makes more sense from a "Classic" standpoint, considering the Kraken and Golden Knights have a combined history of less than 10 seasons.

Not only would those matchups probably draw a little more interest, but a 1 pm start on the East Coast would mean wrapping things up well before the start of the Rose Bowl.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Then, Seattle and Vegas could've played on the Stadium Series date in February. That game typically has more of a forward-thinking feel when it comes to uniforms too. That's perfect for newer franchises.

I thought this year's Winter Classic was great, but the league has to reassess its strategy. It can't keep trying to make the game work on New Year's Day, especially as the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams next year, and will take up even more of the sports bandwidth.

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