4 Nations Face-Off: USA-Canada championship hockey game draws record 9.3 million viewers on ESPN

The 4 Nations Face-Off championship between the USA and Canada on Thursday night drew a significant audience for ESPN's broadcast.

Canada's 3-2 victory over the USA in overtime averaged 9.3 million viewers, the largest audience ever for an NHL broadcast.

The previous high was 8.9 million for NBC's telecast of Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final between the Boston Bruins and St.

Louis Blues.

The ESPN audience peaked at 10.4 million viewers and gave the network its largest non-NFL or college football viewership on the network's platforms since the 2024 NBA Finals.

Thursday's 4 Nations championship match still trails the Gold Medal game between the USA and Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, which averaged 27.6 million viewers for NBC.

However, the most-watched non-Olympic ice hockey game is an impressive showing for a midseason international tournament in February announced just last year during the NHL All-Star Game.

The USA-Canada final drew an audience on par with sports typically perceived as more popular in the United States, as Awful Announcing pointed out .

For instance, the final round of the Masters drew 9.59 million for CBS.

The late-November Big Ten college football match between Indiana and Ohio State attracted 9.33 million viewers on Fox.

On the Canadian side, Sportsnet averaged 5.7 million viewers and TVA drew 1.18 million , providing a total audience of nearly seven million.

The high on Sportsnet was 7.3 million during overtime when Connor McDavid scored the game-winning goal for Team Canada.

Only last year's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers drew a higher number in Canada, averaging 7.55 million viewers across Sportsnet, Citytv and CBC.

However, the Panthers-Oilers matchup was on broadcast TV in Canada, while the 4 Nations championship was only on cable.

Altogether, more than 16 million viewers in North America tuned in for the game.

Last Saturday's meeting between Canada and USA in the 4 Nations tournament, a 3-1 USA victory that attracted headlines for three fights in the game's opening nine seconds , averaged 4.4 million viewers on ABC with a peak of 5.2 million.

Sportsnet drew an audience of 4.7 million for the game..

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