Home › Media › ESPN › Four Nations Face-Off scores again as U.S.-Finland hits NHL season high
Feb 13, 2025; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; [Imagn Images direct customers only] Team USA forward Jack Hughes (86) plays the puck against Team Finland forward Joel Armia (40) in the first period during a 4 Nations Face-Off ice hockey game at Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: David Kirouac-Imagn Images
The NHL Four Nations Face-Off delivered another impressive audience Thursday night as the United States played its first game.
Thursday’s United States-Finland NHL Four Nations Face-Off game averaged a 0.75 rating and 1.55 million viewers on ESPN, marking easily the largest NHL-affiliated audience of the season. The previous high was 1.27 million for Golden Knights-Bruins on ABC last weekend, and the previous high for ESPN was 790,000 for Bruins-Panthers on Opening Night.
Excluding Stanley Cup playoff games, the United States’ win was the most-watched NHL-affiliated game on any network since the January 2023 Winter Classic on TNT (Penguins-Bruins: 1.78M).
The game ranked second for the night among sportscasts behind the NASCAR Duel at Daytona on FS1 (1.84M), though it easily outdrew older-skewing NASCAR among adults under 50. It topped the competing Grizzlies-Timberwolves NBA game, which drew 1.11 million on TNT (plus additional viewership on truTV that was not immediately available).
The Four Nations Face-Off already accounts for two of the five largest NHL audiences this season, with Wednesday’s Canada-Sweden matchup on TNT ranking fifth (1.05M). The other three games all aired on ABC: the aforementioned Golden Knights-Bruins, Rangers-Bruins the prior Saturday (1.06M) and Rangers-Capitals on January 4 (1.06M).
With the event replacing the NHL All-Star Game on this season’s schedule, it should be noted that U.S.-Finland outdrew every NHL All-Star Game since the February 2020 edition on NBC (1.70M).
Viewership figures to rise much higher on Saturday night, when the United States faces Canada on ABC in primetime — a matchup that figures to be even more heated than usual given the sudden tensions that have risen between the two nations over the past three weeks.
Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter), Threads or Bluesky.
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Hallo Jon
What is your prediction for ABC game?
I think at least 2.5M, maybe into the 3M range.
I said 3 million for Saturdays US-Canada game. But the more I see these ratings for Turner, I think this could get to 3.5 million on ABC.
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