The NHL Winter Classic game on January 2 between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers attracted the fifth-largest US television audience for a regular-season ice hockey match since 1975.
According to audience measurement company Nielsen Media Research, New York’s 3-2 win in Philadelphia generated an average audience of 3.74 million on the NBC network. Owing to poor weather conditions, this year’s Winter Classic had to be pushed back by a day from its usual January 1 slot and was then delayed by two hours to 3pm local time.
The Winter Classic is an NHL regular-season match played annually since 2008 in the New Year period, the distinctive feature of which is that it is played outdoors. NHL matches are generally played indoors.
NBC’s audience was slightly higher than for the 2010 Winter Classic but down on its average of 4.5 million viewers for last year’s game. The 2011 game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals attracted the highest audience for an NHL regular-season game since 1975.
In Canada, public-service broadcaster CBC attracted an average of 1.13 million viewers for the 2012 game, down from 1.9 million for the 2011 Winter Classic.