The numbers are in and the outdoor 2026 Winter Classic was an absolute failure

Did you watch the 2026 NHL Winter Classic?

Me neither...

In fact, it seems like almost nobody did.

This year's version of the NHL's annual outdoor game took place on January 2nd at LoanDepot Park in Miami, Florida between the host Florida Panthers and the visiting New York Rangers. This morning, broadcast numbers from the game were released and... well... let's just say things aren't trending in the right direction for the NHL's biggest annual showcase.

This year, for the second year in a row, the league failed to hit the 1 million mark in total views after having generated 1 million+ viewers for every other Winter Classic since 2008.

From broadcasting resource Awful Announcing:

Friday’s game between the New York Rangers and Florida Panthers from LoanDepot Park in Miami averaged just 978,000 viewers across TNT and truTV, up 6% versus last year’s all-time low featuring the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks from Wrigley Field (920,000 viewers), according to data from the TV Media Blog Substack. However, when accounting for Nielsen’s recent methodological changes, the 2026 edition of the Winter Classic would have finished significantly down from the 2025 game, all things being equal. The panel-only figure for the Rangers’ win clocks in at 823,000 viewers, which would indicate an 11% audience decline when using a standardized methodology.

Yeesh...

To be fair, the NHL probably made a fair assumption when scheduling this game that the Panthers and Rangers would be a marquee matchup. As it stands, the Rangers are near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings and the Panthers are barely holding on to a Wild Card playoff spot. It's hard to generate interest amongst die-hard fans when the matchup simply isn't compelling.

Combine this with the fact that the NHL made a giant mistake by holding this game on January 2nd, rather than January 1st and these results aren't exactly a surprise.

Also... who really cares enough about hockey in Miami to make this a success? I'd love to see attendance figures. And I don't just mean butts in seats, I mean actual ticket sales. I can't imagine that Floridians shelled out big bucks to watch a hockey game from hundreds of feet away in a retractable baseball dome.

So... where does the NHL Winter Classic go from here?

It's clear that the game has lost its appeal and it'll have to reinvent itself in order to gain the interest of casual sports fans. Or, and just hear me out for a moment, it needs to go back to its roots. Put the game in hockey markets and take advantage of classic hockey rivalries. Who can forget the Leafs and Red Wings at The Big House in Ann Arbor? Or the original Heritage Classic between the Habs and Oilers?

What do you think it will take to bring this game back to relevancy?