The Flyers and Penguins played a very good show on Wednesday in the first NHL game in the 2020-21 season. The Flyers ended up giving the final bows and closing the curtain on the night with three goals in the third period to score a 6-3 victory at the Wells Fargo Center.
If the Flyers wanted to make an advance declaration, they did so very carefully.
The game on NBCSN had an average total audience of 972,000 viewers, making it the network’s most watched regular season game on record, according to NBC Sports communications.
The Flyers-Penguins game kicked off the NBC Sports Network tripleheader, which had an average total audience delivery of 774,000 viewers, giving the network its most watched opening night of several games on record.
Most fans seem to have really enjoyed the start of the Flyers-Penguins game at 5:30 pm ET. Without having to worry about fans going to the arena during rush hour after work, a start time at 5:30 pm ET on a Wednesday made a lot of sense. The fans were thirsty to watch hockey, didn’t have to wait long and didn’t have to stay up late.
“We are thrilled with the audience results of the opening night tripleheader and that the league was willing to take a chance on our recommendation to start the season with Penguins-Flyers later in the afternoon,” said NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood in a communicated. “Now we can add the most watched opening night game on record to our impressive NHL audience list, which includes the most watched regular season on record and the most watched NHL game on record, among others.”
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