The Los Angeles Kings’ five-game victory over the New York Rangers in the 2014 Stanley Cup Final was just the fifth Cup final since 1994 to eclipse an average of 5 million TV viewers in the United States, according to NBC Sports Group.
2013: Chicago/Boston, 6 games (5.753 million) 1997: Detroit/Philly, 4 games (5.289) 2010: Chicago/Philly, 6 games (5.167) 2002: Detroit/Carolina, 5 games (5.113) 2014: New York/Los Angeles, 5 games (5.001)
There’s more information in the release. For example, here are the top 10 markets across the country for Game 5:
1 Los Angeles 12.4
2 New York 10.4
3 Buffalo 9.2
4 Boston 6.3
4 Minneapolis-St. Paul 6.3
6 Pittsburgh 5.5
7 Chicago 5.4
7 Providence 5.4
9 West Palm Beach 5.2
9 Las Vegas 5.2
The bottom two are kind of interesting. Assume lots of retired Rangers fans in West Palm Beach, and a good number of Kings fans in Vegas (which just so happens to be a candidate for an expansion team.)