If you watched the USA men’s hockey defeat Canada on Sunday morning, you were in good company. A company of 20.7 million, to be exact.
The gold medal win, Team USA’s first in 46 years, peaked at 26 million across NBC, Peacock, and USA Network, when Jack Hughes sent the game-winning shot past Canadian netminder Jordan Binnington in the early portion of the overtime period.
Froma historical perspective, the game becomes the most-watched pre-9 a.m. EST sporting event in U.S. history. It also becomes NBC Sports’ second-most-watched hockey event in history, behind only the U.S. men’s loss to Canada in the 2010 Vancouver Games.
The last time the U.S. men won gold in hockey came in 1980 during the Lake Placid Games.
The Winter Olympics were a success for NBC in general. Over 23.5 million Americans watched the Winter Games, a nearly two-fold increase from the 12 million who watched the Beijing Games in 2022 and the highest viewership for any Winter Olympics since Sochi in 2014.
The USA women’s hockey team made a bit of history themselves. The game peaked at 7.7 million in overtime on Thursday when Megan Keller sent the game-winning shot past the goalie. Making it the most-watched women’s hockey game ever.
“The network averaged 26.7 million viewers for the afternoon broadcast “Milan Prime” window from 2-5 p.m. ET and “Primetime in Milan” from 8-11 p.m. ET across NBC, Peacock, NBCU Digital Platforms and USA Network,” the New York Post reports.