Right before the puck dropped on the playoffs the NHL announced it broke its own attendance record for most fans in the regular season. The 2024-2025 season was the first in the league’s history that saw more than 23 million fans fill arenas. This regular season saw 23,014,158 fans to be exact. The previous record was 22.9 million in the 2023-2024 season.
There’s two main reasons the league broke its own record. First and most obvious was the Utah Hockey Club’s inaugural season. This regular season was the first season since the Seattle Kraken’s inaugural season that the NHL both had 32 member clubs and all 32 member teams playing in major league sized arenas. The then Arizona Coyotes spent the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 season at Mullet Arena which was the leagues smallest venue with room for 4,600 spectators.
The second smallest arena in the league during the franchise’s time at Mullet Arena was Canada Life Center. The home of the Winnipeg Jets has a reported capacity of 15,321. The Coyotes move to Utah included a move into a less than perfect for hockey arena at Delta Center, which they share with the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Delta Center can reportedly seat more than 16,000 for hockey, but has an “unobstructed view” capacity of just over 11,000 which would still be double the capacity of Mullet Arena. The Utah Hockey Club finished with a cumulative attendance of 456,371.
One interesting note was that compared to last season when the NHL had two Stadium Series games there was only one in 2024-2025. The NHL had a crowd of around 79,000 apiece during a dual set of games at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium in 2023-2024.
The 2025 Stadium Series at Ohio Stadium for the game between the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets was the second most attended in NHL history with over 95,000 fans. The only game with a higher attendance was the 2014 Winter Classic between the Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs that had a crowd of over 104,000 come to Michigan Stadium.
The NHL had a Stadium Series attendance of almost 160,000 for the two games in New Jersey last season. Even if the showing in Columbus was one for the record setting the league still sold almost 50,000 less Stadium Series tickets this year. For reference, this season's Winter Classic sold 40,933 tickets at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Last season’s had an attendance of 47,313 at the home stadium of MLB’s Seattle Mariners.
What may have provided a minor, yet negligible, boost in a few games attendance was Alex Ovechkin’s chase for the NHL goal scoring record. The internet had fun pointing out demand for the historic game against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena greatly increased (along with prices) when Ovechkin was one goal away.
Considering the Washington Capitals success they would have had no problem getting fans in seats at Capital One Arena. Maybe a few extra tickets were sold at away arenas than “normally” would be when the Capitals came to town but remember Ovechkin was hurt for a few weeks and him breaking the record didn’t seem like a definite until the last month and a half of the season.
The Utah Hockey Club’s move to Salt Lake City was faster than most could have imagined. If they can improve sight lines to have a higher average game capacity we could see the league break its attendance record once again next season.
There’s only one Stadium Series game planned for next season taking place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida. That arena has a reported capacity of “between” 65,000-75,000 according to their website.