Is HBO's Gay Hockey Show 'Heated Rivalry' As Popular As The Media Wants You To Believe?

If you spend any time on the HBO Max streaming platform, you've probably come across the title card for a show called Heated Rivalry. Every time I've logged into the service over the past month, Heated Rivalry has shown up immediately. It's frequently placed in the "Today's Picks" section and, as I type this sentence, is currently listed at #1 under "Top 10 Series Today." 

Out of curiosity, I clicked on Heated Rivalry to see what the show was about. Here's what it said: "Two hockey stars fall into a secret romance that spans years as they chase glory and wrestle with love." So, it's a show about closeted gay hockey players? 

Several questions popped into my head, but I kept coming back to the most pressing query: "Who is this show for?" 

Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams star as hockey players and gay lovers in the show "Heated Rivalry," which streams in the United States on HBO Max. 

(Harold Feng/Getty Images)

It's obviously not for hockey fans. While I haven't conducted a scientific survey, an educated guess would conclude that the majority of hockey fans aren't interested in a gay love story. In fact, the overwhelming majority of sports fans probably aren't interested, either. 

So, who is it for? Gay hockey fans? Gay sports fans? While those groups certainly exist, it's a relatively small collection. Creating a show for that group is fine, but why is HBO Max (and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery) hyping the show up like everyone is interested in it? 

Unsurprisingly, The Media Loves Heated Rivalry 

It's unfair to only call out HBO for pretending that Heated Rivalry is a major hit that has captivated a large audience because the media is happy to drive that narrative, as well. Let's take a look at some reviews of the show from major outlets. 

"'Heated Rivalry' Scores Big With Hockey and Sex," gushed the New York Times. 

"In Praise of ‘Heated Rivalry’ and Gay Happy Endings," lauded the Hollywood Reporter. 

"HBO’s ‘Heated Rivalry’ is the Sexiest and Most Significant Queer Show of the Year," wrote RogerEbert.com. 

"How a Hockey Romance Novel Became a Smutty HBO Hit," said Rolling Stone. 

"What happens when your gay hockey smut becomes a global phenomenon?" a headline from The Washington Post read. 

A global phenomenon, huh? That's pretty strong language from the Post. All the articles talk glowingly about the show, and they are all very similar. They all discuss how fantastic it is that HBO has a show about gay star athletes, and they practically yearn for a world where this actually exists. 

Of course, it doesn't. There are very few gay men in professional sports, particularly in major sports in the United States. There are some, but none has any real star power. It's almost as if HBO and the media are trying to will this storyline into existence by pushing this show on anyone and everyone. 

For example, here's a quote from a "romance blogger" in one of the reviews mentioned above: 

"I think it’s opening people’s eyes to what could be," Laura Dusi-Showers said.

Meaning, a world where many star male athletes are gay? Why does that matter? 

Data Doesn't Back Up Bombastic Claims 

Measuring streaming popularity is difficult because most platforms don’t publish comparable viewing totals. But there is at least one widely used public yardstick: Nielsen’s weekly Streaming Top 10, which ranks programs by total minutes viewed on television in the United States. In the week of Nov. 24–Nov. 30, 2025 (the show’s debut window), Heated Rivalry does not appear on Nielsen’s Top 10 list.

OutKick reached out to HBO and asked if the company would share the numbers. If Heated Rivalry is truly a "global phenomenon" that belongs in the "Top 10 Series Today" day after day, surely HBO would quickly turn over the viewership numbers to back that up. 

Except, they didn't. Max declined to share viewership totals for Heated Rivalry. According to background information from the company, the HBO Max app’s "Top 10" rail in the United States is refreshed daily and ranks titles by the number of unique user profiles that have watched at least two minutes. Max did not provide raw counts or a breakdown of U.S. versus global viewing.

We also asked how they determine the "two minutes watched" threshold and whether a user needs to actually start the show for it to count. If not, Heated Rivalry likely benefits from its consistent top placement within the app. 

We did not hear back on the follow-up request prior to publication. 

Why is HBO Max and the media so intent on declaring that "Heated Rivalry" is a massive hit watched by millions of people in the United States without providing any data to back up that claim? 

(Harold Feng/Getty Images)

Warner Bros. Discovery has shared hard metrics for some titles, like the Season 1 finale of It: Welcome to Derry, which airs linearly on HBO and streams on Max, unlike Heated Rivalry, which is streaming-only. However, HBO counted streaming views as part of its press release, so the company must have access to streaming figures, even if they won't release them for streaming-only titles. 

It's important to note that IT: Welcome to Derry frequently appears below Heated Rivalry on the HBO Max app, suggesting that the latter is more highly-viewed than the former. Again, if that's true, why isn't Warner Bros./HBO rushing to get those numbers to the public? 

Media Also Pushing Narrative of High Popularity 

In each of the Heated Rivalry reviews, the author mentions that the show is popular in some form or fashion. 

"It has been at or near the top of the most-watched series list on HBO Max [since its premiere]," said the New York Times. 

The AP noted that the title became the No. 1 show on HBO Max. 

In a Washington Post article that says the show "mixes hockey and queer romance and is scoring big audiences," the author writes that Heated Rivalry "has dominated social media feeds and inspired a growing fan base devoted to the queer romance at its center." 

It's important to note that in that story, there is one comment from a reader. In the other Post story mentioned earlier, there are 35 reader comments. A quick check of a few other stories on the website showed that articles regularly receive well over 1,000 comments. It seems strange that two articles about this "global phenomenon" of a TV show have 36 comments on two articles combined. 

As far as the claim that Heated Rivalry dominates social media, I can tell you that I spend a lot of time on social media (it's part of my job, unfortunately). I had never seen anything related to Heated Rivalry until I specifically started searching for it to write this article. 

Other articles site a spike in book sales and book rentals from libraries since the show's premiere. But those figures are also cagey. Vanity Fair says OverDrive data showed a 698% increase in "activity" (checkouts, tags, hold requests) in the 21 days after the premiere vs. the 21 days before, and a 10,534% increase vs. the same time in 2024. 

But without a concrete number prior to the increase, those percentages have very little practical application in determining overall popularity. 

What's Going on Here? 

There seems to be a major disconnect between how HBO and the media are portraying this massive fan base and the reality of the situation. I noticed that HBO released very careful metrics about Heated Rivalry that makes it look like the company is trying to make the show seem far more popular than it is. 

For example, multiple reviews note that the show ranks "top five in scripted debuts of 2025," was the "top debut for an acquired non-animated title," and was the "#2 driver of first-time viewers." These types of releases by companies are common in entertainment marketing and allow HBO to tell the truth without being completely forthcoming. There is no available information about raw viewership totals. 

Again, OutKick asked HBO to explain what exactly those metrics meant and did not receive a response. 

The show is naturally crushing it on review websites. It has a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. IMDB rates it at 9.2 out of 10. For what it's worth, The Sopranos also has a 9.2 rating on IMDB. 

This all brings us back to my original question: "Who is this show for?" 

According to HBO and the media, the answer is everyone. But based on all the data we have so far, the answer seems more like "a very small but passionate group of specific people." 

Which begs another question: "Why is HBO and the media so desperate to spin a narrative about this gay hockey show?" 

I think most of us realize the answer to that one.