The National Football League is challenging Nielsen, the long-standing audience-measurement company, over what it calls underreported viewership for league games. NFL Chief Data and Analytics Officer Paul Ballew said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that Nielsen is under estimating millions of viewers. A concern that could impact advertising revenue for media partners and complicate future rights negotiations.
“There are millions of viewers that we believe they are systematically undercounting,” Ballew said in an interview with the outlet.
As the NFL kicks off a new season, the league has also been exploring alternative measurement solutions to supplement Nielsen’s data. VideoAmp, a firm specializing in tracking streaming audiences, has been part of the experimentation. According to the report, Disney’s ESPN has reportedly tested VideoAmp and found its insights useful. Though Nielsen has criticized the company’s methodology and small panel size.
Nielsen, meanwhile, defended its ratings. A spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal the company is “confident this will be the most accurately rated football season in history.” She emphasized its ongoing work with the league to innovate data collection. The firm recently launched a “Big Data + Panel” methodology, tracking 45 million homes and 75 million devices in addition to its traditional panel of roughly 42,000 homes.
Despite the improvements, Ballew noted that Nielsen’s approach does not yet fully account for first-party streaming data from many platforms that carry NFL games. The league’s partnerships with Amazon, Netflix, NBC’s Peacock, CBS’s Paramount+ and ESPN’s digital platform make capturing these viewers increasingly critical. Streaming services often guard their audience data closely, further complicating the task.
Co-viewing—people watching together at home—is another area of concern. Nielsen maintains its co-viewing measurement, but the NFL has requested deeper analysis, citing potential underrepresentation.
Delays in Nielsen’s data releases and restatements of ratings have also frustrated the NFL. The league relies on timely and accurate measurements to inform advertising decisions. Nielsen said it has addressed these issues and continues to prioritize faster data delivery.
The NFL’s scrutiny of Nielsen underscores broader industry challenges as audiences fragment across broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms. For roughly 80 years, Nielsen has been considered the gold standard of ratings. Yet as consumption habits evolve, sports leagues and networks are increasingly testing alternative methodologies to ensure every viewer—traditional or streaming—is counted.
With the exception of Netflix, which has a shorter pact. The NFL’s current deals with its rights partners run through the 2033 season. The league has a window to reopen the deals after the 2029 season, however, and it has indicated that is likely to happen.
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