The NFL Believes Nielsen Is Making a Measurement Misstep

The NFL is criticizing Nielsen’s upcoming changes to its television audience measurement methodology as “rushed,” warning that the adjustments will have a negative impact on sports ratings.

Nielsen plans to implement the changes beginning Aug. 31, including alterations to how it measures whether multiple people are watching an event at the same time. Paul Ballew, the league’s head of data and analytics, said Thursday that the NFL is still assessing the full effects but that early indications point to a net negative for sports, even as some co-viewing updates appear positive.

“We don’t have enough impact data to fully assess. We’re still trying to make sense of it,” Ballew said on a conference call. “We’re still trying to make sense of some of the logic behind some of the methodological changes. From our initial impact, it looks like a negative for sports. On the other side, co-viewing or partial co-viewing implementation is a positive. So we’re going to have to continue to spend some time pulling this apart and making sense of it.”

Ballew emphasized that the league’s priority is obtaining the most accurate audience figures along with deeper demographic insights. 

“Media measurement matters a lot to us,” he said. “It’s adding into the amount of homework we have to take on going into the season to make sense. We do think it’s a misstep on Nielsen’s part to go do this the way they’re doing it. It continues to accelerate our pressure point to continue to pursue ongoing measurement improvement because it’s so critically important to us and everybody else in this space.”

The Associated Press reports the league is coming off one of its strongest television seasons. After Nielsen began using its Big Data + Panel methodology for all events last September, the NFL averaged 18.7 million viewers per game in the 2025 regular season—a 10% increase from 2024 and the highest since 1989. 

The Super Bowl drew 124.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, according to the same system, just short of the previous year’s record.

Nielsen said it had been collaborating with partners on the updates for some time and nearly rolled them out last October before deciding to wait until this season. In a statement, the company defended the revisions: “Nielsen is delivering the most accurate TV measurement ever, especially when it comes to live sports. We have worked closely with clients, sports leagues and industry regulators to constantly enhance our methodologies. That includes the introduction of Big Data + Panel, the expansion of our Out of Home measurement and a pilot test of co-viewing updates, which are all successful examples of collaboration that lead into the enhancements.”