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Nielsen is changing its methodology for the upcoming 2026–27 television season, but the NFL is anything but happy about it.
The league tells Front Office Sports that the forthcoming shifts, led by an enhancement in co-viewing measurement and taking effect Aug. 31, are “overly rushed.”
“Our concern is that this is going to make measurement for the upcoming season muddled,” NFL SVP of data and analytics Paul Ballew tells FOS. “It’s been a real struggle with Nielsen, and these latest changes raise even more questions for us.”
The NFL’s current sentiments heighten a frustration the league has had with Nielsen for much of the past year, particularly around the co-viewing issue. The league has long felt that its audiences, though by far the largest in U.S. television, were still being undercounted amid the hefty group-watching inherent to football fandom.
Crux of the Issue
The NFL has several issues with Nielsen, but two stand out most: the enhanced methodology for measurement co-viewing and the newly updated weighting formulas within the Big Data + Panel process introduced last year.
On both fronts, the league believes fans actually watching NFL games are still not being properly reflected in the audience counts. With co-viewing in particular, Ballew believes properly measured results are likely at least two years away.
“The results we’ve seen so far are really negative for us, and for sports overall,” Ballew says. “This is not an abstract issue for us. It has a direct effect on our operations, and the decisions we make.”
When Nielsen began a pilot around the expanded co-viewing measurement in February, Ballew’s tone toward the agency was more conciliatory. Since then, though, he believes Nielsen has created a series of jumbled timetables and processes.
The NFL in 2025 posted its best viewership season in more than three decades, and has even higher aspirations for the upcoming season. As the Nielsen issues heighten, the NFL is escalating efforts to work with other audience measurement providers.
“It is time for us to double down on our efforts to determine alternatives in the marketplace,” Ballew says.
Though CBS Sports president and CEO David Berson was far more diplomatic toward Nielsen when questioned last week about the Nielsen changes, Ballew says the league’s rights holders are aligned about the outstanding methodology issues.
ESPN, one of those rights holders, said in a statement: “We want to ensure that the impact on sports is well understood and that changes appropriately reflect how those audiences are measured.”
Nielsen Response
The timetable for Nielsen’s rollout of the new methodology changes stemmed in part from input from the Media Rating Council, which evaluates and audits Nielsen processes and helps ensure industry standards.
“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,” Nielsen said in a statement provided to FOS. “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. The majority of our clients support these changes and this preseason timeline.”
