Nielsen's Big Data Fuels Surge in Sports Viewership

According to the article, Nielsen has recently implemented a significant change to its ratings methodology, incorporating "big data" from smart TVs and streaming devices in addition to its traditional panel sampling. This new "big data plus panel" measurement system has had a noticeable impact on sports programming, particularly for the NFL and college football.

In the first few weeks of the 2025 season, NFL and college football games have seen sizable gains in viewership compared to the same period last year, when the big data component was not yet included. Fox Sports reports a 14% increase in average viewers for its NFL games, while Amazon saw gains of 19-23% for its Thursday Night Football telecasts. Other networks like ABC/ESPN, CBS, and NBC have also reported growth in their sports ratings.

The article suggests that while some of this improvement can be attributed to attractive matchups and the expansion of Nielsen's out-of-home measurement, the big data addition appears to be capturing more viewers than the previous panel-only system. For example, NBC's opening-weekend NFL games averaged about 1 million more viewers in the big data plus panel measurement compared to the panel-only numbers.

The rollout of Nielsen's new measurement system comes at a time when the NFL had previously criticized the company for potentially undercounting viewers. The article notes that the big data plus panel approach has now spread to all Nielsen-measured programming, and it remains to be seen if it will have a similar impact on comedies and dramas as it has on sports.