The NFL’s YouTube debut actually had more than two million more viewers than initially reported, YouTube said Friday, an announcement that will do little to quell skepticism about how the event was measured.
YouTube announced Friday that the initial viewership figure reported for last week’s Chargers-Chiefs NFL International Series game from Brazil — 16.2 million viewers in the United States — was undercounted due to an internal technical issue and the game actually averaged a U.S. audience of 18.5 million. The Google-owned video sharing company said that the issue occurred because “a subset of legitimate views were not categorized as actual views” and that it will “do better next time.”
There were already considerable questions about the YouTube figure even before last week’s game was played. As ESPN researcher Flora Kelly noted on social media in the hours before kickoff, Nielsen used a custom methodology for the game that is not directly comparable to the figures reported for other networks. Fox Sports researcher Michael Mulvihill added that the YouTube number would not be available to the other networks in what he called a “flagrant departure from Nielsen’s history of transparency and a slap in the face to long-standing clients.”
Going back further, there have long been concerns by the linear networks about streamers having their first-party data included in Nielsen estimates. When Nielsen sought to include Amazon’s first-party data in its estimates of “Thursday Night Football” viewership two years ago, the move was met roundly with backlash from Kelly, Mulvihill and even then-CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus — who told reporters that it was “extremely odd and unfortunate that different rules are suddenly applying to one platform.” Nielsen ultimately did not include the first-party data in its official “TNF” estimates, but tracked that data separately using the same “Big Data + Panel” measurement that is now the official currency.
It should be noted that thus far, Nielsen’s “Big Data + Panel” metric includes as of launch only included first-party data from streamers Netflix and Amazon, but not linear networks like ESPN, FOX and CBS, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. (Correcting a statement from a previous version of this article, YouTube is not included in “Big Data + Panel.”)
While there is plenty of precedent for Nielsen viewership figures being revised — the measurement company once undercounted out-of-home viewing for a full year — this would seemingly be the first time that a revision was necessary because of an error made by a broadcaster. That would seem to bolster concerns about having the primary third-party measurement company begin to include data that it itself has not compiled.
As for the revised viewership figure itself, a U.S. audience of 18.5 million would surpass every “Thursday Night Football” game on Amazon Prime Video, with the caveat that the YouTube figure is not directly comparable. (It should also be noted that prior to this season, official “TNF” viewership metrics were based on panel-only viewing that did not include first-party data. On a Big Data + Panel basis, 18.5 million would merely match the top “TNF” game, Packers-Lions last December.)
Among all NFL games on streaming services, last week’s game would trail only last year’s Christmas doubleheader on Netflix and the Wild Card playoff games on Prime Video this past January and Peacock two years ago.
It should be noted that the YouTube figure was not included in the Week 1 viewership average the NFL reported this week. That is actually no different than last year, when Peacock’s broadcast of the same Friday night International Series window was excluded from the Week 1 average.
