Amazon recently closed a first-of-its-kind deal with Nielsen to measure viewer data for Thursday Night Football, which for the upcoming NFL season will air exclusively on Prime Video for the first time ever.  It also marks the first time a streaming service will be part of Nielsen's national TV measurement service.  Ben Fischer, Staff Writer at Sports Business Journal, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.

Closing Bell

Amazon, Nielsen Strike 'Thursday Night Football' Measurement Deal

let's turn to the biz of sports amazon striking the first of its kind deal with Nielsen to measure viewer data for thursday night football, which for the upcoming NFL season is gonna air exclusively on prime video for the first time ever. It also marks the first time a streaming service will be part of Nielsen's national tv measurement service. So joining me now is Ben Fisher, a staff writer at Sports Business Journal. Ben, thanks for coming on, you know, for years. Nielsen has measured what people are watching on broadcast and cable networks, traditional tv, if you will, but what do you make of this company partnering with amazon and now moving into the streaming space? Well, it answered one of the big questions we all had about the streaming companies trying to get more into live sports. Uh, you know, obviously it's very appealing to the league's to have a new possible buyer of the rights to these games, but the sports world in particular is very dependent on audience data. Nielsen may not be perfect, but it's third party, it's standardized from sport to sport. The people we write about at the Sports Business Journal depend on being able to check numbers at a glance to see the basketball game do better than baseball etcetera, etcetera. And for amazon to come in, it's exciting. But until this announcement, we were thinking that they might not be able to provide that apples, apples comparison, which whatever would be difficult for everybody who plays in that space. So I do want to get your take, I'm sure for die hard sports fans, obviously they're going to go to whatever platform they need to to watch thursday night football, do you think amazon with this exclusive deal is still going to get the eyeballs, just as many eyeballs or more or less than if it was on a traditional cable or broadcast network. People are widely expecting a decline in the viewership compared to last year. Um, last year, thursday night football was on amazon prime, also on Fox and also sometimes on NFL network, so you take that down to an exclusive deal on prime and the numbers will surely be lower. How much lower is, is a matter of some guesswork in the sports industry right now will be lower, but Prime has an extraordinary reach that's comparable to cable channels. So I personally don't think it's gonna be a huge drop off, but it will likely be lower at least for now. So how is this data gonna be used? Nielsen, of course, national tv measurement service been around forever basically for advertisements for the league. What are they looking to glean from this information? Well, the NFL sales pitch to everyone who does business with is that it is almost literally the only way left to aggregate a mass audience of people watching live television all at one short of major breaking news on election night, nothing else does it? I mean even the Oscars doesn't do it anymore and the NFL is out there every day saying you pretty much have to buy with us if you want 15 million or more people to watch your ad all at the same time. And um amazon turning that data over or working with Nielsen to share that data is going to we'll say adds a lot of oil into the system. There was some fear that that system of buying and selling the time of the eyeballs of NFL viewers was going to break down a little bit without this Nielsen but they're going to join in and fit right into the system. Which is a little surprising if you cover the streaming companies. So because this is relatively new measuring eyeballs advertisements in the streaming space, are you confident Ben that the Nielsen data will be accurate? Well that's a good question. Um I don't know if it's got, I don't know if we have any reason to believe it would be any more or less accurate than the information it provides about broadcasting cable, which we know is an imprecise science to be sure theoretically we should have better data about about amazon viewership because it's it's all can be tied back to direct I. S. P. S. And I. P. Address is um I think though that people will understand that it is it will be good enough to conduct business. Probably not perfect but good enough to conduct business I think is what most folks would say. So I know you mentioned earlier Ben that you do expect viewership to be down for Thursday night football streaming exclusively on Amazon this year as part of the NFL's $100 billion dollar media rights deal signed last year. Are you finding that there is still the same demand 2.5 years into this pandemic to watch the NFL? Or is there kind of some fatigue that's happening among viewers overall? Um If there is any limit to the american public demand for american football on tv, we haven't reached it yet. Um viewership did decline the first year. The pandemic, there's various serious why that is, viewership league wide was up 10% last year and 21 coming back out of the pandemic viewership on thursday night was also up substantially from an average of about 13 million per game to 16 game. Uh It's hard to say where that shakes at this year, I don't think they're gonna do another 10% year over year, but you know, a marginal gain accounting for that likely decline on thursday nights is probably a pretty safe bet. Americans love football. We haven't reached peak football yet, I don't think alright, it is kind of nice to watch when it starts getting cold. Ben, we're gonna leave it there. Ben fisher, a staff writer at Sports Business Journal. Thank you