Watching MLS games at restaurants, bars, pubs is going to be very important. It is going to become more important in the near future. Every U.S. soccer fan should go outside of their home (unless they are already a Nielsen home) to watch MLS,USL and U.S. National team games. Not at just soccer specific establishments but at your local Red Lobster, Hooters, and any establishment which shows sports. Demand the game. Youth & adult teams should go out and watch the games as groups and do it regularly. This is the only way to get enough horsepower to get them to show soccer. Nielsen ratings affect the income of our teams and affects the growth of the beautiful game in the home of the Red, White and Blue. http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/04/15/nielsen-to-expand-ratings-coverage-outside-of-the-home/ Nielsen to expand ratings coverage outside of the home Posted Apr 15th 2007 5:40PM by Zac Bissonnette Filed under: Industry, Consumer experience, Television For the first time, Nielsen will be offering data on what people watch on television outside of their homes. According to the New York Times: Beginning in September, Nielsen will release national ratings for TV viewing away from home in places like bars, hotels, gyms and offices. For decades, Nielsen has rated television viewing based on what viewers in its panel watch while at home. The moment those viewers traveled or went to the gym, any television they watched was not recorded. This is good news for networks like ESPN, the leading provider of sports coverage, because sports are so commonly seen in bars and restaurants. Advertising rates are set based on Nielsen ratings, and sports coverage could see a pretty significant lift. What might be most interesting is the way that Nielsen is tracking viewing in hotels and restaurants: They are providing cell phone tracking devices to 4,700 participants to take with them wherever they go. The devices can recognize what is on the television by sound. Pretty cool, huh? Another article shortly after the 2006 MLS Cup in the Houston Chronicle. http://blogs.chron.com/sportsmedia/2006/11/even_with_dynamo_in_mls_cup_nf.html
It's happened to me before as well. I haven't been back to any of those bars since. I've been to several friendly places. I make sure to let the staff know i appreciate everything and tip well.
The Nielsen sample size is ridiculous. I'm suprised MLS gets any ratings with a sample of 5,000 people. If I had a Nielsen box or this new cell phone device I'm pretty sure MLS would get higher ratings than the NFL.
You may think its rediculous however its statistically quite effective if done properly. When is the last time you sat thru a social research/statistics class?
According to the Nielsens, American Idol is the top program on right now. That in itself tells me that they must put all of those boxes in the houses of deranged teenage girls. It's actually amazing that with all of the cable and satellite boxes out there that someone else can't say "this program was watched by exactly X of our customers last night." I mean does anybody know someone with a Nielsen box?
You remind me of the time that I wanted to see a US-MEXICO match at a bar and everyone was giving me strange looks. To make it worse people thought I was Mexican and started telling me Viva Mexico!
Actually for everything to work very well, N (sample size) should approach infinity, but depending upon what you are measuring and which methods you use N should be at a minimum of between 250-500. I had a prof for my graduate econometrics class that when speaking of GMM or GLM or what ever estimation technique was in discussion, it always came back to the estimation falling apart due to sample size. Asking him what size was adequate, he replied anything over a million should be good for most techniques, but he couldn't quite say b/c he only did theory.
I have a friend who works for the Niselsens, and it's a lot more complicated then just checking if the cable box is tuned in; there's no guarntee that anyones actually watching something, so they actually monitor inside of tvs (and other methods) to make sure the tv is actually turned on to what the cable box is outputting. In addition to that they have "People Meters" where the household more or less clocks in who is watching, i.e. "1 47 Year old Male, 1 44 Year Old Female, 1 13 year old Male" (and even more involved then that for the people who actually live at the house, all sorts of crazy demographics like education, income, etc, etc). Plus the numbers are apparently good enough for the people it really matters too - advertisers.
The best part about going out to a restaurant every time I watch a MLS game is the $30+ I'll drop and the 2000+ calories I'll consume. Man, I love being American.
I was at a Robin Williams concert about 20 years ago when he went into the audience and started talking to people. Turns out one of the guys he spoke with worked for Nielsen - we were treated to some good "you cancelled my show" riffs from Mr. Williams. It was fun. I always wonder if there would be an immediate correlation in MLS or USNT ratings if I got a box. I'd love to have it happen.
If you read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, evaluating and predicting the actions of large groups goes out the window when you get individuals knowing how to screw with the system and willing to do so.
None of this matters to us, nor is it going to be important, nor will we matter in the Nielson ratings just like we don't matter in the ratings now. That is of course, unless you are part of the Nielson sample audience.
It's been a few years but if I remember correctly with a 95% accuraacy where std.dev. of 1. you can do it with less than 5,000 for a country of 300,000,000 people. There not that far off.
This shit is not easy, I thought the same when I get Nielsen meter last January, I been watching every MLS game in every channel ESPN, Fox Soccer, Telefutura, ABC, Comcast Chicago, since the start of the season, and judging from the rating I am kind of disappointed.
He also wrote an ass-ton of nonfiction. They didn't have blogs back then, so authors used other vehicles, like novels, to get points across. Superman 3 was a movie. That didn't stop hundreds of real-life "rounding up interest" capers from occurring and some even succeeding.
Those azz clowns from Nielson bugged the crap outta me last month, they wanted to wire my house up .. and I asked them for how long.. and they said..... from 6 months to 4 years! I told them NO WAY!! I don't care if I watch non-stop soccer, I didn't want them in my house........ they pestered me for quite awhile with letters and phone calls, and they finally gave up..... I don't trust them..
OK. Here's a question for all of you who believe that the Nielsen Ratings for MLS are BS. How many people do you know where you work who watch MLS regularly???? OK. I'll start. I work at a rather small branch of a company here in Colorado and we have approx 200 employees. I know most of them due to my occupation ( I'm a software developer and support a lot of the apps I wrote). I don't know of one person who has watched an MLS game in its entirety. I do know 8 to 10 people who have been to an MLS match however. Every chance I get, I let people know when MLS is on the tube.
Ours is a Nielsen household. When we watch MLS, my wife and I count for around 40,000 viewers. When she goes to bed at halftime because the game is boring, that viewership drops to around 20,000 viewers. Nielsen is very accurate.
BOoo for you, you would have had a chance to positvely influence MLS ratings, and help the league improve it's standing, and you turned it down, you sir should be ashamed, and are a terrible person.