Nielsen/Net-Ratings Not Planning To Stop Tracking MLB.com

By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal 

Nielsen To Continue Tracking And Reporting MLB.com Traffic Numbers

Nielsen/Net-Ratings has no plans to stop tracking and reporting MLB.com traffic, despite a written request late last week from MLBAM to do so that claimed Nielsen’s sampling methods are significantly under counting its overall traffic and damaging its relationships with advertisers. Nielsen has yet to respond directly to MLBAM, and company officials similarly declined to address specifically the letter from MLB’s interactive arm. But speaking generally about its Web metrics methods, Nielsen spokesperson Suzy Bausch said, “We are confident in the quality of our measurement services and will continue to provide our clients with valuable market-level data.” Nielsen reported 12.78 million unique visitors for MLB.com in August, while MLBAM said the total was more than 61 million according to its internal server logs. MLBAM execs have not indicted what, if anything, will happen next in the long-running dispute. But the end of their letter reads, "We continue to reserve all rights and remedies available to us, including all rights to take further action, with respect to them."