Here are some of the ratings that the JMU softball games drew over the past 10 days or so.

The first Oklahoma-JMU game drew 620K viewers on ESPN 6/3.

https://www.spoilertv.com/2021/06/rating...-2021.html

Missouri-JMU on the Sunday game had 673K viewers.

https://www.spoilertv.com/2021/05/rating...-2021.html

I'm sure this has been covered somewhere in the past...but how do those numbers factor in the 10 of us that were in B Dubs Va Beach to watch? Is that TV's or projected eyeballs with sports bars "guessed"?

(06-09-2021 04:24 PM)Halz87 Wrote:  I'm sure this has been covered somewhere in the past...but how do those numbers factor in the 10 of us that were in B Dubs Va Beach to watch? Is that TV's or projected eyeballs with sports bars "guessed"?

TV ratings are produced by companies like Nielsen. Believe Nielsen is the primary source. They talk about their methodology a little on this page:
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/...elevision/

As a child I recall Nielsen calling our house and asking about what shows we watched. These days its mostly done electronically with modern set top boxes and DVRs, etc sending data back.

Pretty sure they didn't count exactly how many folks were at B Dubs :) However they might have a statistical estimate based on commercial customers (bars, etc) tuned in and the average number of people in those establishments for a given day/time.

(06-09-2021 09:51 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(06-09-2021 04:24 PM)Halz87 Wrote:  I'm sure this has been covered somewhere in the past...but how do those numbers factor in the 10 of us that were in B Dubs Va Beach to watch? Is that TV's or projected eyeballs with sports bars "guessed"?

TV ratings are produced by companies like Nielsen. Believe Nielsen is the primary source. They talk about their methodology a little on this page:
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/...elevision/

As a child I recall Nielsen calling our house and asking about what shows we watched. These days its mostly done electronically with modern set top boxes and DVRs, etc sending data back.

Pretty sure they didn't count exactly how many folks were at B Dubs :) However they might have a statistical estimate based on commercial customers (bars, etc) tuned in and the average number of people in those establishments for a given day/time.

Who knows, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the cable boxes can send messages back to Big Brother about who's watching what.

individual locations are often way off on their projections on crowds. Much less who is watching what on their 20 tv's inside a sports bar (plus streaming options, watch parties, etc.). Even though data mining and statistical work are worlds better than they were years ago, I still think there is no way that forecasters can get an accurate guess as to how many people are actually watching. Just relative numbers to what other programs produce, and trust there is not a huge anomaly that makes one program more conducive to large groups watching together (i.e. the Super Bowl) that make it even harder to pin that number down.

Friday night we had 13 people watching the game while eating dinner on the patio of a restaurant in Williamsburg. How does Nielsen capture that kind of data? They don’t.

Since we JMU folks are highly social and the games were played over the weekend, I am willing to bet a lot of us watched the game with a group of friends.

(06-10-2021 10:26 AM)JMUNation Wrote:  Friday night we had 13 people watching the game while eating dinner on the patio of a restaurant in Williamsburg. How does Nielsen capture that kind of data? They don’t.

It’s certainly not precise, but Nielsen does collect a lot of data points. They may know for instance that one or more of the televisions at that restaurant were tuned in (and that it is a commercial/restaurant establishment), or that you and 3 others there had the game streaming to an iPad on the ESPN app. Geolocation of these devices is also approximately possible.

Some “big data” aggregators often know far more about you personally and your habits, though I don’t believe that feeds into TV ratings with Nielsen. I have a friend who worked there a few years back with their web metrics group.

(06-10-2021 10:26 AM)JMUNation Wrote:  Friday night we had 13 people watching the game while eating dinner on the patio of a restaurant in Williamsburg. How does Nielsen capture that kind of data? They don’t.

Since we JMU folks are highly social and the games were played over the weekend, I am willing to bet a lot of us watched the game with a group of friends.

They do try to factor that in though. The Nielsen ratings are pretty dynamic and while they'll never be 100% accurate, they'll be directionally right.

The rating is the rating and it's likely apples to apples when it comes to sporting events. To be honest bars are more likely to be filled watching a P5 football, or even the baseball CWS.

For softball, we had nice coverage. We were the story this year for sure, and the announcers piggybacked on JMU's great story.

JMU/Oklahoma State had 920,000 viewers on Friday.

https://www.spoilertv.com/2021/06/rating...-2021.html

The Sunday JMU/Oklahoma game had a whopping 1,560,000 viewers.

https://www.spoilertv.com/2021/06/rating...-2021.html