MLB.com in Battle with Nielsen about internet ratings!

MLB.com is a gold mine--this year they had almost a billion dollars in spare change--petty cash, so they gave $30 million to each of the 30 MLB teams-who're also part owners of MLB.com. So whom is MLB Advanced Media (MLB.com) going after today to protect their business? The Nielsen ratings company of all people.

• The story in Sports Business Daily said it's the THIRD REQUEST they've made of Nielsen to CEASE and desist "reporting traffic" on their MLB.com sites. I got the headline there and a few details elsewhere-MLB thinks Nielsen's numbers are way too low. I wonder if this is a "free speech" issue on Nielsen's part).

• On October 1, 2007, Z's News Bits posted this about the story:

"MLBAM has requested that Nielsen/Net Ratings stop reporting the site’s monthly traffic counts, heightening tensions over the unsettled state of Internet metrics that have built up for more than three years. In a letter sent late last week to the Internet measurement outfit, MLBAM General Counsel Michael Mellis writes,

• “Because your reports about MLB.com portal traffic continue to be significantly understated, we continue to be damaged, including without limitation, in our dealings with advertisers ...

the better course would be for Nielsen to refrain from issuing traffic information about our portal until it can do so in a reasonably accurate manner.”

• Nielsen reported MLB.com posted traffic of 12.78 million unique visitors during August '07, but MLBAM execs say their internal server count points to more than 61 million visitors."

(One point here--references 12.78 million "unique" visitors vs MLB's 61 million "visitors" not using the adjective "unique." Both numbers could be accurate as only one is using "unique," which I believe means unduplicated). sm

• (From story again): "MLBAM CEO Bob Bowman: “The differences [in the monthly reports] keep widening, and the problem is only getting worse.""

• ***That was back in October and here's another story today in Sports Business Daily (apparently also recently reported in Sports Business Journal) re: MLB.com's 3rd request for Nielsen to shut the heck up about their version of MLB's traffic. Whoa, baby! This could get good.***

Headline from SportsBusniessDaily.com, story by Eric Fisher, "MLBAM Again Asks Nielsen to Cease Web Traffic Reporting," 12/10/07

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