COLOGNE, Germany—As esports continues to rise in popularity, Nielsen will be lending its assistance to ESL and DreamHack for measuring key components of the esports industry, including viewership, as part of a new partnership agreement.

The three companies have been previously working together to establish a foundation for delivering consistent and standardized esports measurement to media and advertisers, and this new agreement is an expansion upon their past work. In addition to utilizing standardized metrics for esports viewership measurement and benchmarking, the agreement focuses on brand impact, media & sponsor valuation and consumer analytics.

As members of the Nielsen Esports Advisory Board, ESL and DreamHack will support the establishment of standard audience metrics for all digital and linear esports broadcasts.

“It is very important for the esports industry to use standardized reliable data measured by an independent company like Nielsen in conversations with brand partners and broadcasters,” said Thomas Schmidt, CCO at ESL. “Our work with Nielsen reaffirms our commitment to shape the esports industry and build stronger relationships with media and advertising partners by driving the standardization of key performance indicators across the industry with an independent and reliable partner. Establishing KPI’s live average minute audience (AMA) and others will push the industry forward and make it more accessible for media partners worldwide.”

Nielsen will provide its measurement services for the recently announced ESL Pro Tour that will be run by ESL and DreamHack.

NEW YORK—Digital video measurement company Tubular Labs on Tuesday, Sept. 10, introduced new metrics for social video that are based on time spent viewing and de-duplicated audience engagement.

The new metrics are designed to provide a more TV-like measurement of attention and unique reach for social video globally.

“Technology has made audiences global, mobile and social, but the current measurement products are country-specific, often missing mobile, and are seriously lacking in social coverage—leading to confusion and locked economics for online video,” said Rob Gabel, founder and CEO at Tubular Labs. “Our vision is to drive the same transparency in global social video that the industry already has for radio, TV and websites, delivering key insights that change the way both media and brands transact on video.”

Media buyers are looking for an apple to apple way to measure and compare video from platform to platform, whether traditional TV, digital video, over-the-top or social.

Tubular said that the lack of comparable metrics for social video has limited the amount of revenue publishers can earn, despite the trillions of views social video generates.

The new time-based video measurement approach was co-developed with a consortium of online publishers through the Global Video Measurement Alliance, and its members Viacom, Ellen Digital Network, Corus Entertainment, Vice, BuzzFeed, Group Nine and Media Chain; new to the group this fall are Discovery and Brut.

“Working with our GVMA members and early access customers, we are rapidly making progress to commercialize and release our new measures that will reveal a comprehensive picture of global audience reach and engagement for social video, bringing long-needed parity to the industry’s accepted linear standards” said Neil Patil, chief commercial officer at Tubular Labs. “This will include standardized time-based views across platforms, true global de-duplicated reach, total watch time, average watch time per unique viewer, audience demographics and location, and special reporting features.” 

This story originally appeared on TVT's sister publication B&C.