Paul Ballew, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at the NFL , took multiple shots at Nielsen on Tuesday, accusing the ratings giant of “under-counting” viewership for many of the league’s game telecasts.

In particular, Ballew faulted the measurement of “tentpole” events like Thanksgiving Day games and the Super Bowl, which are viewed by large numbers of people crowded around TV screens.

Speaking on a media conference call that featured other league execs, Ballew said Nielsen uses a “co-viewing factor” of 2.3 to 2.4 times the number of households tuning in. To use a hypothetical example, that means that if a game drew 10 million households, Nielsen extrapolates that to mean that 23 million or 24 million viewers were actually watching.

Over the years, Ballew said, the league has “raised

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