On Friday night, the NFL’s streaming experiment goes to the next level, with YouTube distributing on a worldwide basis the Chiefs-Chargers game.

How will it do? The world may never know .

Michael Mulvihill of Fox says that “Nielsen’s measurement of tonight’s YouTube game will not be made available to other Nielsen clients.”

He calls it “a flagrant departure from Nielsen’s history of transparency and a slap in the face to long-standing clients.”

Bottom line? “When it comes to streamers the rules simply don’t apply.”

The lack of Nielsen transparency will allow YouTube, and/or the NFL, to characterize the viewership in a non-apples-to-apples way, with subtle shifts in terminology that make the audience seem bigger than it is.

Regardless of how it performs, YouTube is pushing it.

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