The National Football League has become the first client of FanLinks, a new information service from Nielsen Sports and ACNielsen that couples sports fans interests with their buying behavior.
FanLinks uses information from Nielsen’s Homescan service, which tracks information from 91,000 participants (expected to grow to 125,000 by October 2005) who track their purchases using handheld UPC-code scanners at home.
Nielsen will survey those participants to isolate their interests in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR, golf, tennis, soccer and later, college athletics.
Then, Nielsen will attempt to measure brand loyalty, retail shopping habits and their interest in a particular sport or brand. Those results will be available later this year.
Cary Meyers, director of research for the NFL, said Fanlinks "will put us in an even better position to help our partners optimize their overall sports marketing strategies.”
