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How the NFL Schedule is Made · NFL explained.

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  Speaker 1: NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. Well, one of the biggest days
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  Speaker 1: of the NFL offseason. It is knocking on the door.
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  Speaker 1: It is upon us, and no, it's actually not the
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  Speaker 1: NFL Draft. It's the release of the official NFL schedule. Now,
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  Speaker 1: NFL fans, you know, you can start planning your tail gates,
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  Speaker 1: look ahead to see if there's a chance to get
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  Speaker 1: to see Tom Brady one more or ten more times.
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  Speaker 1: I am not convinced that this is the final run
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  Speaker 1: for him. Maybe he's playing on Monday night. Or you
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  Speaker 1: can possibly purchase those hotel rooms and airline tickets to
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  Speaker 1: one of those international games that are being played this season. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'd love to go to one of those. I'm like yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And today on NFL Explained, we are taking a look
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  Speaker 1: at how the NFL schedule is created. Now, by looking
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  Speaker 1: at the schedule, it might seem like it's the simplest
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  Speaker 1: place in teams into home and away games. It's why
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  Speaker 1: more complicated. In reality, it's like a giant Rubik's cube.
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  Speaker 1: There are two hundred and seventy two games spread out
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  Speaker 1: over eighteen weeks. Let that digest for just a moment,
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy two games, not just your team.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of moving parts here, plus the international games,
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  Speaker 1: scheduling conflicts for the stadiums because you know that there's
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  Speaker 1: always a cool concert that you gotta check out in
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  Speaker 1: your local city, and of course making sure that the
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  Speaker 1: key matchups make it into primetime. So trying to understand
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  Speaker 1: how the NFL schedule is created is like trying to
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  Speaker 1: read a foreign language and almost impossible for me to
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  Speaker 1: try to explain. Trust me, it is really complicated. So
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  Speaker 1: this week on NFL Explain how the schedule is created,
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  Speaker 1: we're listening to the experts who can do it way
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  Speaker 1: more eloquently than I can, on how they actually put
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  Speaker 1: together the full eighteen week NFL scheduled. And if you
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  Speaker 1: actually like to see the video that accompanies the audio
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  Speaker 1: clips that you're about to hear, all you have to
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  Speaker 1: do just head over to the NFL Explained YouTube channel
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  Speaker 1: and search for how the NFL schedule is created. Trust me,
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  Speaker 1: it is awesome to see it visually, as well as
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  Speaker 1: a bonus to fill in any questions that actually aren't
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  Speaker 1: answered from the clips that were picking. I actually had
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  Speaker 1: a chance to sit down with Mike North, and trust me,
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  Speaker 1: the dude is awesome to give us all the three here.
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  Speaker 1: It's on how they actually try to build the most
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  Speaker 1: optimal schedule. Trust me, I know I keep saying it's
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  Speaker 1: it's it's so much harder than you could possibly even fathom.
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  Speaker 1: But the NFL schedule team is basically made up of
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  Speaker 1: people that you want on your team, Howard Kats, Mike North,
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  Speaker 1: Charlotte Carry, Annie Bows, Blake Jones, and Nick Cooney. And
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  Speaker 1: they get right to work as soon as the clock
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  Speaker 1: hit zero on the NFL regular season to come up
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  Speaker 1: with the next season schedule to showcase the league's best
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  Speaker 1: matchups and talent every single week. When the regular season
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  Speaker 1: ended on January three, you know, Monday, January four, we
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  Speaker 1: were right on the software loading in what we now
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  Speaker 1: knew to be the two seventy two matchups one and
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  Speaker 1: the matchups are set by a combination of rotation and
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  Speaker 1: previous years standings. The NFL has thirty two teams, and
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  Speaker 1: we are divided into two conferences of sixteen teams each,
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  Speaker 1: and within each conference we've got four divisions of four
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  Speaker 1: teams each. So now, of course, the seventeen games you're
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  Speaker 1: gonna have every team plays their three division opponents each
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  Speaker 1: home and away, so that's six games that every team
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  Speaker 1: in that division will play another division in their own
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  Speaker 1: conference to home tow away, so that's four more games.
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  Speaker 1: That's ten total. And then they'll play a division in
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  Speaker 1: the other conference in its entirety to home tow away,
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  Speaker 1: so that's fourteen total. Now there's two more in your
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  Speaker 1: conference by standings, the first place team in the East
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  Speaker 1: will play the first place team in the South, and
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  Speaker 1: the West, the second place will play the two seconds,
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  Speaker 1: the third will play the two thirds, so that's two
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  Speaker 1: more games for sixteen, and now in an expanded season,
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  Speaker 1: will do the same in the other conference, will play
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  Speaker 1: an interconference game against a division that you are not
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  Speaker 1: playing already this year, that you didn't play last year,
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  Speaker 1: that you're not playing next year, and that will be
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  Speaker 1: a standing space game. This is now even more places
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  Speaker 1: to put each of those games, and they can go
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  Speaker 1: now in any one a seventeen weeks. So the solution
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  Speaker 1: space was already infinite, and we didn't just double or
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  Speaker 1: triple or quadruple the size of it exponentially increase the
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  Speaker 1: size of it. We always liken this to try and
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  Speaker 1: to find the best grain of sand on the beach.
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  Speaker 1: We're no longer just looking on a beach. We're now
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  Speaker 1: looking in the Sahara Desert. It is truly, truly infinite.
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  Speaker 1: We always knew that a seventeen game season was on
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  Speaker 1: the horizon. Possibly two hundred and fifty six games over
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  Speaker 1: seventeen weeks, while already all but impossible, it was a
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  Speaker 1: lot easier than two D seventy two games over eighteen weeks. Look.
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  Speaker 1: I think that when you go from two hundred fifty
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  Speaker 1: six games to two D seventy two games, it feels
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  Speaker 1: like it's sixteen more games. How much harder could it be?
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  Speaker 1: But when you think about it mathematically in the search space,
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  Speaker 1: sixteen additional games and a two D seventy two game
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  Speaker 1: grid just made it exponentially bigger. I can't even quantify
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  Speaker 1: the numbers. The easiest way to think about it I
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  Speaker 1: found when I explained it to people is if Howard
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  Speaker 1: Katz or Roger Goodell says to us, here's ten games
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  Speaker 1: that I think should be on Sunday night football, there's
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  Speaker 1: three point six million ways just to lay out those
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  Speaker 1: ten Sunday night football games. I'm gonna let that sink
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  Speaker 1: in for a second, three point six million possibilities just
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  Speaker 1: because Commissioner Goodell might want ten games there. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: if that gives you some context on the moving parts.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of crazy, right, It is not easy, But the
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  Speaker 1: daunting task of creating the NFL schedule didn't actually always
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  Speaker 1: have computers or coded formulas to make their job easier.
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  Speaker 1: It was actually done by hand on a corkboard by
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  Speaker 1: the late Valel Pinchback. Now, Val, who's actually in the
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  Speaker 1: Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, would sit for hours in
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  Speaker 1: his office trying to create the perfect NFL schedule by hand,
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  Speaker 1: no computers. But what you can't see by listening to
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  Speaker 1: this next clip is the board value used to work with.
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  Speaker 1: It's a simple, old fashioned corkboard. You got the color
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  Speaker 1: coded tabs, the pushpins. The team actually might use Excel
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  Speaker 1: spreadsheets now, but the board is still around and hangs
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  Speaker 1: on the wall in the war room. And of course
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  Speaker 1: it does, right. It's a memento and it just looks
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  Speaker 1: really cool. Now. The team where it gathers to solve
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  Speaker 1: NFL schedule, that's where the actual board still hangs. That room,
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  Speaker 1: which is aptly called the vale a Pinchbeck Jr. Room,
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  Speaker 1: it's just cool. Like I highly recommend just checking out
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  Speaker 1: the video so you can see just how daunting this
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  Speaker 1: task is. And you see all the push pins and
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  Speaker 1: the tabs. It's pretty crazy. But for a little more context,
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  Speaker 1: Mike North actually starts us off by taking us through
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  Speaker 1: the history of how the schedule was created with Valve
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  Speaker 1: up until today, where the team actually uses computers to
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  Speaker 1: create the schedule. Technology. Oh, I love it. It has
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  Speaker 1: made the process somewhat easier. Even though it might be
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  Speaker 1: computer driven, it still takes thousands of computers running algorithms
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  Speaker 1: to create the best possible schedule. I feel like Cynthia
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  Speaker 1: Freeland should be involved in this, But the point is
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  Speaker 1: Mike North and his team they got a lot of
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  Speaker 1: work to do. Val is kind of the legendary schedule
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  Speaker 1: maker of the NFL for you know, many many years
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  Speaker 1: and created the schedule during that time when the NFL
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  Speaker 1: grew to prominence. If I'm proud of something that's being
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  Speaker 1: part of the NFL when it gone went from sort
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  Speaker 1: of a mom and pop thing in the sixties to
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  Speaker 1: a kind of big business it is today. Valve you know,
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  Speaker 1: on you know, sheer force of mental will and intuition
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  Speaker 1: built a schedule by hand, and they were lucky to
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  Speaker 1: complete one and felt great to complete one that was
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  Speaker 1: legal and played all the games and got Network TV done.
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  Speaker 1: And we churned through hundreds every day. And so Val
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  Speaker 1: used to build the schedule with a board just like this.
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  Speaker 1: He would sit here and all these tags would be
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  Speaker 1: hanging down here at the bottom of the board, and
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  Speaker 1: it would be a blank piece of paper. It would
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  Speaker 1: be carte blanche Christmas morning. You could do anything you wanted,
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  Speaker 1: and we would start hanging these tags up one at
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  Speaker 1: a time. Every game that you like, you put one
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  Speaker 1: of these colored pins in. These are for our national
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  Speaker 1: television partners. So if you like this game, this green
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  Speaker 1: pin goes in the Atlanta Carolina game, and that's on
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  Speaker 1: Sunday Night Football in Week three. Now, if anybody came
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  Speaker 1: by this board and gave it a whack, all the
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  Speaker 1: other tags could fall off, but not that Atlanta Carolina
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  Speaker 1: game on Sunday Night Football and Week three, that's the
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  Speaker 1: one that we want in that week, and all the
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  Speaker 1: others really just needed to find a home. As we
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  Speaker 1: built the schedule by hand, every single one of these
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  Speaker 1: tags that moved every single one of these pins that
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  Speaker 1: moved caused a ripple effect that you couldn't even begin
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  Speaker 1: to consider. While you were doing this, one dag at
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  Speaker 1: a time, one game at a time. And Val was
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  Speaker 1: a savant. Val could sit and stare at this board
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  Speaker 1: for hours on end, and he would sit here and
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  Speaker 1: he would crack open pistachios and he would eat the
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  Speaker 1: pistachios and stare at the board, and he put the
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  Speaker 1: shells on his belly. And so after about twenty minutes
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  Speaker 1: he'd have a whole bunch of empty shells and he'd
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  Speaker 1: gets struck by inspiration. He'd stand up, dumped the shells
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  Speaker 1: into the garbage. Move this tag here, move that tag there,
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  Speaker 1: move that tag there, and move that tag there. It
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  Speaker 1: was amazing to watch. It's inconceivable to think that we
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  Speaker 1: could even do this thing by hand right now. So
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  Speaker 1: we're very fortunate to have a really robust piece of
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  Speaker 1: software that essentially looks just like this. When we talk
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  Speaker 1: about what our software prints out, it prints out this board,
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  Speaker 1: the reds and blues for CBS and Fox, the greens
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  Speaker 1: and yellows for NBC and ESPN. We essentially built a
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  Speaker 1: piece of software to mirror the process that value used
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  Speaker 1: to go through when he sat here with his pistachio
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  Speaker 1: nuts and stared at it. So this looks a lot
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  Speaker 1: like that. It's the same colors, it's the same grid,
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  Speaker 1: it's the same columns in the same rows. This piece
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  Speaker 1: of software was built by a company out of Western
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  Speaker 1: Canada called Optimal Planning Solutions. So we write the rules
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  Speaker 1: in the software, and then the software from Optimal Planning
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  Speaker 1: uses an optimizer called Grobi optimization, which takes all the
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  Speaker 1: rules and really tries to figure out, Okay, if there's
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  Speaker 1: an infinite solution space, and these are all the rules
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  Speaker 1: I have to follow, where do I even start. When
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  Speaker 1: we asked the computer to go off and search through
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  Speaker 1: the infinite space, not only does it need to know
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  Speaker 1: which of these games are eligible for which of these
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  Speaker 1: time slots, and certainly which of these stadiums are not
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  Speaker 1: available for various conflicts, and what are our travel considerations
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  Speaker 1: and all the stuff that we're asking it to consider
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  Speaker 1: in that consideration list is competitive fairness. So the way
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  Speaker 1: we do that is with a negative based scoring system,
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  Speaker 1: where we put a penalty on all the things we
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  Speaker 1: don't want to see. That's both team wise and television wise, So,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, three game road trips and road after road
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  Speaker 1: mondays and early buys, and to a way to start
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  Speaker 1: and too a way to finish, and all the things
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  Speaker 1: that we know the coaches and general managers don't like.
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  Speaker 1: If I had a three game road trip last year,
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  Speaker 1: then the penalty for me having a three game road
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  Speaker 1: trip again this year should be significantly higher than for
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  Speaker 1: someone else who probably hasn't had a three game road
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  Speaker 1: trips since two thousand and three. We're also writing rules
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  Speaker 1: about a strong Sunday night football schedule, a strong Monday
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  Speaker 1: night football schedule, a strong Thursday night football schedule. If
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  Speaker 1: we can't deliver all those things that our network partners
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  Speaker 1: are looking for, that should bring a penalty as well.
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  Speaker 1: The lower the score, hopefully, the less disappointed the clubs
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  Speaker 1: and the television partners are going to be. The ability
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  Speaker 1: for our software can't be underestimated in the sense that
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  Speaker 1: being able to access hundreds, if not thousands, of machines
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  Speaker 1: on a daily, nightly hourly basis, and and just the
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  Speaker 1: computing power that's involved in there allows us to turn
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  Speaker 1: around scenarios and changes how we are able to think bigger,
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  Speaker 1: analyze more, but also reactive things. We can go in
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  Speaker 1: and we can look at it. These are four separate clusters.
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  Speaker 1: There's between two hundred and three hundred computers in each
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  Speaker 1: one of these clusters, and each one of these clusters
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  Speaker 1: is looking on a slightly different part of the beach.
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  Speaker 1: This one might have green Bay, Kansas City on Sunday
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  Speaker 1: Night Football in week seven. This one might have green Bay,
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  Speaker 1: Kansas City on Sunday Night football. And week nine, this
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  Speaker 1: one might not have green Bay, Kansas City on Sunday
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  Speaker 1: Night football at all. It might be on Monday Night football.
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  Speaker 1: And this one might have green Bay, Kansas City as
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  Speaker 1: a Fox doubleheader. So it will run on this one
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  Speaker 1: seed schedule, that one computer for as long as it takes.
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  Speaker 1: And so every single day we have thousands of computers,
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  Speaker 1: all with slightly different seed schedules, all searching through this
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  Speaker 1: infinite space trying to find a better score. They can
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  Speaker 1: do a lot of aim high steering for us that
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  Speaker 1: we could never do when we were building this schedule
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  Speaker 1: by hand. All right, So I get it, your head
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  Speaker 1: is spinning. I think if I said to Mike, and
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  Speaker 1: we actually have the interview with Mike North coming up
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  Speaker 1: in just a bit, so maybe we'll ask him this question.
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  Speaker 1: But the process that Mike just sort of laid out
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  Speaker 1: val essentially did the job of thousands of computers, which
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  Speaker 1: Mike said he's a savant, and he is because it's remarkable.
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  Speaker 1: So now that the computers have actually done their thing,
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  Speaker 1: what happens next, Well, Howard Katz and the team actually
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  Speaker 1: have to present the strongest schedule to the commissioner, Roger Goodell. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the schedule has got to feature the best teams and
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  Speaker 1: player matchups every single week. But what happens at the
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  Speaker 1: end of March when free agency hits or team trades.
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  Speaker 1: It's star quarterback I don't know, like Russell Wilson all
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  Speaker 1: of a sudden is a member of the Denver Broncos,
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  Speaker 1: and the rest of the a f C West goes
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  Speaker 1: on a free agent spending spree that we have maybe
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  Speaker 1: never seen before. Well, when we return on NFL Explained,
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  Speaker 1: I get the chance to talk to Mike North about
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  Speaker 1: how free agency blockbuster deals and how other small details
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  Speaker 1: could possibly affect the schedule. Right before the release state, Hi,
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  Speaker 1: I'm Mike. Yeah, I mean, welcome back to NFL Explained.
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  Speaker 1: Now this week we're breaking down how the NFL schedule
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  Speaker 1: is created. But before the break, we got into the
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  Speaker 1: history and how technology has made this almost an impossible
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  Speaker 1: job just a little bit easier. But each year during
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  Speaker 1: the off season, there are little things that pop up
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: or massive things that will arise, like a player switching
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  Speaker 1: teams that suddenly changes the algorithms and the computers that
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: are running to create the best possible schedule. So this
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  Speaker 1: off season, which has been filled with major personnel changes
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  Speaker 1: around the league, I I've been calling it. I know
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  Speaker 1: people around the office have been calling it the craziest
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  Speaker 1: offseason that the league has ever seen. That probably created
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of issues for the algorithm or algorithms
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  Speaker 1: I should say plural, because without sends of computers, like,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot going on here. So I got an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to sit down out with Mike North to see
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  Speaker 1: how challenging it actually is to create this season schedule. Mike,
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  Speaker 1: I think every single year, it's pretty clear that there
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  Speaker 1: are inherent challenges that are unique to the schedule. What's
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  Speaker 1: the biggest challenge for this year, Well, there's a few
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  Speaker 1: of them. One of them was all the uncertainty as
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  Speaker 1: we started the process. Generally speaking, you walk into that
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  Speaker 1: room the day after the Super Bowl, and you know
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  Speaker 1: Howard Kat's and Annie Bows and the team already have
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  Speaker 1: a feel for uh, this is musty TV. This is
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  Speaker 1: the biggest game or the top three biggest games of
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  Speaker 1: the year. Here's a couple of teams we think are
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  Speaker 1: on the rise. Let's make sure we showcase them properly. U.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure we had that when we walked into
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  Speaker 1: the room right after the Super Bowl. Obviously Tom Brady
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  Speaker 1: was retired at the time. So as I've talked about
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  Speaker 1: lots of times, you know, we try to treat each
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  Speaker 1: one of these two seventy two games as an asset,
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  Speaker 1: and they're all worth something, whether give it a score
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  Speaker 1: or a metric, or a rating or a grade, however
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  Speaker 1: it is. You delineate between the value of this game
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  Speaker 1: versus that game. Every game has got a score to it.
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  Speaker 1: And the Tampa Bay games were worth something when Tom
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  Speaker 1: Brady was their quarterback. They were worth something different when
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  Speaker 1: Tom Brady was retired, and they were suddenly worth something
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  Speaker 1: different again when Tom Brady decided that he had enough.
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  Speaker 1: So we, uh, we had to be kind of flexible,
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  Speaker 1: you know, even as we started this process, knowing that
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  Speaker 1: there were still some dominoes to fall. Obviously, Russell Wilson
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  Speaker 1: changing teams like he did makes you look immediately for
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  Speaker 1: a game like Denver at Seattle. You know, our job
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  Speaker 1: here is to tell the biggest stories in the biggest
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  Speaker 1: windows and make sure that the fans that want to
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  Speaker 1: watch the biggest games have an opportunity to you know,
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  Speaker 1: the Denver at Seattle game, Russell Wilson's return after twenty years,
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  Speaker 1: and all those all pro nods in a Super Bowl ring.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we're not doing our jobs if that game
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  Speaker 1: falls it you know, one oh five Pacific time with
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  Speaker 1: two other games going on opposite a big doubleheader game
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  Speaker 1: on Fox that day. I mean, that's not good use
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  Speaker 1: of the Denver at Seattle asset. So how do you
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  Speaker 1: find the right home for that game? You know, like
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  Speaker 1: we said, Tom Brady coming back, the Buccaneers have an
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  Speaker 1: incredible schedule this year. They played Green Day, they played Dallas,
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  Speaker 1: they played the Super Bowl champion Rams, they play Cincinnati,
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  Speaker 1: they played Kansas City. I mean, it's amazing all the
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  Speaker 1: good Tampa Bay games this year. They were gonna be assets.
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  Speaker 1: Even if Tom Brady had decided to remain retired They're
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: obviously worth a lot more with him back under center,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: So we kind of had to shift like we always do,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and we joke, you know, the project changes not only
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: every year but really every day, and this year was
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: no different and in fact, maybe even more challenging than ever.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: How crazy is the text read with you and your
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: team over the course of free agency. You mentioned Brady, Look,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I was doing shows and it's just kind of wild
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to see the amount of movement I've classified. This is
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the craziest you know, offseason maybe the NFL has ever had.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Is it is the communication like, oh my god, this
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: is really cooler, Oh my god, Like, hey, the piece
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of the schedule we just we're working on just got busted. Yeah,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: bit of both. I mean, the good part about the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: scheduling team is we are all still fans, big fans,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and your gut reaction to a big move. Yeah, there's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of holy cow and o mgs and and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, sharing of Twitter feeds, um, and then
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you take a second and now you think to yourself, professionally,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: oh man, everything we've just worked on for the last
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: two weeks, three weeks, two months, three months. Right in
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the trash start all over again. Tomorrow is gonna be fun.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: But you know, this is what makes the NFL so great.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not just the off season movement, but
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you know it happens in season as well. I mean,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: look what happened last year and the last few weeks
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of the season. You had teams go from you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the one seed to missing the playoffs. You had the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Rams play in for the two seed, losing in the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: final week, dropping all the way to the four still
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: end up posting the championship game. You know, every weekend,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: as you go down the stretch right there, the league
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: seems to turn on its ear, and so the scheduling
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: team is busy at that point as well, thinking about
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: flexible scheduling for Sunday night and Saturday games and looking
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: ahead to which games are gonna be scheduled in which
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: playoff windows. So it's great as a fan that there
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: is so much uncertainty and so much turnover and so
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: much volatility in the league. But yeah, as a member
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of the scheduling team, yeah, it'd be nice if everybody
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: just picked their teams and stayed in one place on
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: February seven, But we know that's not how it works,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and we were braced for it this year, and I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: think we got a lot of good experience last year
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: with our first seventeen game eighteen weeks season. We knew
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: that that the solution space, which was already essentially infinite
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: um more than doubled or tripled in size. Now it
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: exponentially increased, just because every single game now has another
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: potential home. We all last year how incredibly vast the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: solution space was and sort of convinced ourselves, Hey, there's
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a schedule out there. If you're looking for one that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: has this game in week four and that game in
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: week eight, and this game on CBS and that game
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: on ESPN, and doesn't give that team a three game
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: road trip and make sure that this team has an
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: East Coast game on their way to Europe. There's a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: schedule out there. Mike. What's kind of crazy is we're
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: talking about player movement and the changes that come with
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: roster and how it affects the schedule. You know, Look,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: maybe this is inside baseball, but obviously a broadcaster myself,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I can't help but notice the amount of broadcast teams
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that have now changed when it comes to play by
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: play and color analysts now switching networks? Does that at
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: all have an effect on the schedule? Look again, as
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: fans and as consumers and as viewers, it can't not
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: have an effect. I can't tell you that all of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a sudden, you know, the ESPN schedule went from you know,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: A to an A plus simply because they spent all
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: that extra money on bucking Ekman. But you know, certainly
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: their first game together in an ESPN booth. Mmmm, that's
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: kind of interesting. And there's a handful of games this
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: year that are gonna be simulcast on ABC plus you
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: bring the Manning cast into it. We've got a week
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: now where there's going to be an ABC in an
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: ESPN each with their own game kind of side by
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: side on Monday Night or staggered starts. So, um, did
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: we suddenly change everything because of the broadcaster movement? No?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Are we aware of it? And does it factor in
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit? It kind of has to. You know,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: we've all got friends who love this announcer and hate
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that announcer. But honestly, I'm struggling to think of a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: time where if a friend has told me that I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: will only watch a game if that announcers doing it
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: or I will never watch a game if that announcers
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: doing it. But you know, when we were growing up,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you remember you turned on the television and you heard
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Pat summer All or Brent Musburger. You knew it was
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a big game. And I think we're all conditioned to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: know that now with a guy like Joe Buck, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I think when we all turn on Monday night football,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: you hear Buck a aikman, it sounds like a football game.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And is that suddenly gonna mean, you know, a wildly
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: different schedule. No, they're still going to get what they
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: get and you know, obviously trying to maximize for all
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of our partners, but massive changes, no minor considerations a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: couple of times a year. Yeah, Mike, you're awesome. My
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: first time talking to you, I thought you were going
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: to say, no, no, it doesn't affect it. I don't
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: think you were going to say, yeah, it's a factor.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: But no, I can go, I can go all that.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I love this stuff, and I love how everybody has
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: started over the last few years. You know this, this
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was a black box for a long time. With all
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: due respect to you know, the val Pinchbecks of the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: world who used to literally have to build this thing
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: by hand, one game at a time. You knew that
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't gonna be your best product. And the stakes are
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: too high now and the constituents are too smart that
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: we couldn't really afford to do it that way anymore. So.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: To the NFL's credit, they put an incredible amount of
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: time and energy and resources and money into doing this
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: project smarter, better, more efficiently. We owe it to our partners,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: they're paying us an awful lot of money. We owe
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: it to our fans they come to the television weekend
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: after weekend. We're not doing our jobs if we're not
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: giving them our best product. And so it is a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: never ending pursuit of, you know, an impossible task. Howard
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Kats always refers to the scheduling process as the definition
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: of insanity. We do the same thing over and over
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and over again and expect a different result. One of
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: these days. We just hope that the computers are going
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to spit out the perfect schedule. Somewhere in this infinite
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: solution space. It's gonna find the one, The magical, mythical
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: perfect schedule satisfies all thirty two teams, all seven network partners, Uh,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that schedule probably doesn't exist. But I'm grateful that the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: NFL is willing to spend the resources in what maybe
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a fruitless pursuit, but in pursuit of that optimal schedule.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And we're getting closer. We're not there, but we're getting closer.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I love your honesty and the fact that you're willing
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to go there. Uh, Germany, how does that effects this
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: year's schedule? Well, Germany was interesting because the league, our
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: international partners, are friends over in Germany. At Byron, everybody
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: had sort of rallied around and and almost settled on
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and frankly almost locked in Tampa Bay as the first
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: host team for our first game in Germany since the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: World League wrapped up. And yeah, you can't do any
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: better than you know, going over there with Tom Brady.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Then Tom retired, and I know our folks rethought it
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: for a minute and wondered, is there a better path
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: for year one. To their credit, they stayed with Tampa.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: That's still the team that you know, the fans over
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: there recognized, identify with as I think you know, you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: each of the NFL clubs had a chance to put
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in for certain international markets, and Tampa saw Germany as
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: a good opportunity for them and a good compliment to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: their brand, if you will. So it's not without its challenges.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Obviously we're in a World Cup year, so trying to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: work around stadium availability, Bundesliga schedules, There's still some qualifying
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: left to be done for the World Cup. Um the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: windows in which we were gonna be able to play
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: some of these international games, we always go through it.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: In England, we always try to use the international break
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: because obviously Wembley is a big part of international qualifying
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: in the UK. Now we also had to work around
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the Bundesliga schedule and the Mexican schedule as we're playing
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: in Mexico City as well, So working around all of that,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: trying to find the right window of the right day,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: trying to find the right teams, and then working with
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: those teams to figure out how do you want to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: handle an international trip. You know you've been doing this
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: long enough, Mike. You know when teams started going over
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to London eight ten years ago, it was this big,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: wild new experience. Teams would leave like the Sunday nights
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: sometimes or the Monday after their previous week's game. Get
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: over to the UK, get into their practice facility, figure
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: out a training schedule, asleep schedule, and eating schedule. It's
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: changed a lot, you know, the sports science world has
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: changed Inched a lot. There's guys going over now Thursday
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Friday treating it just like a regular road game, which
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: for some teams, frankly, it is. You know, sometimes the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: trip to the UK might be less than a trip
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that you might have to take domestically, like Miami going
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to Seattle or something like that, so everybody handles it
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit differently. I'm sure we will learn a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: lot from this first exposure in Germany, but certainly having
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Tampa Bay going over and having Tom Brady back at
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: quarterback is going to make that feel like a much
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: bigger experience than it would have probably otherwise. But it'll
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: it'll be fun. I think this is one of those
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: games that we're gonna kind of point to and look
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: at all year long, and maybe even arm wrestler who's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: going to get to take that trip and be the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: game rep Very cool. I'm glad you bring up soccer
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: because I don't think necessarily fans would say, hey, like
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you know, for the stadium, like there's logistical aspects of
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: it that do impact the schedule on and how you
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: guys put things together locally and I should say domestically
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: is probably the better way describing it. How does the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: ASA Base concert in a random city affect your schedule?
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: And if it's not ASA Base, you know, is there
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you know with concerts and fans going back? Now, like,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: how does that affect logistically what you guys are trying
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to accomplish. Yeah, look, other than me needing tickets to
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the ASA Base show, Uh, it really, it's a stadium
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: block like any other. I mean, these stadiums we use them,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: you know, ten times a year, so they are used
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: for other events and depending on the venue, depending on
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the business relationships. You know, some of our teams own
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: their stadiums, in which case they can clear them out
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: for the entire NFL season. Lambeau Fields a good example.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: You very very very rarely find anything going on in
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Lambeau from August to January. The packers own that building,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: built that building, and they control that building, and they
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: will very rarely ask for anything in their building that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: might impact their football schedule. You know, just mathematically speaking,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: if you have a you know, a stadium block for
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a concert or a college football game, or a golf tournament,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: or or NASCAR race or anything going on in your market.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: You know, if you ask for a stadium block in
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the first two weeks of the season, you have exponentially
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: increased the likelihood that you're gonna start the season with
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: two straight road games. And no team would volunteer for that,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: No coach would volunteer for that. That being said, four
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the five teams that opened to a way to start
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: last season one both games. So you never know. But
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: from a stadium availability standpoint, every club's got an opportunity
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to come to the league office and say, look, we've
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: got this opportunity in our building. We understand fully we
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: can't book it for sure, we don't know until the
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: schedule comes out mid May. But all things being equal,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: as you search for the magical, mythical perfect schedule, the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: one that has us on the road in week seven,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: so we can accommodate this Elton John or Lady Gaga concert,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: would be good for our market, would be good for
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: our fans, and and clearly, yes, there are revenue implications
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: for that as well. And you hinted at it, you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: twenty and twenty one during the pandemic. Not that it's over,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: but you know, so many of these shows was had
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to cancel and they're all trying to come back now.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: And so can all these venues take ten eleven you
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: know arena shows in the fall. They can't. They have
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to put these football games in here somewhere. Uh. And
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: again it depends on the business relationships. Some of our
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: football teams are literally, you know, tenants. A good example
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: is in Indianapolis. You know, the Colts are a tenant
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: in that building and there are other events going on
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: in that building all year long. And we have to
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: be strategic about when the Cults are gonna play their
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: road games and when they're gonna play their primetime games.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the building might not be available on a Sunday,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: but it's available on a Thursday. So wouldn't this be
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a good opportunity for the Colts to host the TNF
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: game so that they don't have a three game road trip,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: or a road after a road Monday, or an early
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: season by or any of the other things that coach
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: wreck might not like. So um, we work with all
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: thirty two individually. We talked to all thirty one thirty
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: of our stadium operators, and we try to accommodate where
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: we can, but you know, there's a line we really
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: can't cross. You know, all due respect to Lady Gaga,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that we should put out a suboptimal
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: NFL schedule simply because she wants to go to Carolina,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: then Atlanta, then Tampa. Maybe we can work with Live
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Nation or whoever it is and say, hey, if you
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: could just reroute and go Atlanta then Tampa then Carolina,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: we can make a better schedule. You can still have
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: your tour dates. Those are the kind of things that
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: have to factor into this process while also working on
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: rest discrepancy and travel and by weeks and all the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: other stuff that we have to worry about. We we
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: do our very best, but it's hard to tell every
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: single club, hey, whatever you need will block you. That's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: just impractical. But if Bradley Cooper says, hey, I'm going
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to perform with Lady Gaga on that particular just if
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get complete fan too, so you know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: we'll make sure that one it's it's accommodated. Gay um
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: uh is there? Uh? How do you how do you
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: take into consideration teams that are on the up swing.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Like I don't think people would have said, hey, Sincenadia
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: gonna be in the super Bowl. You know last year
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what we got. Is there sort of like
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: multiple football minds in the room going, hey, we should
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: keep our eye on this team. Maybe they could be
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that surprise team this year. Yeah, we've tried to over
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the years try to shift the focus of this whole
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: project from gut and feel and instinct and emotion and
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: more towards math and science and data and predictive analytics,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: which one is right anybody's guests, But we've tried to
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: pay attention to the data sets that tell us here's
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: what you need to know. You know, Cincinnati last year
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: we thought they were going to be better. We did.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Did we think they were going to go to the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl? We did not. You know, this year they've
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: earned it, right, So you've got to be wary of
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: overcompensating too far. We've had that in the past. You'll
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: remember the year where Jacksonville made a nice deep playoff
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: run and we're one third down conversion away from going
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: to the Super Bowl up in New England. There we
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: had the year where I think it was Derek ander
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Sen playing quarterback for the Browns and they threw together
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: a ten and sixth season, and you know, they're hot,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: our fans care, they're buzzworthy. Now you've got social media,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: so you see who they're tweeting about, you see who
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: they're following, you see who's got the Instagram pages. You know,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: we are definitely trying to tap into what our fans
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: are telling us they care about. But that can be
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: fleeting and we have definitely been guilty in the past.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So maybe overcompensating for a team that was on the rise.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: But we look at things like everybody else does. Percentage
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: of the salary cap that's available, you know, dead money
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: on the cap, percentage of the salary cap devoted to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the quarterback position records in the final weeks of the season. Mike,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you you rock man I And once again I did
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: not anticipate keeping you as long as we did, so
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I do appreciate it. Thank you very much, because I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: know it is busy for you. Um Mike, how many
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: games are locked in right now? Right now today on
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: April four, I would tell you we've probably got about
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: five or six locked in, and if not locked in,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: maybe you've got, you know, some wiggle room between one
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: or two options. We might be rooting for one option,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: or we might have our thumb on the scale to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: try to, uh, you know, see one of those options land.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But the truth is, the solution space, while infinite, actually
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: shrinks really quickly as soon as we start locking in
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. So, you know, a guy like
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Howard Kats has been doing this a long time, was
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: kind of used to telling us over the years. Put
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: this game in week four, put that game in week eight,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and I don't know, but I just feel like this
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: game belongs on Thanksgiving weekends. So put it in, and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: we would put it in, and we'd go we'd make
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: the best possible schedule we could off of those suggestions.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Now as we've all begun to understand a little bit
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: better about the math and science behind the impact of
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: every one of those decisions, Howard would say something like, look,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of Dallas Green Bay as a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Fox doubleheader kind of right in the middle of the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: season nine, ten eleven. But if you've got to slide
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: it up or down, you know, I think we're better
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: off with that game a little earlier in the season,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: like Week seven or eight, as opposed to later in
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the season like Week fifteen or sixteen. Love the idea
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: of Cowboys Packers playing on a Sunday afternoon in the
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: snow in Lambeau with an NFC one seed at stake.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: But the later in the season you go, the greater
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: your risk. What if one of those quarterbacks gets hurt.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: What if somebody's clinched a playoff spot, what if somebody's
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: eliminated from the playoff spot. You want to get maximum
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: return on the asset that is Dallas Green Bay, And
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the longer you go into the season, the riskier it
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: gets to maximize the return on that asset. So you know,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Howard would tell us, you know, I really like this
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: game here, but if you got to move it there,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: or the computer thinks it's better here, we're there instead.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I'd be open to it. So as far as actually
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: locked in, no more than a handful. But there's a
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: few others that have some pretty restrictive guide rails on it. Mike,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: we're knocking on the door here. What's uh where we
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: locked in on the schedule in terms of that opening
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: kickoff game. Yeah, the The truth is, we we lock
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: in a handful of games relatively early in the process.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Some of those end up staying from day one right
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: through all the way to schedule released day. Others get
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: moved around. You know, in previous years, Howard Katz has
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: been doing this a really long time kind of scheduling Czar,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and earlier in our journey together, Howard would say, you know,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I like this game for week six and that game
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: for week eight, and put this game in week thirteen
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever you do. Don't put this game in week one,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: and make sure you put this game in December. And
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: we would usually end up locking those things in and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: just trying to solve around them. But as we've learned
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: over the years, you know, one little change like that,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: one little decision, one little game locked in or locked out,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: could have an incredibly profound impact on the search strategy,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: on the algorithm, on the heuristic, and you might end
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: up in a very different branch of the search tree
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: with you know what schedules you're considering just based on
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: that one decision, And that one decision at the time
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: might have felt right in your gut, but doesn't necessarily
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the Hey this is the mathematically optimal path
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: to go down. So to his credit, Howard's been a
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: lot more open minded in recent years about things like,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: all right, let's not lock in that game for that week,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: but let's make sure it's one of these two or three.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: And kickoffs the great example. As you look at the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: RAMS schedule, there's a lot of really good options for kickoff,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: even you know, a month out, ten days out. We're
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: trying to thread the needle between kind of locking things
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: in and letting the computer know what we wanted to do,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: but also leaving enough flexibility because changing the kickoff game
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: may somehow miraculously save Jacksonville or Houston or Carolina from
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a three game road trip in December. So you never
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: know the impact of each one of these decisions. So
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: you want to leave the computer enough flexibility while still
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: hitting one of the targets that you set for yourself.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And as far as kickoff goes, you know, there's great
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: options there really are. San Francisco at the RAMS would
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: be a fantastic kickoff game. They played three really good
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: games last year, including the NFC Championship and having that
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: rematch in Week one. That's something we could point to
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: all summer long and say, can't wait for that one?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: You know, that being said, a game like Rams Niners
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: may actually gain in compelling nous, if that's the right word,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: if we save that one for later in the season,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: because there's likely to be playoff implications when those two
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: teams play each other twice, And if I could wave
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: a magic one, I'd probably want to save both of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: those games for the second half of the season, both
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: in national television windows. And I'm not sure Week one
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: is the right way to deploy that asset, so you
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: look for another option. The Rams host Denver this year,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: you know, with Russell Wilson playing quarterback, never more interesting
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: than they're gonna be in Week one. I could certainly
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: see a lot of attention on the Week one game
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: if it is Denver at the Rams. Russell Wilson has
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: a long history against the Rams and playing against guys
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: like Aaron Donald. It would be fun to see him
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: running around in a different jersey, but playing the Rams.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Uh in there for kickoff. That being said, there may
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: be other ways to deploy that very first Russell Wilson game.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: UH in a Denver Broncos uniform. I'm I'm sure that
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Broncos fans would love to see that game at Mile High,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: have that game in Denver. They do visit Seattle this year,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: so we know Russell's going back to Seattle at some point,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, along his story and a lot of
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl ring, those fans are
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: gonna want to, you know, turn out and thank him
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: for that. That could be Week one, that could be
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Week seven, that could be Week fourteen. Anytime you do it,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it's still gonna be a good story, you know, speaking
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: of good stories, Buffalo at the Rams in week number
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: one would be fun. Like we said, Aaron Donald's got
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of experience chasing Russell Wilson around. I'm not
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: sure he's chased Josh Sallen around him up, but I'd
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: watch that. That would be fun. And then, of course
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: you can never go wrong with Dallas. We did Dallas
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: at Tampa last year for kickoff. Dallas at the Rams
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: this year would have that same sort of four months
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: of excitement building once the schedule gets out to when
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: is the season finally going to start? So there's a
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: lot of really good options for kickoff a month out.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure we're aligned yet a week out we
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: may not honestly be aligned. Knowing we have good options
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: helps us a lot because it enables us to go
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: down a lot of different paths, explore a lot of
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: different branches of the solution tree, and the best schedule
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: quote unquote overall for the league could end up with
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: any one of those four games on kickoff, and I
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: think we'd be happy with just about any one of them. Awesome,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Awesome he signed me up. So with all the poticial
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: matchups for the first week and Mike lay them out,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm not alone, right like, this is gonna
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: be kind of a badass week number one. I mean,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I don't really see a bad option no matter which
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: way the league decides to go. But as soon as
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the schedule is released, where do you have to go
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: to check it out? Nfl dot com. The full schedule
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: will be up there analysis I'm sure from plenty of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: experts weighing in on not only the Week one matchups
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: but some of the ones down the road. But I
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: am so thankful that Mike was able to walk us
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: through some of the details that will affect the schedule
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and really just his job personally. Now that we've gone through,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: what the process is, what happens next? Well, I'm gonna
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: leave you with this last little clip from Charlotte Carry
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and Mike North about how they spend each day from
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: January to May searching for the near perfect schedule to
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: present to Howard Kats and eventually getting the final approval
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: from Roger Goodell. Little hint here, they're not getting a
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: whole lot of sleeping. I'm Mike Camp, Thank you so
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: much for listening to this edition of nflis point Mike
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: and I meet, and our day really starts at eleven PM.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: The night before Mike and I meet, all of the
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: solvers are off and running. We check in, We see
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: how things are going, see what's solving on each of
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: these clusters that we have. We have, you know, anywhere
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: from like three to five thousand different computers working on
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: this problem for the entire night. I generally go to
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: bed and Mike stays up and takes the nightshift and
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: basically babies. It's the computers we have, hopefully, uh you know,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: anywhere between fifty and a hundred schedules that we're looking through.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Have to cipher through those, and I take generally the
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: sixth or eight best and send them to Howard and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Hans and the entire team. Oh nice, we got a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: nice low score here at three with really good NBC schedule,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: great Devil headers, I like those cross flexes, good ESPN,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: really strong start on a good Saturday pool. This one
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: is definitely a candidate for a deeper dive. We'll put
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: this one through the analyzer, sent it around to Howard.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll have a new leader today, and then once
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: we get into the meeting, we then do a deep
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: dive on the analysis unless we do like maybe a
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Green Bay Mini or something like that. I did ask
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: researchs to send over a couple more numbers, and then
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: after those meetings regroup at eleven PM and do the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: same thing over and over and over until we find
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the mythical, magical perfect schedule. Monday night, we're finished. Um,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: we've got a winner, presented to the commissioner this afternoon. Uh,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: there she is, in all our glory, finally declared our
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: final schedule about eleven o'clock at night, presented to the
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Commissioner on Monday, and uh, it's it's really good. Glad
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: it's over. We'll be calling the clubs tomorrow Tuesday, with
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: their schedules released to the world on Wednesday night at
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: a tea time for Friday morning and uh Monday we
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: start on the schedule, really looking forward to getting back
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: at it. Maybe get some sleep this weekend, certainly let
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Charlotte get some sleep. That's it.