Speaker 1: We're presented by wind Beat. Betty is a team sport
Speaker 1: put together at win bet. NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning,
Speaker 1: Mike North, what was your weekend like after you finally
Speaker 1: put this thing to bet Oh, was a little relaxing,
Speaker 1: but also still a little tense when this schedule comes out.
Speaker 1: Teams got their schedules on Wednesday. The networks got their
Speaker 1: schedules on Thursday, but they only got their own. So
Speaker 1: the initial reaction was, you know, in a vacuum in
Speaker 1: a vertical, this is what I got. Okay, I get it,
Speaker 1: I see, thank you, goodbye. But now seventy two hours later,
Speaker 1: everybody's had a chance to see what everybody else got,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it might make you feel a
Speaker 1: little bit better about what you got. In other ways
Speaker 1: it might make you feel a little worse. So still
Speaker 1: a couple of texts and emails, nothing to um, you know,
Speaker 1: ornery or or disastrous um, but definitely still some questions.
Speaker 1: And I think as everybody gets into it a little
Speaker 1: bit more over the next couple of week days and weeks,
Speaker 1: we'll field a couple more questions. But you know, as
Speaker 1: I think I've said to you guys before this thing
Speaker 1: isn't really about making everybody happy. It's about disappointing everybody equally.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's kind of where we landed.
Speaker 1: Nobody's uh, nobody's too high and nobody's too low. Did
Speaker 1: you feel any questions or comments from the Jets over
Speaker 1: the weekend. Um, No, they've been good so far. I
Speaker 1: have not heard from Homie or Brian Mulligan or from coach. Um. Look,
Speaker 1: they're they're obviously in our backyards. We talked to them regularly,
Speaker 1: and I think we had a pretty good sense of
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that they were looking for in
Speaker 1: this season. Um. You know, obviously your record dictates most
Speaker 1: of your television. So it comes down to travel, It
Speaker 1: comes down to a home opener, It comes down to
Speaker 1: a Thursday home game. You know, Like most teams in
Speaker 1: the league, I think two of the things that they
Speaker 1: were focused on, we're opening at home and catching that
Speaker 1: Thursday game. Everybody's got one on a short week. I
Speaker 1: think most teams, if you asked them, would prefer to
Speaker 1: have it at home. So, you know, of the things
Speaker 1: the teams were looking for this year, the Jets checked
Speaker 1: a couple of boxes, you know, with the home opener
Speaker 1: in the Home Thursday. All right, we're gonna dive into
Speaker 1: the deep on with the jets here in a second.
Speaker 1: But can you talk about the making to the schedule
Speaker 1: being a combination of both art and science. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. I mean, it's been art for
Speaker 1: so so long. Um. You know, those of us who
Speaker 1: have been doing this for five years, we go back
Speaker 1: to the days of Vow Pinchback, the father of NFL scheduling.
Speaker 1: He used to build the schedule by hand, one game
Speaker 1: at a time, one decision at a time, making the
Speaker 1: best decision in the moment, but really not having any
Speaker 1: indication of what corners you painted ourselves into, what rabbit
Speaker 1: hole you're now going down, or what branches of the
Speaker 1: search tree you now completely have lopped off by making
Speaker 1: a decision that felt like the right decision in week
Speaker 1: two or week three, or for ESPN in week six. Um.
Speaker 1: So uh, we're all still kind of doing it the
Speaker 1: way val always did it, but obviously taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the software and the hardware. Instead of building one schedule
Speaker 1: and going down one path, we can go down dozens
Speaker 1: of night hundreds over the course of a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Thousands by the time we're done. Uh, we ended up
Speaker 1: literally completing over a hundred thousand legal, playable, feasible NFL
Speaker 1: schedules this year. So the math and the science and
Speaker 1: the search and the heuristic and the algorithm and the
Speaker 1: optimization they can create a lot more options for you. Now,
Speaker 1: the question is are they better right? Which ones are
Speaker 1: are good, which ones aren't quite checking the boxes that
Speaker 1: Howard Kats, who runs the scheduling process, has in mind.
Speaker 1: You know, we sit down February eight or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: the day after the Super Bowl, and Howard's kind of
Speaker 1: got a vision in his mind. Here's what the primetime
Speaker 1: schedules should look like. Here's what we're gonna do for
Speaker 1: Amazon or his streaming partner. Let's not forget Team X
Speaker 1: or Team why maybe got the short star last year.
Speaker 1: Let's make sure we don't doubleding him again. So he's
Speaker 1: always got a picture in his mind, and it's our
Speaker 1: job to kind of get into his mind, maybe sometimes
Speaker 1: even read his mind, and kind of teach the computers
Speaker 1: what it is Howard's thinking about. And then Hans Schroeder,
Speaker 1: Brian Rolapp, Roger Goodell, the guys that run NFL Media. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, manage all our media partnerships. They've all got
Speaker 1: conversations with our network partners trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: the right buttons to push, the right levers to pull.
Speaker 1: And like we said, in a way, you know you're
Speaker 1: not gonna make everybody happy, but hopefully you can give
Speaker 1: everybody a little something. Nobody gets everything, but everybody gets
Speaker 1: something sort of the way we think about it. And
Speaker 1: instead of building one schedule by hand, we can build
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand with the computers. I assume we're better
Speaker 1: than we would have been if we had just build
Speaker 1: one by hand. Mike, how quickly is that process? Add
Speaker 1: twenty thousand schedules are generated? And you guys, is it instantaneously?
Speaker 1: Where you go, okay, a hundred, twenty thousand, three hundred
Speaker 1: or four hundred, and then can you talk about we
Speaker 1: them down from three hundred? Yeah. Like most projects, you know,
Speaker 1: you start with a really wide net. You've got a
Speaker 1: lot of options and you're willing to consider an awful
Speaker 1: lot of things. So those early days of scheduling, we're
Speaker 1: cranking out hundreds a day, um. And then after you
Speaker 1: start to see a few things, you know, the boss
Speaker 1: starts to get a little comfortable. You know what, I
Speaker 1: really like when Green Bay Chicago lands in week two
Speaker 1: on Sunday night, or I really like when Fox gets
Speaker 1: the doubleheader in week twelve. I really hate when the
Speaker 1: Jets catch a three game road trip and it includes
Speaker 1: their trips to Denver, Green Bay, and Minnesota something like that.
Speaker 1: So you look at as many of these schedules as
Speaker 1: you can early in the process. They're coming in faster
Speaker 1: than we can even really kind of you know, process them.
Speaker 1: So it's really more about using our scoring system, checking
Speaker 1: out some hot button issues, looking at the things that
Speaker 1: we know we're focused on, and so early in the process,
Speaker 1: lots and lots of schedules, but most of them get
Speaker 1: cast aside pretty quick. The more you cast a side schedules,
Speaker 1: the more rules you write, the more constraints you add
Speaker 1: to the model. Now, instead of many schedules, you start
Speaker 1: to taper down, and by the end you're really only
Speaker 1: seeing a couple of day. The bad news is you're
Speaker 1: only seeing a couple of day. The good news is
Speaker 1: they're all good, they're all checking the boxes, they're all
Speaker 1: getting pretty close to you know what, Howard Katz and
Speaker 1: Hans Schroeder and Roger Goodell have in mind when we
Speaker 1: hand them this two seventy two piece puzzle. Good for
Speaker 1: this guy, bad for that guy. It is a zero
Speaker 1: sum game, after all. Anything that's good for the Jets
Speaker 1: is bad for the Patriots. Anything that's good for CBS
Speaker 1: is probably bad for ESPN. So try to balance it out.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, the tapering of options happens smoothly, not
Speaker 1: too quickly, until we get to the very very end.
Speaker 1: And once you're kind of hanging that leader in the
Speaker 1: clubhouse on the wall, and we know we've got one
Speaker 1: that we could play. If we're gonna beat it, it's
Speaker 1: probably gonna be very similar, just on the margins. Let's
Speaker 1: not rethink kickoff, Let's not rethink Thanksgiving or Christmas. We
Speaker 1: like that schedule that's hanging on the wall, but if
Speaker 1: we could fix that Houston three game road trip or
Speaker 1: that CBS one o'clock window in week eight, we should
Speaker 1: at least try. So you let the computers run basically
Speaker 1: until the last minute, and you just keep throwing contenders
Speaker 1: at the leader in the clubhouse, and if it survives,
Speaker 1: you know you're getting pretty close to the best. You're
Speaker 1: gonna do. Alright, Mike, what do you say to the
Speaker 1: Jet fan. You live in this area, so you're around
Speaker 1: Jets fans to say, Mike, what about some primetime love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got the Thursday night game, the home game gets
Speaker 1: the Jacksonville Jaguars December twenty two, and that's nice. But
Speaker 1: just the one game and the thirteen one pm starts.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that was not a conscious effort on
Speaker 1: the league offices part. We didn't set out and say, okay,
Speaker 1: Jets maximum one prime go. Um. You know, the record
Speaker 1: probably didn't warrant the NBC Sunday Night package, but they
Speaker 1: were absolutely in the mix. For ESPN. We looked at
Speaker 1: plenty of schedules, literally right up until the very very end,
Speaker 1: where you might have seen like a Jets Patriots or
Speaker 1: a Jets Bills game on ESPN on Monday Night Football.
Speaker 1: I don't think our friends at Disney would have complained
Speaker 1: if that's where the schedule had landed. Um, you know
Speaker 1: that being said, uh, I think I said this the
Speaker 1: other day. You know you, um, you play your way
Speaker 1: in the prime time. You don't necessarily draft your way
Speaker 1: into prime time. We all feel like the Jets got
Speaker 1: better Uh at the draft. Nothing would be you know,
Speaker 1: better for the league than to have both New York
Speaker 1: teams competitive and relevant and delivering a lot of eyeballs,
Speaker 1: um on a Sunday afternoon or on Monday night. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't root for anybody, of course, we
Speaker 1: root for all thirty two equally, but uh, it'll be
Speaker 1: good for the NFL to have the Jets and Giants, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, with winning records in playoff contention, and that
Speaker 1: will bring additional prime time exposure. Let's remember this conversation though,
Speaker 1: in a couple of years, because when I come back
Speaker 1: on and they're on Sunday night, Sunday night twice and
Speaker 1: Thursday night and a doubleheader and Christmas, you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna say, hey, wait a minute, we love the days
Speaker 1: of Sunday at one o'clock. It's uh, it's a good
Speaker 1: price to pay for success. Hey, we're talking to the
Speaker 1: fan right now. I gotta ask that question because it's
Speaker 1: on their minds. There's no doubt about that. Um, So
Speaker 1: let's get the record straight. There was some talk, there
Speaker 1: was some consideration putting the Jets on the ESPN. It
Speaker 1: just to him turn out somewhere in these hunting whatever
Speaker 1: thousand schedules that we look through, including some really right
Speaker 1: down to the very end, I'll be very honest with you,
Speaker 1: the ESPN Monday night doubleheader this year where we're playing
Speaker 1: an ESPN and in ABC game side by side with
Speaker 1: each other. Uh, we absolutely looked at contender finalist schedules
Speaker 1: where instead of Tennessee Buffalo and Week two, it was
Speaker 1: Jets Buffalo and Week two. So absolutely in the mix,
Speaker 1: no question, it was a possibility. Nothing anybody here would
Speaker 1: have blanched at or winstad Um. It really just came
Speaker 1: down to, hey, this particular schedule is a little better
Speaker 1: than that particular schedule, and this was the one that
Speaker 1: happened not to have the Jets on Espen. But uh
Speaker 1: there was no conscious effort by the scheduled team to
Speaker 1: prevent that. Uh, it was an option. Uh, it just
Speaker 1: didn't happen to land on on the final leader. Oh
Speaker 1: most Jets Buffalo week two in prime time? Well, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe another year. Let me ask you this. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the Jets opening at home. Is that something that they
Speaker 1: requested or said we'd like to do that, considering we
Speaker 1: haven't had a home game home opener since nineteen and
Speaker 1: also this was the twenty one anniversary at nine eleven. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: the truth is every team in the league wants to
Speaker 1: open at home. They also want to close at home.
Speaker 1: They also want to have a mid season bye week.
Speaker 1: They also don't want to go to Florida in September
Speaker 1: when it's a hundred degrees. They don't want to go
Speaker 1: to Lambo in January when it's negative ten degrees. They
Speaker 1: don't want to play the Kansas City Chiefs coming off
Speaker 1: their bye week because Andy Reid never loses off his
Speaker 1: bye week. I mean, everybody's got the same wish list.
Speaker 1: You could probably submit the wish list for the Jets
Speaker 1: um but yeah, i mean, look, everybody focuses obviously when
Speaker 1: the schedule comes out on week number one. We've got
Speaker 1: four months ahead of us to get ready for the opener.
Speaker 1: It's hard to start, you know, gearing up in May
Speaker 1: for a week three or week six or week nine.
Speaker 1: You know, so everybody's looking at week one. I'm sure
Speaker 1: every team in the league would prefer a home opener.
Speaker 1: What we try to do is balance it. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't have a home opener every year, but if
Speaker 1: you've had a you know, lengthy stretch of road games
Speaker 1: in week one, it's probably something the scheduling team auto
Speaker 1: work to address and at some point kind of pay
Speaker 1: what we owe. Uh, you know, sometimes it's a little
Speaker 1: out of our hands. The stadium might be blocked, there
Speaker 1: might be a conflict, there might be you know, a
Speaker 1: baseball game across the street. Uh, you never know, But
Speaker 1: as best we can, we sort of track all these
Speaker 1: things and all these rules and all these constraints. Plus
Speaker 1: the clubs remind us, you know, they're not shy, and
Speaker 1: they have very long memories, and if they feel like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're owed one here, they'll tell us and we'll do
Speaker 1: what we can to sort of make it right. The
Speaker 1: Jets have eight fewer rust days than their opponents, tied
Speaker 1: for the fourth worst rust rust differential in the National
Speaker 1: Football League. I feel like that's something new that people
Speaker 1: are talking about. Ten fifteen years ago. You didn't hear
Speaker 1: too much about that, did you. No, No, And look,
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is it's a story on
Speaker 1: release day, no doubt, and obviously we pay attention to it.
Speaker 1: Eight nine, ten, twelve, fourteen days total up, ard down,
Speaker 1: good or bad. That's probably within you know, hailing distance
Speaker 1: of everybody else in the league. If you see a
Speaker 1: schedule or somebody's you know, plus twenty seven or minus
Speaker 1: thirty two, that's probably not our best schedule. So you know,
Speaker 1: to say that minus eight, minus ten, minus twelve is
Speaker 1: fair or unfair, I think it's relative to the rest
Speaker 1: of the league. And plus our data guys have spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time kind of analyzing this. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we have yet to find a situation where it really
Speaker 1: jumps off the page as this is truly unfair. There
Speaker 1: was a stretch maybe five or ten years ago where
Speaker 1: playing a team coming off there by week, especially if
Speaker 1: you were on the road. You go on the road
Speaker 1: to a team who's rested something like you know, impact
Speaker 1: and expected win percentage, that's pretty significant. You can't avoid
Speaker 1: them all. You're gonna have them, but you probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: have two or three land on the same team. UM.
Speaker 1: Now it's sort of shifted. You know, if you look
Speaker 1: at the data, it kind of shows that rest is
Speaker 1: just like everything else. It could be whether it could
Speaker 1: be quarterback play, it could be uh salary cap devoted
Speaker 1: to certain position groups. Good team has overcome challenges. Bad
Speaker 1: teams will you know, struggle no matter what obstacles are
Speaker 1: in their way. Um, but you you hardly ever hear
Speaker 1: a team or a coach uh say to us, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't compete as a result of this,
Speaker 1: you know, negative rest discrepancy. They'll show up, they'll play,
Speaker 1: And there's times every year when the team that's you know,
Speaker 1: minus seven in rest gets a W and there's times
Speaker 1: when the team there's plus three or four gets beat.
Speaker 1: So we watch it, we monitor it. You know, our
Speaker 1: data and analytics folks are always kind of bringing our
Speaker 1: attention those things which start to be you know, trending
Speaker 1: towards Hey, we ought to avoid this. Uh, we're not
Speaker 1: quite there yet. On rest discrepancy. Anything in the you
Speaker 1: know eight, ten, twelve, up or down is probably standard.
Speaker 1: And if it happens to the same team, you know, down, ten, down,
Speaker 1: fourteen year after year after year, then yeah, probably at
Speaker 1: some point we ought to flip it around. But a
Speaker 1: man that had this exactly right. But I think the
Speaker 1: Packers were one of the teams with the worst rest
Speaker 1: discrepancy last year. I think they had five game with
Speaker 1: negative rest. They want them all. Hey, speaking of the
Speaker 1: Packers great transition, you must be looking at my notes here.
Speaker 1: Interesting dynamic for the Jets. They go out there in
Speaker 1: week six and face Aaron Rodgers and company the Packers
Speaker 1: the week before, playing across town Giants, not across the town, though,
Speaker 1: across the pond over in London. They declined to buy afterwards, right, yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: most of the teams did. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: Jets have been over there. It's uh, it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing where maybe eight or ten years ago was
Speaker 1: still you know, so new, and everybody's still kind of
Speaker 1: adjusting to the concept. You know. They used to go
Speaker 1: over Monday Tuesday, spend the whole week there, get their
Speaker 1: body clocks acclimated, uh, and then fly back and take
Speaker 1: the bye week, and everybody's sort of decompressed and reset
Speaker 1: and go from there. Lately, it's become you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to call it routine, because it's not, but
Speaker 1: it's getting pretty close to just another road game for
Speaker 1: these guys. They get over there Friday, maybe even Saturday.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the vast major are the games lately, and certainly
Speaker 1: all of them this year are being played in the
Speaker 1: afternoon over there, So nine thirty in the morning Eastern
Speaker 1: time over here in the States. They're gonna be back
Speaker 1: at jeff k or Newark by you know, one o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. Probably not that different than if they
Speaker 1: were playing on the road at Seattle or San Francisco.
Speaker 1: So almost of the teams this year opted not to
Speaker 1: take the bye week coming back from the UK, and
Speaker 1: it's an indicative I think of the fact that everybody's
Speaker 1: kind of adjusted and it's becoming much more routine, at
Speaker 1: least from a football operations standpoint. Win bet is now
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Speaker 1: Winn bet and the official sports book and gaming part
Speaker 1: of the New York Jets Office up to the change
Speaker 1: in terms of conditions at winbet dot com. Must be
Speaker 1: twenty one the older at President New Jersey. If you're
Speaker 1: someone you know has a gambling problem called on seven
Speaker 1: zero seven one one seven Mike cal Rare is that
Speaker 1: the the Jets opened up with four consecutive games against
Speaker 1: teams outside the a FC East in the same division,
Speaker 1: the f C North. Yeah, look, I'm I wouldn't bet
Speaker 1: that it's unprecedented to open up those first four weeks
Speaker 1: without a division opponent. I would not be surprised if
Speaker 1: that's the first time it's happened like that, where you
Speaker 1: play everybody from um, you know, another division like that
Speaker 1: all in a row. We pay a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: obviously to how we spread the division games around within
Speaker 1: a season. I don't think we're at our best if
Speaker 1: you know, the Jets or anybody else played four or
Speaker 1: five of their first six games against division opponents, or
Speaker 1: maybe even four or five of their last six games
Speaker 1: against division opponents. We had that last year in the
Speaker 1: schedule that we played uh in the NFC East. Uh,
Speaker 1: just an awful lot of NFC East matchups in December
Speaker 1: and January, hopeful that that division was gonna come right
Speaker 1: down to the wire and all those games were gonna matter.
Speaker 1: Didn't quite pan out that way. UM So again, not
Speaker 1: on precedent in it it's really more about spreading those
Speaker 1: division games throughout the season, kind of have a balance,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the first third, some in the middle,
Speaker 1: and of course saving some for the end. Um. I
Speaker 1: would not be surprised if this is the first time
Speaker 1: that the Jets played four teams right in a row
Speaker 1: to start their season from a division that wasn't their own. Yeah,
Speaker 1: going back to nineteen seventy, we believe it's actually the
Speaker 1: first time. And then I know you've taken a lot
Speaker 1: of questions on this already. Deshaun Watson. Does that go
Speaker 1: into consideration in terms of we don't know right now?
Speaker 1: Obviously he's on the Cleveland Browns roster. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are expecting a suspension at some time. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't know, honestly, any more than you do or Adam Schefter. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I heard that this was the first uh
Speaker 1: disciplined case with the new cb A, So I'm not
Speaker 1: even sure the decision rests solely with the commissioner anymore. Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't know. It could be tomorrow, it could be
Speaker 1: a year, it could be two years. There could be
Speaker 1: a suspension, there could be no suspension. Uh, none of
Speaker 1: us know. And as such, we really didn't take that
Speaker 1: into account. Um, just kind of you know, let the
Speaker 1: chips fall where they may. As it turned out, I
Speaker 1: think the Browns ended up with two national games. Chance
Speaker 1: for a third. I think they're in the Saturday pulled
Speaker 1: down there in December, so one of the first third,
Speaker 1: one in the middle third, one in the back third. Um, look,
Speaker 1: if if Deshaun's playing and he's healthy, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: he's one of the best players in the league, or
Speaker 1: he was last time he was on a football field,
Speaker 1: and last time we all got to see him. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure if he plays this year and we all
Speaker 1: see if he is who we all thought he was. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the Browns record in their national appearances will
Speaker 1: reflect that. In schedule this year, we didn't factor in
Speaker 1: anything because frankly, we don't know anything. Yeah, obviously Judd's Browns.
Speaker 1: We two in Cleveland. I wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: the division here. FC East sets up interestingly for the
Speaker 1: Jets because prior to their Week ten by they have
Speaker 1: three divisional games all at home, whereas another side of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, all the divisional games the back end are
Speaker 1: on the road. Is that something you all typically try
Speaker 1: to avoid you know what for a team like the Jets.
Speaker 1: You know, you think about the Jets, the Bills, the Patriots,
Speaker 1: those are all cold weather outdoor stadiums. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: cold whether you play the game at home or on
Speaker 1: the road. Um, you know, it might be the kind
Speaker 1: of thing where we look at trying to think of
Speaker 1: a good example. Maybe Minnesota, Detroit, you know, having to
Speaker 1: go on the road to Green Bay and Chicago, asking
Speaker 1: a dome team, or even in the a S East right,
Speaker 1: asking the Dolphins as a warm weather team to go
Speaker 1: on the road to all three cold weather road Division
Speaker 1: games in the second half of the season versus the
Speaker 1: first half of the season. Unprecedented. Probably not something we
Speaker 1: wouldn't play, probably not, but something to pay it's eensin
Speaker 1: two and something that I imagine the team would bring
Speaker 1: to our attention. Probably I'm not sure. Again it's competitively unfair, um,
Speaker 1: but probably just another one of those you know, oddities,
Speaker 1: unique set of circumstances, nothing intentional, and let's see how
Speaker 1: it plays out. If it turns out to be truly unfair,
Speaker 1: probably the kind of thing we'd look to avoid in
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, let's see how it plays out. Because
Speaker 1: the Jets might use this their advantage here before the
Speaker 1: bye with those home games at MetLife Stadium. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just interesting. As far as the way it all
Speaker 1: comes together, win bet is now live in New Jersey
Speaker 1: and they're bringing the excitement of win Las Vegas to
Speaker 1: online sports betting, getting on all your favorite teams, players
Speaker 1: and sports from boost a parlays to live in game
Speaker 1: odds on every major sport. They have what you need
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Speaker 1: risk free one thousand down the sports bet download the
Speaker 1: wind beat up now or visit w y N and
Speaker 1: bet dot com to start winning winn bet and the
Speaker 1: Pistial sports Book, and gave me part of the New
Speaker 1: York Jets office up to the change terms of petitions
Speaker 1: at dot com. The older a president of New Jersey.
Speaker 1: If you're someone you know has a gambling problem, one
Speaker 1: seven or seven one one. As far as the league
Speaker 1: is concerned, can you talk about the increasing number of
Speaker 1: broadcast partners and also the Amazon streaming the Thursday night
Speaker 1: football is now? Yeah, no doubt. I mean, look, you
Speaker 1: mentioned whatever you said nineteen seventy there, think about going
Speaker 1: back to basically every game was at one o'clock or
Speaker 1: four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and that was it, right,
Speaker 1: And then we added Monday night football in the early
Speaker 1: seventies and everybody said, nobody's gonna watch football in primetime
Speaker 1: on a weeknight, on a school night, on a work night.
Speaker 1: You guys are nuts. That turned out to be a
Speaker 1: relatively successful franchise. Same thing we went to Sunday night football. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we've added Thursday nights over the past fifteen years.
Speaker 1: We've got nine thirty a m London games. We're playing
Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, on New Year's Uh, there's an
Speaker 1: awful lot of new windows. And as long as you know,
Speaker 1: the lubs can adjust and handle it. And like we said,
Speaker 1: turn that which seems, um you know to be uh
Speaker 1: unique and different, suddenly becomes routine. Right. These London games
Speaker 1: are now relatively routine for our teams, um, and I
Speaker 1: think our fans are starting to find uh more of
Speaker 1: our games kind of wherever we deploy them. You know,
Speaker 1: if if all the games are still Sunday afternoon at
Speaker 1: one o'clock, um, you don't get a chance to see
Speaker 1: some of the other teams in the league and you're
Speaker 1: just gonna watch your team over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: which is important a lifeline of the league. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the key facets of every one of our
Speaker 1: broadcast partners relationships with us the home team local market
Speaker 1: ratings absolutely uh mission critical to the success of the NFL,
Speaker 1: no question about it. But you know, when you can
Speaker 1: finish watching the Jets at one o'clock and if the
Speaker 1: Giants are on by then we should show you a
Speaker 1: Packers game or a Steelers game, or a Bills game
Speaker 1: or a Chiefs game at four thirty. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: another one on Sunday night and another one on Monday night.
Speaker 1: So trying to you know, innovate, look for these new windows.
Speaker 1: Our fans will tell us, um, if we've gone too
Speaker 1: far or if there's a window that they're not interested in. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the proof is in the pudding. As always,
Speaker 1: and at least so far, our fans have found our
Speaker 1: games as we've deployed them across different days and different
Speaker 1: time slots and different network partners. Amazon is gonna be different,
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting. Um. You know, we have prime accounts.
Speaker 1: We're probably gonna find the football games. If not, our
Speaker 1: kids will help us, uh find Amazon Prime. Our folks
Speaker 1: might need a little help, So it might take a
Speaker 1: little bit of a transition, and everybody's gonna have to
Speaker 1: get used to, um, you know, finding the games uh
Speaker 1: you know, deployed on a streaming service. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: if you think back just a couple of years, you know, Netflix, Hulu,
Speaker 1: Paramount Peacock, all those things were uh you know, in
Speaker 1: their infancy, and and no real assurance that they were
Speaker 1: gonna work, that fans were gonna find them, that people
Speaker 1: are gonna be interested, the people are gonna pay for them. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, it sure seems like there's room for everybody.
Speaker 1: It really does. And they're just another button on your remote,
Speaker 1: right channel to channel four, channel five, Netflix, Zulu, Amazon, Um,
Speaker 1: it's become routine for us. I think it will take
Speaker 1: a little while for fans to you know, get used to,
Speaker 1: uh finding it on a new broadcast outlet. We haven't
Speaker 1: had a new broadcast partner, I think in thirty forty years,
Speaker 1: So it'll take some time to transition, no doubt. But
Speaker 1: you know, one of the ways you get people used
Speaker 1: to things like that is to make sure you put
Speaker 1: your good games there. And I feel like we've kind
Speaker 1: of you know, struck that right balance with the Thursday
Speaker 1: night package. There's some big ones that you feel like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's musty TV. I gotta go find Amazon. And once
Speaker 1: you do that first or second time, I think it's
Speaker 1: just gonna become routine, and hopefully by about mid season,
Speaker 1: everybody's just gonna you know, remember when we thought people
Speaker 1: wouldn't find Amazon. Uh, I think our fans are gonna
Speaker 1: find it. Deploy a couple of the really big games
Speaker 1: out there, whether it's a Baltimore Tampa, a Tennessee Green
Speaker 1: Bay obviously the opener with Chargers chiefs um and who
Speaker 1: knows that Jaguars Jets game down there December may have
Speaker 1: playoff implications by the time we get there, and hopefully
Speaker 1: by then everybody will have figured out how to watch
Speaker 1: their walking on the streaming service. Now you're talking, you
Speaker 1: can talk about a little bit about flex scheduling. Where
Speaker 1: it's at two in spansion of it in three because
Speaker 1: I already have my eyes on Monday Night Football in
Speaker 1: three because uh, my point on this is, yes, thirteen
Speaker 1: one o'clock starts, but that's written in pencil correct. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: look this whole schedule is written in pencil. If there's
Speaker 1: anything that you know COVID taught us, it's that we
Speaker 1: gotta be flexible. Everything's written in pencil. Uh, God willing,
Speaker 1: We're we're through with the pandemic, you know, impacting our schedule.
Speaker 1: But you know, every year there's surprise teams. Right, what
Speaker 1: do we have four or five new playoff teams? Every year?
Speaker 1: There's always somebody going worse to first. Uh. It's hard
Speaker 1: to maintain success in this league. Everything is kind of
Speaker 1: set up, uh, you know, for parity, whether it's a
Speaker 1: salary cap or the reverse draft order, free agency, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Um, it's it's hard to stay good year
Speaker 1: after year. And here we are making a schedule in April,
Speaker 1: may you know, guessing who's gonna be competitive in September
Speaker 1: four months away or in December eight months away. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure our crystal ball is that good, or if
Speaker 1: anybody's crystal ball is that good. So an awful lot
Speaker 1: of chances for us to kind of, you know, use
Speaker 1: some tools that we have in the toolbox with our
Speaker 1: network partners, move the games that have playoff implications in
Speaker 1: the bigger time slots. Again, it's not always about you know,
Speaker 1: generating eyeballs, generating ratings. It's about rewarding the teams that
Speaker 1: have played their way, you know, into bigger television windows,
Speaker 1: letting our fans meet these teams, because you're probably gonna
Speaker 1: see him on television in January when we get to
Speaker 1: the postseason. So whether it's Sunday Night Football or even
Speaker 1: on Sunday afternoons, moving from a one o'clock window to
Speaker 1: a four o'clock window will shorten that runway up as
Speaker 1: as much as we can try to let everybody know, hey,
Speaker 1: you're in position to be changed into a different time slot,
Speaker 1: but it's because you're having success. It's because you're good,
Speaker 1: it's because your games matter. Fully recognizing the challenges for
Speaker 1: the forty or fifty thousand ticket holders, but you know
Speaker 1: there's million people are gonna watch the game on television.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure that those fans get to
Speaker 1: see the games that matter the most. And if our
Speaker 1: crystal ball was a little blurry in April, and maybe
Speaker 1: the Jets didn't get as much prime time as they'd hoped, um,
Speaker 1: there's one way to fix that, and and that's to win.
Speaker 1: And when we find ourselves in December, um, there's opportunities
Speaker 1: to move into bigger, higher profile television time slots, and
Speaker 1: as you reference, starting in three that will include Monday
Speaker 1: night football. That's gonna be a challenge for us. All.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're gonna be reckless or haphazard with it.
Speaker 1: It's not like we're gonna change it because you know,
Speaker 1: this team's five and seven and this team six and seven.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not really you know, moving mountains there. Um.
Speaker 1: But if the Monday night football game that we put
Speaker 1: in week fifteen next season, uh, truly, as two teams
Speaker 1: that are just playing out the string, we're not doing
Speaker 1: them a favor by putting them on national television. We're
Speaker 1: not doing Disney a favor. We're not doing the fans
Speaker 1: of favor by asking them to go out for a
Speaker 1: night game, you know, for a couple of teams that
Speaker 1: are no longer in playoff contention, especially if there's a
Speaker 1: game over here sitting on Sunday at one o'clock between
Speaker 1: two teams that we really didn't see coming. And if
Speaker 1: we don't change it, that game is gonna be on
Speaker 1: in fifteen percent of the country, eighteen percent of the country.
Speaker 1: It's not worth more than that and our fans deserve
Speaker 1: to see that game. More of our fans deserve to
Speaker 1: see that game. So whether we slide it to Sunday
Speaker 1: at four or Sunday night at eight fifteen, or now
Speaker 1: Monday night at eight fifteen, we've got more opportunities to
Speaker 1: reward the teams who have played their way into bigger
Speaker 1: television windows. Alright, sixty seconds. The Jets plan on playing
Speaker 1: meaningful football in December. And you've been uh so gracious
Speaker 1: with your time. You went with the league for more
Speaker 1: quarter century. Uh doing this. What kind of advice would
Speaker 1: you give somebody who's interested in following a career path
Speaker 1: like this? Uh, I'd start with, have thick skin. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nobody's ever happy with the schedule, so you've got to
Speaker 1: be prepared. Uh. You know Howard Katz, who's been running
Speaker 1: the scheduling process for the last fifteen years, taught us all,
Speaker 1: taught all of this, taught all of us this a
Speaker 1: long time ago. Uh. It's very quick that the you know,
Speaker 1: parade celebrating your success turns into a mob running you
Speaker 1: out of town. Um, you gotta have some thick skin,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a long memory, you gotta remember. Um,
Speaker 1: you know what you did right, what you did wrong.
Speaker 1: You gotta be willing to take criticism, you know, strictly
Speaker 1: from uh, you know, career development standpoint. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: this would hold true for literally just about any any
Speaker 1: industry these days, but especially uh, the NFL and and
Speaker 1: specifically the scheduling team. Uh. It's all about the data.
Speaker 1: It's all about the math and science. It's all about
Speaker 1: you know, search heuristics and predictive analytics and uh, finding
Speaker 1: the signal in the noise. There is so much data
Speaker 1: out there, and you've got to figure out what really
Speaker 1: matters and what you can use to make your product better.
Speaker 1: And that's not just for football, that's for any industry.
Speaker 1: But you know, for us, every time a fan interacts
Speaker 1: with the league, whether they're listening to the Jets podcast
Speaker 1: or calling in the talk radio or adding some either
Speaker 1: their fantasy team, or buying a jersey on NFL shop
Speaker 1: dot com, or tweeting something or buying a ticket on
Speaker 1: a secondary ticketing partner, or following somebody on Instagram, or
Speaker 1: in states where it's legal, making a bet on a game.
Speaker 1: You know, every time they interact with us, they're telling
Speaker 1: us what they care about, and we're trying to take
Speaker 1: all that data, listen to the fans as always, they'll
Speaker 1: tell us what's working in what is and they'll tell
Speaker 1: us what we are doing right and doing wrong, and
Speaker 1: really trying to like take all that data. And again,
Speaker 1: any industry is going through this right now. The days
Speaker 1: of gut and feel and instinct. There's always some value
Speaker 1: to that, but it's really more about the math and
Speaker 1: the science and the data and the analytics and really
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, you know, which of these data
Speaker 1: points really matter and you can use to your benefit
Speaker 1: and our fans can you know, expect us to use
Speaker 1: to their benefit. Um. And it's also about really trying
Speaker 1: to figure out which of these data sets actually means something. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like we said, some of these things about rest
Speaker 1: discrepancy or playing you know too many division opponents, you know,
Speaker 1: do these things really matter? Or line us up, tell
Speaker 1: us one to play and we'll be there. And sometimes
Speaker 1: the team that's favored gets hammered, and sometimes the team
Speaker 1: that's the underdog with the rest discrepancy and the long
Speaker 1: travel pulls out of w You never know. That's what's
Speaker 1: so great about sports. UM. That would probably be my
Speaker 1: final piece of advice, you know, be a fan. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're so lucky to work in this industry to get
Speaker 1: to talk about and and watch sports for a living. Um,
Speaker 1: we should never forget that. I'm certainly very grateful and
Speaker 1: appreciative of the opportunity and take it seriously and really
Speaker 1: hope that, you know, this schedule plays out as well
Speaker 1: as we think it has a chance to here in April,
Speaker 1: and uh, if not, you know, adjust as we go
Speaker 1: and and and use the tools that are available to
Speaker 1: us to kind of shift and reward the teams that have,
Speaker 1: like we said, played their way into bigger television windows.
Speaker 1: Mike North, congratulations on another schedule. Get a couple of
Speaker 1: days of rest, I know you got a lot of
Speaker 1: interviews to do, and then start getting after will probably
Speaker 1: be talking year later in December, I would think, because
Speaker 1: the Jets they think they're gonna take some steps, we'll
Speaker 1: have to see. Yeah, look, love to be back on
Speaker 1: and then and talk about what worked, what didn't work,
Speaker 1: what we learned, and maybe even kind of tell your fans, hey,
Speaker 1: here's what to think about these next four weeks, because
Speaker 1: if they are in a playoff chase, there might be
Speaker 1: some games that are gonna have to shift some time
Speaker 1: slots and how that all works and what has to
Speaker 1: happen for everything to line up? Happy to do it,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, let's let's hope that's exactly what Jets
Speaker 1: fans are dealing with in December. Be a good problem
Speaker 1: to have. Thanks brother, Take care