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