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Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the

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Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome everybody to a very

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Speaker 1: special May edition of the Season with Peter Schrager. It's

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Speaker 1: schedule release time, and I thought this was very pertinent

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Speaker 1: and also very timely to do this today, which we

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Speaker 1: are recording this on the Wednesday before the schedule is

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Speaker 1: officially released on Thursday. And let me tell you it

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Speaker 1: will be released on Thursday, but you'll start getting your

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Speaker 1: leaks on Thursday morning. The reason is the schedule makers

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Speaker 1: have come to their conclusion with the final schedule and

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Speaker 1: they have started notifying the teams. So for today's guests,

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Speaker 1: we're going to have on Mike North, who is part

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Speaker 1: of the team that puts the schedule together. For years

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Speaker 1: it was a gentleman named Howard Katz, and Howard still

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Speaker 1: is very much involved. Howard deals with the broadcast teams

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Speaker 1: and the executives at not only CBS and Fox, but

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Speaker 1: now ESPN and also Amazon and of course the NFL

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Speaker 1: network as well, and they figure out the best possible

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Speaker 1: schedules that is going to satisfy as many parties as possible.

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Speaker 1: That's their job. We're gonna have Mike on in a second.

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Speaker 1: And now, as we record this, it's before the schedule

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Speaker 1: has been released. You might be listening to the pod

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Speaker 1: on your morning commute, even if it's after the schedule

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Speaker 1: comes out. I think what you're gonna love is how

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Speaker 1: the sausage is made. And that's kind of what I

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Speaker 1: want to do with this podcast as I look at

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Speaker 1: it from twenty thousand feet, what is going to separate

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Speaker 1: this podcast from others? Well, it's here the decision makers.

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Speaker 1: Here are the people that are telling you things that

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Speaker 1: you're not gonna get anywhere else, And here's kind of

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Speaker 1: getting ahead of things. I thought the the S two

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Speaker 1: cognition test discourse was really interesting, and I'm joined, of

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Speaker 1: course by my great producer Aaron wang Kaufman right now

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Speaker 1: and Aerin. I feel like we had the dude from

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Speaker 1: the S two cognition test well right before the huge

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Speaker 1: controversy erupted with CJ. Stroud, and I felt like, that's

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Speaker 1: what we want to do with this podcast, right, like

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Speaker 1: first guest back from paternity to leave, let me get

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Speaker 1: the guy who invented the S two cognition test. I

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Speaker 1: think you might have rolled your eyes, but that ended

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Speaker 1: up being a huge talking point in the twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: three draft.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I loved it, and I mean I would

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Speaker 2: never rule my eyes. I kind of love the I

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Speaker 2: know the wonderlook is an imperfect part of the draft process,

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Speaker 2: but I've always loved that that processing aspect of it,

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Speaker 2: which I think is really interesting.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So, I think Mike North is going to be

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Speaker 1: a great guest, and we're gonna have him on in

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Speaker 1: a second, real quick, some housekeeping items. We're gonna do

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Speaker 1: this podcast throughout the off season. This is the dead

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Speaker 1: time once the schedule comes out, and this is pretty

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Speaker 1: dead besides franchise talk talk and maybe sae Quon Barkley.

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Speaker 1: But I'm gonna try to bring on some some good

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Speaker 1: guests over the next few weeks. Some that are NFL related,

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Speaker 1: some that are celebrities that are fans, some that are

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Speaker 1: just interesting to me. This is the time to do it,

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Speaker 1: and I think we're going to keep the momentum going

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Speaker 1: with this podcast. One note, love my execs at the

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Speaker 1: NFL network, love the way that we cover the game.

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Speaker 1: I might have missed it. I thought there was a

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Speaker 1: cool opportunity yesterday in the dead time of the NFL

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Speaker 1: to give Joe Capp his love and who Joe Capp

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Speaker 1: was and his impact on the sport. I didn't see

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Speaker 1: it anywhere, and it might have been on NFN. Eric.

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Speaker 1: I don't sit and watch it twenty four hours, but

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Speaker 1: I didn't see much of it online. So I was

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Speaker 1: walking down Henry Street in Brooklyn, where I live, and

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Speaker 1: I filmed my first ever first person point of view

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Speaker 1: video and just put it on Twitter. It was literally

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Speaker 1: twenty seconds and I got a crazy response because I

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Speaker 1: just felt like there was an opportunity to shed some

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Speaker 1: light on who Joe Capp was. In short, Joe Capp

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Speaker 1: is the only man in history of the sport to

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Speaker 1: lead a team to the Rose Bowl. He led Cal

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Speaker 1: to the Rose Bowl, to the Gray Cup, did that

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Speaker 1: for the BC Lions, and then a Super Bowl, did

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Speaker 1: it for the Vikings. I put this video out and

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Speaker 1: I said he was also the coach of Cal for

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Speaker 1: many years, he was the coach of the famous on

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Speaker 1: the field game against Stanford. He was the coach of Cal.

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Speaker 1: And then in his last game ever, which was nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six, Joe Capp was the coach of Cal. His

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Speaker 1: last game, they were down twenty one points against Stanford

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Speaker 1: and they came all the way back and won and

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Speaker 1: it's considered one of the greatest wins in cal football history.

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Speaker 1: So I did this little video. I'm walking by Fascotti

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Speaker 1: Pizza and the Ramen Place and I'm just filming it.

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Speaker 1: My son's barking in the background. He's with me walking.

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Speaker 1: I'm just like, here's just rest in peace. Joe Cap.

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Speaker 1: Here's who he was, eighty five years old, passed away.

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Speaker 1: The responses were crazy, and then I get a text

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Speaker 1: from Ron Rivera this morning, who I don't know. If

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Speaker 1: he's on Twitter, I don't know what he's Somehow the

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Speaker 1: video made his way to him and he was like,

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Speaker 1: thank you for doing that, and he's like, and I

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Speaker 1: have a great Joe cap story for you. I played

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Speaker 1: for the man and I'm like, damn. So we were

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Speaker 1: texting a little bit and I feel like there's a

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Speaker 1: little niche there, There's a little something there. So maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll get that stuff going on in the podcast too,

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Speaker 1: where you know, a little bit look back at history,

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Speaker 1: some of the people who made the game what it is,

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Speaker 1: some of the decision makers that are doing things in

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Speaker 1: the league. But right now we're looking at NBA playoff talk,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at a writer's strike in Hollywood, we're looking

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Speaker 1: at succession on the final few weeks of that show,

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Speaker 1: and we're looking at the summertime. And the summertime is

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Speaker 1: where everyone takes their foot off the pedal. With the NFL,

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Speaker 1: I usually say it's twenty four to seven. No, I'd

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Speaker 1: be lying after the schedule comes out. This is where

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Speaker 1: everyone takes a little bit of a breath. There's another

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Speaker 1: league meeting next week where we'll get word on whether

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Speaker 1: Amazon has the capabilities to flex on Thursday Night football.

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Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be a big decision. We'll find

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Speaker 1: that out next week. Most likely it was tabled from March,

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Speaker 1: so I would think that's then maybe we get some

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Speaker 1: commander's news at that meeting, maybe not on who's gonna

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Speaker 1: be the owner of that team if there is in

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Speaker 1: fact going to be a sale. And then there's just

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Speaker 1: like franchise tag talk, and I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: that talk was kind of there's a pin put in

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Speaker 1: it with Lamar obviously, and then it's kind of just

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Speaker 1: Saquon as the last like big big that we're going

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Speaker 1: to be tracking in New York that's going to be

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Speaker 1: a topic tonight. I am going to the Knicks game

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Speaker 1: and I'm going with an NFL related guest. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if I can share it yet. Maybe I'll share

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Speaker 1: it at the next podcast. But it's a new face

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Speaker 1: in town, NFL related who has never been to Madison

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Speaker 1: Square Garden. And we were texting and I got offered

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Speaker 1: two tickets from a very generous friend who could not go.

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Speaker 1: And very rarely do I get two tickets to a

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Speaker 1: Knicks playoff game. The seats are not crazy. Will not

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Speaker 1: see me courtside. I will not be on the Douglas

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Speaker 1: Element celebrity row jumbo tron. These are seats that are

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Speaker 1: up in the rafters, maybe tier below that. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: But I am taking someone involved in the NFL who

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Speaker 1: I think is going to play a big part of

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Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three season. Aaron, if you were to

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Speaker 1: take a guess, new to the market, big impact act

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Speaker 1: on the twenty twenty three season and has never been

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Speaker 1: to Madison Square Garden, that is like a weird twenty

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Speaker 1: one questions, But take a guess.

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Speaker 2: I mean my first thought was Rogers until you said

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Speaker 2: never been Damas g because we know Rogers has already

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Speaker 2: been I kind of think it's Hacket, but you're.

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Speaker 1: You're right, you got it. I'm taking Hacket in that

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Speaker 1: and that hideous beer to his I'm taking Hackett as

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Speaker 1: my guest. Now, look, we're recording this right now. At

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Speaker 1: four o'clock, I'm gonna get on the subway. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to take either the two three from Clark Street or

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Speaker 1: the A train from High Street, which both go right

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Speaker 1: to the Garden. He's taking a New Jersey Transit train.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Look, I don't know if people are

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Speaker 1: going to be, you know, swarming him or not. I

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Speaker 1: was like, maybe you drive in. I don't know. And

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Speaker 1: we're meeting at Penn Station and then going to the game,

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Speaker 1: and uh, we're gonna talk. He's never been to the Garden,

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Speaker 1: So hopefully I get some information, uh that I can

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Speaker 1: share on the podcast, but more than anything, just want

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Speaker 1: the experience and hopefully the NIXT win. Have you been

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Speaker 1: following Knicks at all or you don't? Oh yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, all right? Good?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I am shocked with the heat in general,

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Speaker 2: like this has been. There's these there have been a

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Speaker 2: lot of really good games. I watched that Nick. The

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Speaker 2: last Knicks heat game I was watching, I was there

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Speaker 2: were moments I was like, the heat is so much better.

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Speaker 2: They don't know why.

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Speaker 1: They don't miss threes. And then the Knicks are supposed

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Speaker 1: to be so big with with d with Randall and

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Speaker 1: Robinson and the big guy I'm going black isaaia have?

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Speaker 1: Why am I going b like fifty five whatever? Big

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Speaker 1: white dude who can rebound and played with Jok in

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Speaker 1: Denver for a year. I forget his name, harten Steinstein.

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Speaker 1: Yeah he's good, and I'm like, all right, they should

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Speaker 1: at least dominate the boards. And then they're getting out

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Speaker 1: rebounded by a Miami team, and like this Miami team

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Speaker 1: is like, you know Kevin Love, I'm like, oh, Kevin

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Speaker 1: Love is still in the NBA. Oh Kyle Lowry, Oh

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Speaker 1: Kyle Lowry is still in the NBA. And I don't

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Speaker 1: even know. I followed the NBA so closely and then

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Speaker 1: I really pick up during the offseason. But like, I

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Speaker 1: didn't know Vincent number two, I didn't know Caleb Martin

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Speaker 1: number sixteen. These guys are good and they're crushing the Knicks,

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Speaker 1: so we'll see tonight. I feel like the Garden might

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Speaker 1: not have the same juice as it did Game two,

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Speaker 1: which I was at and it was tied at one,

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Speaker 1: and it was like, let's tie it up and let's

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Speaker 1: get this thing going. I feel like the wind might

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Speaker 1: be out of the sales of this next team. But

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Speaker 1: we'll see. Hacket's going to be in attendance, so you'll

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Speaker 1: hear this tomorrow morning. And I assure you we will

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Speaker 1: not be on the JumboTron. The seats are not good enough.

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Speaker 1: Do you want me to get Mike North on here?

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Speaker 1: Should we do it? Let's work all right. Mike North

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Speaker 1: is in charge of the NFL schedule. He works with

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Speaker 1: a great team offhand, Charlotte Carey, Annie Bo's and the

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Speaker 1: wonderful Blake Jones. Those are his teammates, and Howard Katz

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Speaker 1: is kind of the godfather of it all. And they've

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Speaker 1: been working on this schedule that is going to be

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Speaker 1: released on Thursday. They've been working on it for months.

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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you if I'd be lying if Mike

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Speaker 1: and I didn't have a few conversations in March about

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Speaker 1: what Rogers's latest status was. But it is all settled,

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Speaker 1: and Lamar is all settled, and the schedule makers can

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Speaker 1: send a nice thank you note to Green Bay, to

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Speaker 1: New Jersey, and to Baltimore for getting those things done

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Speaker 1: before the schedule comes out. Mike North after this, with

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Speaker 1: no further ado. In the monologue, I explained how much

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Speaker 1: I love talking to this guy, and I'm such a

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Speaker 1: geek for the schedule making process, but it's him and

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Speaker 1: it really takes a village, and he's going to get

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Speaker 1: into all the different parties that have been involved. But

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Speaker 1: as we are recording this, it is four o'clock Eastern

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Speaker 1: on Wednesday. The schedule is being announced on Thursday. So

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Speaker 1: for your morning commute, for your morning workout, let's just

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Speaker 1: get into it with the vice president of NFL Broadcast Planning,

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Speaker 1: the great Mike North. Mike, what is up, my friend?

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Speaker 3: Peter? How are you? My friend?

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Speaker 1: I am amazing, and I want to start off with

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Speaker 1: the way we're trickleing the news out this year. I

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Speaker 1: feel like last year we started doing it with the

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Speaker 1: International Games. But today, which is Wednesday, we not only

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Speaker 1: got the International slate, which looks really good and robust,

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Speaker 1: we also got a Black Friday game, we got a

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Speaker 1: Christmas Day game, we got a New Year's Eve game.

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Speaker 1: What's the strategy and kind of making this from schedule

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Speaker 1: release day to now schedule release days.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit of a breadcrumb approach, if you will.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm old enough to remember that. You know,

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Speaker 3: when we used to build the schedule, we literally built

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Speaker 3: it sequentially by hand. So we would start, you know,

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Speaker 3: kind of middle of February with week one, and then

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Speaker 3: we'd build week two and three, and at some point

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Speaker 3: you would finish the schedule and if you didn't like it,

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Speaker 3: you could go so far back up, but you could

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Speaker 3: never go all the way back to the beginning. It

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Speaker 3: took us ten weeks to get here. If we were

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Speaker 3: going to start over, it would have been another ten

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Speaker 3: weeks schedule to come out in July. That's not an option.

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Speaker 3: So I'm old enough to remember that we were building

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Speaker 3: it sequentially, and you'd get it done and it would

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Speaker 3: be somewhere around the middle of April. You would show

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Speaker 3: it to the boss and we would just put it

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Speaker 3: out the next day. And there was no you know,

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Speaker 3: ramp up, no runway, no marketing, no excitement. It just

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Speaker 3: was almost kind of stealth. It was almost kind of

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Speaker 3: ninja that the schedule just suddenly was here, and that

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Speaker 3: wasn't really fair to our fans, it wasn't fair to

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Speaker 3: our teams, it wasn't fair to the ticketing partners. So

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Speaker 3: a few years ago, Peter O'Reilly from our events group

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Speaker 3: and Hans Schroeder, who runs a broadcasting group, kind of

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Speaker 3: got together and said, you know, sneaking the schedule out

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Speaker 3: a week or two before the draft doesn't seem right.

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Speaker 3: Doesn't seem fair. If nothing else, it's not fair to

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Speaker 3: the kids who we've been talking about as draft prospects

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Speaker 3: for a month. Let's let them have their moment. Let's

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Speaker 3: let them have the month of a month of April,

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Speaker 3: and then once the draft is over, gives us just

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Speaker 3: an extra couple of weeks just to see if anything

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Speaker 3: surprising happened during the draft, and then we could put

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Speaker 3: the schedule out kind of middle of May. It's a

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Speaker 3: little later than maybe some of our teams would prefer.

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Speaker 3: They do have a lot of work to do starting

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Speaker 3: tomorrow night, relative to charter flights and hotels and planning

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Speaker 3: and meeting spaces and stuff like that. But as a

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Speaker 3: member of the scheduling team, I like the extra couple

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Speaker 3: of weeks. I like being able to search through this

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Speaker 3: infinite space just a little bit longer and hopefully come

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Speaker 3: up with a winner, and once we have one, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: instead of just dumping in on everybody all at once,

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Speaker 3: here's all two hundred and seventy two react.

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Speaker 2: Go.

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Speaker 3: You know, here's a little bit of a breadcom approach,

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Speaker 3: a little bit of a trickle, a little couple of

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Speaker 3: sexy drips, and yeah, we'll do a few more tomorrow

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Speaker 3: as well. And yeah, I hope everybody gets excited and

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Speaker 3: it just makes them even more interested in what's coming

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Speaker 3: when the whole thing comes out on Thursday night.

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Speaker 1: Well it's a smart play also because you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: not in on Good Morning Football right now. I'm still

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Speaker 1: on the paternity leave. But I saw Taylor Rooks from

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Speaker 1: Amazon was on Good Morning Football discussing the Black Friday game.

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Speaker 1: I saw that Good Morning America is going to play

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Speaker 1: a role. Today's show is going to play a role,

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Speaker 1: Fox and Friends are going to play a role. This

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Speaker 1: is really leveraging the broadcast partners to make the most

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Speaker 1: out of these prime time and premiere matchups. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like this, you said, Hans and Peter, but I

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Speaker 1: feel like your group also, you guys roast to the

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Speaker 1: occasion here. And I know we always talk about the

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Speaker 1: NFL network being twenty four to seven football, but this

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Speaker 1: really could be a formality. It could just be let's

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Speaker 1: put it out, but we have created a tent pole

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Speaker 1: event that roll your eyes. Gosh. Everywhere I walk on

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Speaker 1: the street in New York, people are asking me, you know,

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Speaker 1: when's the Jets game in Vegas? Do you know? It's

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Speaker 1: a real thing people want to know. And it becomes

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Speaker 1: almost like the NCAA tournament releasing you know, their brackets.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly what it is, and you see them

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Speaker 3: when they do the March Madness brackets. Everybody's doing it

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Speaker 3: in real time. You know, nobody has it before then,

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Speaker 3: which is fun, it's interesting, but you don't really get

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Speaker 3: to kind of focus in on oh that's a big one.

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Speaker 3: That's when we really need to talk about or hey,

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Speaker 3: let's get a former player in here to talk about

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Speaker 3: this one. And the commissioner said to us the other day, Hey,

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Speaker 3: maybe we should have a fan announce one of these

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Speaker 3: games next year. So all kinds of different ways that

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Speaker 3: people can get excited. Everybody's got their favorite game that

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Speaker 3: they're looking forward to. I know we're not supposed to

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Speaker 3: read the internet comments, but I read them, and I

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Speaker 3: get that. Some people are like, hey, we knew the games,

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Speaker 3: we knew who was home and away. All you're doing

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Speaker 3: is putting them in order. That's true to certain extent.

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Speaker 3: We knew the Jets were going to Vegas at some point.

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Speaker 3: We knew Kansas City was coming to New York. But

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Speaker 3: you know when it happens, and which television partner it

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Speaker 3: lands on, and where in the season, and who's you know,

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Speaker 3: home the week before and who's the week after, and

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Speaker 3: who's Thanksgiving and Christmas in London, And there's a lot

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Speaker 3: that went into it, and it's it's fun to kind

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Speaker 3: of let each of these kind of tent pole games

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Speaker 3: have their own little moment and let fans start getting

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Speaker 3: excited before we dumped the whole thing on them tomorrow night.

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Speaker 1: I have so many questions, and we're going to get

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Speaker 1: to them. I feel like, let me, let's let's start

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Speaker 1: off with the thing that you mentioned about the sequential

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Speaker 1: building of a schedule for years by hand, and then

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Speaker 1: by the time you get to week eleven to go

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Speaker 1: back and change week one is so difficult. What is

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Speaker 1: this strategy? Now? Do you look at those tent pole games,

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Speaker 1: first plug them in and then kind of coloring the

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Speaker 1: dots or is it we just pump in a bunch

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Speaker 1: of different permutations, but we know that Hey, Thanksgiving, we

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Speaker 1: want to have a couple of big teams, like, how's

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Speaker 1: it work now?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the way it works now? And all credit to

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Speaker 3: our software to developers Optimal Planning Solutions out of Western Canada.

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Speaker 3: Our hardware partner is AWS, our optimization partner GEROVI Optimization, Like,

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Speaker 3: we could not do this without our really really skilled, competent,

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Speaker 3: qualified partners. When we were building it by hand, we

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Speaker 3: were literally doing it manually, one game at a time,

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Speaker 3: one week at a time, and no human can understand

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Speaker 3: if you do this in week three, what hell you

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Speaker 3: hath wrought in week sixteen? And so what we realized

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Speaker 3: was it's not a top down process. It's really an

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Speaker 3: inside out process. What we need to put on first

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Speaker 3: are the key games to your point, the ten polls,

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Speaker 3: whether it's the Sunday night games, the Thursday night games,

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Speaker 3: the big doubleheader games on Sunday afternoon. There's rules and

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Speaker 3: restrictions and how many of each, and we don't want

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Speaker 3: the same team too many weeks in a row, and

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Speaker 3: you know this team's up and coming. We should get

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Speaker 3: them in, but maybe not too late in the season.

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Speaker 3: Maybe put that one earlier in the season. This is

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Speaker 3: a big game, though, that one seems like we could

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Speaker 3: save it for later in the season. So you kind

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Speaker 3: of build a shell what we call as a seed

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Speaker 3: schedule and call it sixty seven. The tent Pole Games said,

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Speaker 3: it's a lot of games, the national television games, And

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Speaker 3: we spend months just grinding on that shell, just grinding

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Speaker 3: on that seed schedule, before you even worry about how

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Speaker 3: could we even finish this seed? Is this seed right?

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Speaker 3: Is this seed gonna grow? Is this seed gonna make

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Speaker 3: a nice tree? So we build lots and lots and

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Speaker 3: lots of seed schedules, and the whole team all day,

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Speaker 3: every day. Howard Katz, Hans Schroeder, Annie bos Blake Jones,

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Speaker 3: Charlotte Carey, Lucy Popko. It is twenty four to seven

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Speaker 3: for fourteen weeks, and it's looking at these seed schedules.

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Speaker 3: Would this, if it were to birth a tree, be

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Speaker 3: a good seed to build off of? And if not,

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Speaker 3: why not, well, maybe that's one too many primetime game

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Speaker 3: for these guys. Or if we're gonna do them. Maybe

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Speaker 3: we shouldn't save them all for December. How about a

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Speaker 3: couple early or spread them out a little better. You

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Speaker 3: know the big teams, you know, the big brands, the Dallases,

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Speaker 3: the Kansas City's, the Jets. Now with Rogers Philadelphia coming

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Speaker 3: off a Super Bowl run, those guys are gonna be

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Speaker 3: all over your national television schedule. But it shouldn't as

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Speaker 3: necessarily be the first ten weeks or the last ten weeks.

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Speaker 3: So can you spread out those key ten polls? And

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Speaker 3: once you've got a seed schedule that you like, can

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Speaker 3: you solve around it? And when you do solve around it,

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Speaker 3: there's only so many options. At that point you've put

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Speaker 3: seventy of the two hundred and seventy two games on

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Speaker 3: the board. There may not even be a way to

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Speaker 3: put the other two hundred on it. So solve around

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Speaker 3: this seed, and then solve around this seed, and solve

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Speaker 3: around this seed, and we make in any given night,

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Speaker 3: probably between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand seeds. Try

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Speaker 3: to solve them all. Come in the morning, all right,

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Speaker 3: what's good about it? What's bad about it? What would

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Speaker 3: we change? What would we keep? What would we never

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Speaker 3: want to see again what should we prohibit? And then

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Speaker 3: if something changes, you know, the Raiders get a new quarterback,

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Speaker 3: the Saints get a new quarterback, the Ravens sign a

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Speaker 3: new wide receiver. The raven signed the quarterback that we

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Speaker 3: weren't sure they were going to sign, Aaron Rodgers gets traded.

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Speaker 3: That changes the definition of what these good seed schedules

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Speaker 3: are going to look like. So fifty thousand more seeds now,

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Speaker 3: with the new information that we have, try to solve

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Speaker 3: each of those. And as the seed schedule wolves finish

406
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Speaker 3: up in the finished schedules, and you try to analyze

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Speaker 3: each of those what's good, what's bad, who's happy, who's mad,

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Speaker 3: and try to make sure that you kind of maximize

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Speaker 3: everybody who's happy and hopefully minimize everybody who's not.

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Speaker 1: Okay. So you and I have been friendly for about

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Speaker 1: a decade. In the last few years, I've really got

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Speaker 1: because you know, I geek out on this more than

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Speaker 1: anyone in the media. I love it, and I love

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Speaker 1: all the science behind it. I also love the human

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Speaker 1: relationship with it. So you're meeting with the broadcast partners

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Speaker 1: at some point and they're giving you a wish list

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Speaker 1: or is it a summit meeting where all the broadcast

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Speaker 1: partners are in a room and it's a discussion, how

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Speaker 1: do we know what Fox wants, what CBS wants, what

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Speaker 1: NBC wants, what ESPN wants, and now what Amazon wants,

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Speaker 1: and how do you stack that against? Okay, we also

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Speaker 1: have to satisfy this team camping on the road three

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Speaker 1: times in a row, or this team is coming off

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Speaker 1: International week one of those meetings, and I guess how

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Speaker 1: do you juggle all that? Yeah?

426
00:19:59,946 --> 00:20:02,626
Speaker 3: Look, it's you know, now that you're a father of

427
00:20:02,746 --> 00:20:06,066
Speaker 3: more than one child, you know, you know you're not

428
00:20:06,066 --> 00:20:09,306
Speaker 3: suppose to have favorite children. They're all tied for first.

429
00:20:10,066 --> 00:20:12,106
Speaker 3: Same with our network partners. We love them all equally.

430
00:20:12,146 --> 00:20:14,666
Speaker 3: We love all thirty two teams equally. But this is

431
00:20:14,706 --> 00:20:17,226
Speaker 3: a zero sum game, right. Anything that's good for the

432
00:20:17,226 --> 00:20:20,946
Speaker 3: Texans is by definition bad for the Jaguars. Anything that's

433
00:20:20,946 --> 00:20:23,986
Speaker 3: good for CBS is probably bad for Fox. So you're

434
00:20:24,026 --> 00:20:26,186
Speaker 3: trying to kind of thread that needle and strike that

435
00:20:26,266 --> 00:20:28,946
Speaker 3: right balance so that, like we said, everybody gets something,

436
00:20:28,986 --> 00:20:32,546
Speaker 3: nobody gets everything. Nobody, no team, no network partner should

437
00:20:32,546 --> 00:20:36,266
Speaker 3: be way too happy on release day or way too disappointed.

438
00:20:36,346 --> 00:20:39,466
Speaker 3: That's not our best schedule, so trying to find out where,

439
00:20:39,666 --> 00:20:43,186
Speaker 3: you know, everybody's just a little disappointed hopefully, and yeah,

440
00:20:43,306 --> 00:20:45,026
Speaker 3: kind of equally so, so we meet with all the

441
00:20:45,026 --> 00:20:46,266
Speaker 3: network partners.

442
00:20:46,106 --> 00:20:49,586
Speaker 1: Kind of the league meetings. Yeah, we should do it.

443
00:20:49,626 --> 00:20:51,506
Speaker 3: During Super Bowl week either here in New York before

444
00:20:51,546 --> 00:20:52,546
Speaker 3: we all travel. It's obviously.

445
00:20:52,626 --> 00:20:54,506
Speaker 1: So just give me an example. It's like Eric Shanks

446
00:20:54,506 --> 00:20:58,066
Speaker 1: and Sean McManus and like who, Yeah, it's Top Networks.

447
00:20:57,666 --> 00:21:00,586
Speaker 3: And Eric Shanks and his programming team, Mike mobi Hill,

448
00:21:00,666 --> 00:21:04,986
Speaker 3: Bill Wanger, Jacob Bowman from the production side, Mark Silverman,

449
00:21:05,626 --> 00:21:08,226
Speaker 3: Jordan Bizan, all the key executives from Fox. We get

450
00:21:08,226 --> 00:21:10,306
Speaker 3: them all in a room or on a zoom and

451
00:21:10,346 --> 00:21:14,106
Speaker 3: we bring our whole team Brian rolap Pon Schroeder, Howard Katz,

452
00:21:14,146 --> 00:21:17,546
Speaker 3: Annie Bo's, Blake Jones, Charlotte Carey, Lucy Popko. We're all

453
00:21:17,586 --> 00:21:21,546
Speaker 3: there together and all right, what are we shooting for here, fellas?

454
00:21:21,226 --> 00:21:24,386
Speaker 3: What's the target? What do you think? Here's what we're thinking.

455
00:21:24,586 --> 00:21:26,386
Speaker 3: And we all just kind of brainstorm a little bit

456
00:21:26,466 --> 00:21:29,866
Speaker 3: and kind of highball it and talk about Look, if

457
00:21:29,906 --> 00:21:32,506
Speaker 3: you're Fox, you know you're still the home of the NFC.

458
00:21:32,546 --> 00:21:35,986
Speaker 3: Even though the road team no longer, you're still predominantly

459
00:21:35,986 --> 00:21:38,226
Speaker 3: the home of the NFC, and as such, if you're Fox,

460
00:21:38,626 --> 00:21:40,506
Speaker 3: I'm sure if you could wave a magic wand you'll

461
00:21:40,506 --> 00:21:42,386
Speaker 3: take a Dallas Cowboys game in the four to twenty

462
00:21:42,386 --> 00:21:45,026
Speaker 3: five Eastern time window every week of the year. That's

463
00:21:45,186 --> 00:21:47,866
Speaker 3: what our fans have told us they are most interested

464
00:21:47,866 --> 00:21:52,626
Speaker 3: in watching. So there's a balancing act. Obviously. If everybody

465
00:21:52,666 --> 00:21:55,106
Speaker 3: walks in with a wish list, here's our top ten games,

466
00:21:55,106 --> 00:21:58,066
Speaker 3: and these are the games we want, every partner's wish

467
00:21:58,066 --> 00:22:00,866
Speaker 3: list is going to look pretty similar, right, everybody wants

468
00:22:00,906 --> 00:22:04,266
Speaker 3: Philly Dallas. Everybody wants Casey Jets, everybody wants Dallas San Fran.

469
00:22:04,386 --> 00:22:07,666
Speaker 3: Everybody wants Buffalo Philly or sam Fran Philly, or Sincy

470
00:22:07,706 --> 00:22:12,186
Speaker 3: Buffalo or sinckc. So everybody's wish list looks pretty similar.

471
00:22:12,226 --> 00:22:14,626
Speaker 3: What we talked to them about is what's really important

472
00:22:14,666 --> 00:22:16,786
Speaker 3: to you. And when you talk to a partner and

473
00:22:16,826 --> 00:22:19,986
Speaker 3: they say, hey, look, here's our list, but really, even

474
00:22:20,026 --> 00:22:22,746
Speaker 3: though it's not in our top five, that game right

475
00:22:22,746 --> 00:22:25,666
Speaker 3: down there at number eight, that's really important to us.

476
00:22:26,106 --> 00:22:29,346
Speaker 3: For instance, if CBS were to say, you know, look,

477
00:22:29,386 --> 00:22:31,346
Speaker 3: I know it may not be the game that projects

478
00:22:31,346 --> 00:22:33,386
Speaker 3: to do the highest viewership of the whole season. But

479
00:22:33,826 --> 00:22:37,546
Speaker 3: those two teams, there are teams, and we announced one

480
00:22:37,586 --> 00:22:40,146
Speaker 3: today since Kansas City they're going to play in week seventeen.

481
00:22:40,306 --> 00:22:42,946
Speaker 1: I feel like that should be on CBS, that should

482
00:22:43,586 --> 00:22:43,866
Speaker 1: saw it.

483
00:22:43,986 --> 00:22:47,146
Speaker 3: But as you can imagine, NBC and ESPN and Amazon

484
00:22:47,186 --> 00:22:48,666
Speaker 3: and everybody else will say, hey, can't we get a

485
00:22:48,666 --> 00:22:52,586
Speaker 3: bite to the Cincy Casey. So it's a balancing act.

486
00:22:52,626 --> 00:22:57,146
Speaker 3: If CBS gets SINCKC, then maybe somebody else should get

487
00:22:57,226 --> 00:23:00,426
Speaker 3: KC jets. And if somebody got KC jets, then somebody

488
00:23:00,466 --> 00:23:01,746
Speaker 3: else should getjets.

489
00:23:01,346 --> 00:23:02,906
Speaker 1: Out Buffalo or Buffalo CAC.

490
00:23:04,386 --> 00:23:07,506
Speaker 3: So rather than lock those in one and say you

491
00:23:07,546 --> 00:23:10,106
Speaker 3: get this, you get this, you get this, go, we

492
00:23:10,146 --> 00:23:13,306
Speaker 3: say from this pool of top three, top five, top eight,

493
00:23:13,346 --> 00:23:16,586
Speaker 3: top fifteen, everybody should get their fair shake. Everybody should

494
00:23:16,586 --> 00:23:18,546
Speaker 3: get their fair bites to those apples. And then you

495
00:23:18,666 --> 00:23:20,906
Speaker 3: let the computer kind of spin around on those seed

496
00:23:20,946 --> 00:23:24,826
Speaker 3: schedules and then inside out, here's a skeleton solve around it.

497
00:23:25,106 --> 00:23:27,186
Speaker 3: Finish schedule? Is this our best one?

498
00:23:27,266 --> 00:23:27,626
Speaker 1: I don't know.

499
00:23:27,706 --> 00:23:30,306
Speaker 3: Let's see read it team by team, network by network.

500
00:23:30,466 --> 00:23:32,666
Speaker 3: What could we improve? What should we never see again?

501
00:23:32,946 --> 00:23:34,546
Speaker 3: What do we like and maybe we should kind of

502
00:23:34,546 --> 00:23:37,106
Speaker 3: lock in and go down that rabbit hole. And that

503
00:23:37,186 --> 00:23:39,706
Speaker 3: process is all day, every day, over and over and

504
00:23:39,746 --> 00:23:42,066
Speaker 3: over again. We meet with the networks right around Super Bowl,

505
00:23:42,266 --> 00:23:44,786
Speaker 3: the teams all get to submit their wish lists, and

506
00:23:44,826 --> 00:23:46,546
Speaker 3: then frankly, we kind of close and lock the door.

507
00:23:46,586 --> 00:23:49,986
Speaker 3: At that point, that's enough input, that's enough interaction, that's

508
00:23:50,106 --> 00:23:53,626
Speaker 3: enough feedback and opinions. We got to get to work

509
00:23:53,786 --> 00:23:55,186
Speaker 3: and we start grinding through the space.

510
00:23:55,986 --> 00:23:58,826
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's funny because we released the schedule

511
00:23:58,866 --> 00:24:02,066
Speaker 1: in May and we dissect it ten I remember last

512
00:24:02,146 --> 00:24:03,866
Speaker 1: year I went back in my notes and I was like,

513
00:24:04,586 --> 00:24:08,506
Speaker 1: Rams Packers Night Football. I think it was Week sixteen,

514
00:24:08,546 --> 00:24:09,986
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's the game of the year. Yep,

515
00:24:10,186 --> 00:24:13,266
Speaker 1: that's get fifteenth, that's the game of the year. Ended up, obviously,

516
00:24:13,346 --> 00:24:16,466
Speaker 1: Stafford gets hurt, Cup gets hurt, the Packers are listless,

517
00:24:16,466 --> 00:24:18,586
Speaker 1: but they beat the Rams and what was a forgettable game.

518
00:24:18,946 --> 00:24:21,706
Speaker 1: But we get so worked up about those late season

519
00:24:21,786 --> 00:24:25,026
Speaker 1: games now that we might not realize that that game

520
00:24:25,106 --> 00:24:27,146
Speaker 1: might not even be that significant when it matters. And

521
00:24:28,186 --> 00:24:31,426
Speaker 1: I remember it was Buccaneers Patriots, and I think, when'd

522
00:24:31,426 --> 00:24:32,946
Speaker 1: you guys put those Tom Brady. Going back to five,

523
00:24:33,026 --> 00:24:34,586
Speaker 1: we put a week three, I want to say, week four,

524
00:24:35,346 --> 00:24:36,986
Speaker 1: week four, and I remember talking to you about it,

525
00:24:37,026 --> 00:24:38,826
Speaker 1: and you're like, you know what, God forbid? What if

526
00:24:38,866 --> 00:24:41,466
Speaker 1: Brady gets hurt? We got to get him on the field.

527
00:24:41,506 --> 00:24:44,306
Speaker 1: So like, I'll, I love all the conversations you're having,

528
00:24:44,786 --> 00:24:46,906
Speaker 1: and it might not be easy for the naked eye

529
00:24:46,946 --> 00:24:49,106
Speaker 1: when you look at it to determine what game is

530
00:24:49,106 --> 00:24:50,626
Speaker 1: going to matter later the season. That's why some of

531
00:24:50,626 --> 00:24:52,706
Speaker 1: these games are put early in the season, because we

532
00:24:52,746 --> 00:24:55,306
Speaker 1: know going in, here's where the fan interest is, and

533
00:24:55,346 --> 00:24:58,146
Speaker 1: here are two powerful teams popularity wise.

534
00:24:58,226 --> 00:25:00,746
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll give you a great example of Philly KC

535
00:25:01,026 --> 00:25:02,226
Speaker 3: Right Super Bowl rematch.

536
00:25:02,746 --> 00:25:03,306
Speaker 1: What do you do with this?

537
00:25:03,426 --> 00:25:05,666
Speaker 3: We saw those two teams, they were playing an all

538
00:25:05,706 --> 00:25:08,026
Speaker 3: time great Super Bowl, and I think we all would

539
00:25:08,026 --> 00:25:10,186
Speaker 3: have felled as fans, man, let's just keep going, Let's

540
00:25:10,186 --> 00:25:13,266
Speaker 3: play another quarter. And we thought long and hard, quite honestly,

541
00:25:13,626 --> 00:25:15,506
Speaker 3: about using that game as the kickoff game. It was

542
00:25:15,506 --> 00:25:17,546
Speaker 3: the last game of last year, first game of this year.

543
00:25:17,746 --> 00:25:19,906
Speaker 3: Let's pick up right where we left off. But you

544
00:25:19,946 --> 00:25:22,266
Speaker 3: could also see how Philly Kansas City might be one

545
00:25:22,266 --> 00:25:24,426
Speaker 3: of those games you could save until December. You got

546
00:25:24,426 --> 00:25:25,866
Speaker 3: to figure both of them are in the mix. And

547
00:25:25,906 --> 00:25:28,266
Speaker 3: if you could put that in a national window in December,

548
00:25:28,306 --> 00:25:30,386
Speaker 3: with maybe a couple of one seeds on the line,

549
00:25:30,426 --> 00:25:32,426
Speaker 3: what a great use of that asset. Maybe you kind

550
00:25:32,426 --> 00:25:34,266
Speaker 3: of put it right in the middle, then split the difference,

551
00:25:34,346 --> 00:25:36,626
Speaker 3: not too early, but not too late that everybody forgets

552
00:25:36,626 --> 00:25:38,586
Speaker 3: it as a Super Bowl rematch, and not too late

553
00:25:38,586 --> 00:25:40,906
Speaker 3: where maybe one or both have clinched or eliminated, or

554
00:25:40,946 --> 00:25:43,066
Speaker 3: somebody's hurt. But not too early because we want to

555
00:25:43,066 --> 00:25:46,266
Speaker 3: make sure they re establish themselves as conference superpowers. So

556
00:25:46,826 --> 00:25:49,946
Speaker 3: every one of those games, that same conversation, two hundred

557
00:25:49,946 --> 00:25:52,666
Speaker 3: and seventy two times, what's the best use of this

558
00:25:52,746 --> 00:25:55,386
Speaker 3: game for our fans? Where would they most like to

559
00:25:55,466 --> 00:25:58,026
Speaker 3: see this game? And like we said, we've announced in

560
00:25:58,106 --> 00:26:01,426
Speaker 3: CKC in week seventeen. Some of us were a little hesitant,

561
00:26:01,466 --> 00:26:03,666
Speaker 3: a little worried that maybe you waited too long to

562
00:26:04,146 --> 00:26:06,386
Speaker 3: put that game on the schedule, one of us at least,

563
00:26:06,466 --> 00:26:08,146
Speaker 3: And we'll go back and check our notes at the end.

564
00:26:08,386 --> 00:26:10,146
Speaker 3: You know, I love it there, I really do. I

565
00:26:10,186 --> 00:26:11,466
Speaker 3: can't wait to see me too.

566
00:26:11,586 --> 00:26:14,346
Speaker 1: I also think New Year's Eve, everyone's time right apart.

567
00:26:14,466 --> 00:26:17,386
Speaker 3: That's great, let's go. I love that one there, but

568
00:26:17,426 --> 00:26:20,066
Speaker 3: there's others, like you said that maybe belong a little earlier.

569
00:26:21,106 --> 00:26:23,826
Speaker 1: You know, you can tell me what can you tell

570
00:26:23,826 --> 00:26:25,986
Speaker 1: me what the number one game was? Or is that

571
00:26:26,106 --> 00:26:28,746
Speaker 1: violating some trust the game that the that like all

572
00:26:28,786 --> 00:26:30,706
Speaker 1: five networks came together. We're like, if we can get

573
00:26:30,706 --> 00:26:31,586
Speaker 1: any game, it's this one.

574
00:26:31,626 --> 00:26:33,706
Speaker 3: Yeah. The truth is this year, of all years, I'm

575
00:26:33,706 --> 00:26:35,666
Speaker 3: not sure there was a consensus number one. Okay, that

576
00:26:36,026 --> 00:26:38,906
Speaker 3: was both good and bad for the scheduling team. There's

577
00:26:38,946 --> 00:26:41,386
Speaker 3: a lot of juicy apples on the search tree this year,

578
00:26:41,506 --> 00:26:44,226
Speaker 3: so certainly Cincinnati, Kansas City's got to be near the

579
00:26:44,226 --> 00:26:46,466
Speaker 3: top of the list. The Super Bowl rematch, Philly, Kansas

580
00:26:46,466 --> 00:26:49,906
Speaker 3: City's up there. Obviously, once Rogers went to the Jets,

581
00:26:49,946 --> 00:26:52,506
Speaker 3: that casey Jets game became a monster because we never

582
00:26:52,586 --> 00:26:56,026
Speaker 3: got Rogers mahomes last year. So hopefully we're going to

583
00:26:56,066 --> 00:26:58,866
Speaker 3: get Rogers mahomes this year. And a good example of hey,

584
00:26:58,866 --> 00:27:01,306
Speaker 3: should you wait too long to use that one? Since

585
00:27:01,346 --> 00:27:03,746
Speaker 3: we waited one week too long to use it last year.

586
00:27:04,746 --> 00:27:09,826
Speaker 3: Jets Dallas, both Dallas, Phillies, both Jets, Bills San fran

587
00:27:10,026 --> 00:27:14,546
Speaker 3: Philly Dallas Buffalo. Man, there were so many really really

588
00:27:14,586 --> 00:27:17,266
Speaker 3: good games and some that just sound like really good

589
00:27:17,266 --> 00:27:20,786
Speaker 3: football games that maybe aren't necessarily going to crack that

590
00:27:20,826 --> 00:27:22,866
Speaker 3: top ten list. One of the ones I like more

591
00:27:22,866 --> 00:27:24,826
Speaker 3: than any Maybe not more than but one of the

592
00:27:24,826 --> 00:27:27,066
Speaker 3: ones I like a lot is Bill's Chargers.

593
00:27:27,386 --> 00:27:30,746
Speaker 1: I just love that game. I know, justin Herbert.

594
00:27:31,266 --> 00:27:33,506
Speaker 3: Maybe on Sunday night football that doesn't do the twenty

595
00:27:33,506 --> 00:27:35,426
Speaker 3: five or twenty eight million that another game might do.

596
00:27:35,586 --> 00:27:37,866
Speaker 3: But it felt wasteful not to put that game in

597
00:27:37,906 --> 00:27:38,346
Speaker 3: a good way.

598
00:27:38,346 --> 00:27:39,786
Speaker 1: Where is that Buffalo or La.

599
00:27:39,906 --> 00:27:40,506
Speaker 3: It's in La.

600
00:27:41,226 --> 00:27:42,506
Speaker 1: That's cool. That's cool.

601
00:27:42,866 --> 00:27:45,266
Speaker 3: And it was a lot I'm not sure there was

602
00:27:45,266 --> 00:27:48,626
Speaker 3: a astis number one, and that made our jobs, you know,

603
00:27:48,866 --> 00:27:50,786
Speaker 3: both easier and tougher to a certain extent.

604
00:27:51,546 --> 00:27:54,026
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love an analogy or a statement that you

605
00:27:54,066 --> 00:27:55,586
Speaker 1: made years ago to me. You said, it's both a

606
00:27:55,626 --> 00:27:58,946
Speaker 1: science and an art Can you explain the schedule making process,

607
00:27:58,986 --> 00:28:01,666
Speaker 1: the scientific part of it and then the artistic part Again.

608
00:28:01,586 --> 00:28:03,626
Speaker 3: I'm lucky enough to go all the way back, really

609
00:28:03,666 --> 00:28:07,146
Speaker 3: to the beginning, to the godfather of NFL scheduling with Pinchbeck.

610
00:28:07,186 --> 00:28:09,706
Speaker 3: We used to sit in that room with a peg board,

611
00:28:09,906 --> 00:28:11,746
Speaker 3: and we would hang these games up one at a time,

612
00:28:11,746 --> 00:28:15,946
Speaker 3: and literally every decision was made from one older gentleman's gut.

613
00:28:16,386 --> 00:28:18,666
Speaker 3: Val thought that this sounded like a good game, or

614
00:28:18,746 --> 00:28:20,906
Speaker 3: this was a good time to start this division series,

615
00:28:21,066 --> 00:28:23,826
Speaker 3: or that team will like playing in you know, this

616
00:28:23,906 --> 00:28:26,546
Speaker 3: window on this week, And so much of the schedule

617
00:28:26,666 --> 00:28:29,466
Speaker 3: came out of, you know, one man's gut. And there's

618
00:28:29,466 --> 00:28:31,746
Speaker 3: always going to be some of that, the transition from

619
00:28:31,786 --> 00:28:35,306
Speaker 3: Val to Dennis Lewin to Glennadamo to Howard Katz for

620
00:28:35,386 --> 00:28:37,746
Speaker 3: these last fifteen years, I don't think we ever want

621
00:28:37,746 --> 00:28:41,186
Speaker 3: to take away, you know, the gut feel of these

622
00:28:41,386 --> 00:28:45,226
Speaker 3: industry legends. I mean, Howard Katz ran ABC, forever, ran

623
00:28:45,386 --> 00:28:48,706
Speaker 3: NFL film. Right. If there's one guy who's gut we

624
00:28:48,746 --> 00:28:51,506
Speaker 3: could trust, I think it's Howard's. That being said, I

625
00:28:51,506 --> 00:28:52,986
Speaker 3: think we can help them a little bit with some

626
00:28:53,026 --> 00:28:54,986
Speaker 3: of the analytics, some of the predictive stuff, some of

627
00:28:55,026 --> 00:28:57,546
Speaker 3: the data, some of the math and science. Where Okay,

628
00:28:57,666 --> 00:28:59,706
Speaker 3: I get that you think that's a big game and

629
00:28:59,746 --> 00:29:01,626
Speaker 3: maybe it feels right in week three or week four,

630
00:29:01,666 --> 00:29:04,946
Speaker 3: but you know what, mathematically speaking, it might actually help

631
00:29:05,066 --> 00:29:07,146
Speaker 3: the schedule if we put it in week six. Or

632
00:29:07,186 --> 00:29:09,426
Speaker 3: week seven. So before we lock it in, why don't

633
00:29:09,466 --> 00:29:11,346
Speaker 3: we just give it a little range and let the

634
00:29:11,386 --> 00:29:14,786
Speaker 3: computers help us decide. Okay, big asset, deploy it here,

635
00:29:14,826 --> 00:29:17,186
Speaker 3: but also be willing to deploy it here, here or here.

636
00:29:17,426 --> 00:29:19,866
Speaker 3: And like we were saying before, if you put Cincinnati

637
00:29:19,986 --> 00:29:23,386
Speaker 3: Kansas City on CBS, then you should probably put Buffalo

638
00:29:23,506 --> 00:29:26,226
Speaker 3: Cincinnati somewhere else. And if you put Buffalo Sinci here,

639
00:29:26,346 --> 00:29:28,426
Speaker 3: you should put Cincy Sandfran somewhere else. And if you

640
00:29:28,426 --> 00:29:30,346
Speaker 3: put Cincy sandfri In here, you should put sand f

641
00:29:30,426 --> 00:29:32,746
Speaker 3: in Philly somewhere else. You can use the data, you

642
00:29:32,746 --> 00:29:35,506
Speaker 3: can use the predictive analytics to really kind of figure

643
00:29:35,546 --> 00:29:37,866
Speaker 3: out the right way to deploy each of those assets

644
00:29:37,946 --> 00:29:41,066
Speaker 3: so that all of our television partners, all of our fans,

645
00:29:41,146 --> 00:29:43,786
Speaker 3: all of our teams feel like they were treated fairly.

646
00:29:44,546 --> 00:29:47,586
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there a team this year? And we're going

647
00:29:47,626 --> 00:29:49,666
Speaker 1: to get the schedule within twelve hours so it might

648
00:29:49,706 --> 00:29:52,346
Speaker 1: be moot asking now, but Sarah a team this year

649
00:29:52,346 --> 00:29:54,146
Speaker 1: that you guys were hot on. I remember last year

650
00:29:54,266 --> 00:29:56,186
Speaker 1: Denver had a bunch of primetime games early it didn't

651
00:29:56,226 --> 00:29:59,506
Speaker 1: work out, and you know whatever, it's even them becoming

652
00:29:59,746 --> 00:30:02,906
Speaker 1: a question mark team almost came more intriguing because it's like,

653
00:30:02,946 --> 00:30:04,986
Speaker 1: what's going on with this squad? But remember there was

654
00:30:04,986 --> 00:30:06,986
Speaker 1: an Amazon game against the Colts. It was obviously the

655
00:30:07,066 --> 00:30:10,066
Speaker 1: Monday night opener. There's a lot of Broncos early on.

656
00:30:10,146 --> 00:30:12,066
Speaker 1: Is there a team this year? I know the Jets

657
00:30:12,106 --> 00:30:13,666
Speaker 1: are the obvious answer. Is there another one that you

658
00:30:13,706 --> 00:30:15,626
Speaker 1: guys are like, hey, and I would think Detroit.

659
00:30:15,626 --> 00:30:18,506
Speaker 3: I would imagine, yeah, Detroit's a good one. Detroit's a

660
00:30:18,546 --> 00:30:23,866
Speaker 3: good sort of you know, the last time we saw them,

661
00:30:24,186 --> 00:30:26,186
Speaker 3: they were well, winning eight of nine, and they went

662
00:30:26,226 --> 00:30:30,626
Speaker 3: into Lambeau and ruined the Packers season. I would think

663
00:30:30,626 --> 00:30:33,586
Speaker 3: we're going to see more Detroit on national television. You're right,

664
00:30:33,626 --> 00:30:37,626
Speaker 3: the Jets are the obvious answer. You know, I'm not

665
00:30:37,626 --> 00:30:39,386
Speaker 3: sure there's anybody that we could point to and say

666
00:30:39,426 --> 00:30:41,706
Speaker 3: that's the one team that we're betting on more than

667
00:30:41,706 --> 00:30:44,706
Speaker 3: any other. I'll give you one. I'll give you one

668
00:30:44,826 --> 00:30:48,946
Speaker 3: because it's maybe not necessarily indicative of their record from

669
00:30:49,026 --> 00:30:51,786
Speaker 3: last year. I'll go with the Chicago Bears. I think

670
00:30:51,826 --> 00:30:54,866
Speaker 3: that interesting. The fact that they were a three win

671
00:30:54,986 --> 00:30:57,386
Speaker 3: team last year generally means you're heading for a lot

672
00:30:57,426 --> 00:31:01,906
Speaker 3: of Sunday noons starts, but in that division now maybe

673
00:31:02,106 --> 00:31:04,506
Speaker 3: a little more wide open than in the past. They

674
00:31:04,546 --> 00:31:08,826
Speaker 3: got a haul from the raft pick trade and what

675
00:31:08,866 --> 00:31:10,786
Speaker 3: do any of us know, but we keep hearing Justin

676
00:31:10,826 --> 00:31:13,946
Speaker 3: Fields looks better than ever and he was nothing if

677
00:31:14,026 --> 00:31:17,026
Speaker 3: not exciting last year when we watched him. So if

678
00:31:17,066 --> 00:31:19,066
Speaker 3: somebody were gonna look at this year's schedule and be like,

679
00:31:19,426 --> 00:31:22,186
Speaker 3: who would surprise us that they're all in on, I'm

680
00:31:22,226 --> 00:31:24,826
Speaker 3: sure somebody somewhere is going to say, wow, that seems

681
00:31:24,826 --> 00:31:26,666
Speaker 3: like they sure think the Bears are going to be good,

682
00:31:26,666 --> 00:31:28,466
Speaker 3: And yeah, I kind of hope they are.

683
00:31:28,986 --> 00:31:32,146
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was listening to Andrew Marshand and John

684
00:31:32,186 --> 00:31:34,786
Speaker 1: Ouran's podcasts from this week and they were talking about

685
00:31:34,786 --> 00:31:38,186
Speaker 1: how when the Bears are good, NFL ratings send me like,

686
00:31:38,226 --> 00:31:40,426
Speaker 1: that's an underrated market that Chicago, I know, is number

687
00:31:40,466 --> 00:31:42,266
Speaker 1: three in the media market thing, but you don't think

688
00:31:42,266 --> 00:31:44,266
Speaker 1: of Chicago the same way you do maybe New York.

689
00:31:44,346 --> 00:31:46,346
Speaker 1: But the Bears move the needle.

690
00:31:46,746 --> 00:31:48,546
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, there's a lot of those teams. There's you know,

691
00:31:48,626 --> 00:31:50,706
Speaker 3: call them dormant fan bases or whatever you want to

692
00:31:50,746 --> 00:31:52,786
Speaker 3: call them. But you know, it wasn't that long ago

693
00:31:52,826 --> 00:31:55,506
Speaker 3: when the Dolphins were a top rand. I feel like

694
00:31:55,586 --> 00:32:00,426
Speaker 3: the Raiders have a national following that's just kind of untapped. Look,

695
00:32:00,466 --> 00:32:04,306
Speaker 3: it's great for the NFL when Dallas and Kansas City

696
00:32:04,306 --> 00:32:06,586
Speaker 3: and San Francisco are good. You know, it's good for

697
00:32:06,586 --> 00:32:08,306
Speaker 3: the NFL when the two New York teams are good,

698
00:32:08,346 --> 00:32:11,626
Speaker 3: when the two LA teams are good. So some of

699
00:32:11,626 --> 00:32:13,666
Speaker 3: this is a little bit of serendipity, a little bit

700
00:32:13,706 --> 00:32:15,706
Speaker 3: of good fortune. And look, like we said best laid

701
00:32:15,706 --> 00:32:18,506
Speaker 3: plans in May, the season doesn't even start for four

702
00:32:18,546 --> 00:32:20,786
Speaker 3: more months. None of us know anything all our best

703
00:32:20,826 --> 00:32:23,146
Speaker 3: laid plans. You go back and check your notes, and man,

704
00:32:23,226 --> 00:32:25,226
Speaker 3: sure enough, somebody you thought was gonna be good kind

705
00:32:25,226 --> 00:32:28,426
Speaker 3: of fell off, and somebody you never saw coming is

706
00:32:28,506 --> 00:32:30,506
Speaker 3: going to be the story of the season. Some rookie

707
00:32:30,586 --> 00:32:32,986
Speaker 3: we haven't even seen yet, who's going to be you know,

708
00:32:33,066 --> 00:32:34,626
Speaker 3: somebody's going to be the rookie of the year. And

709
00:32:35,666 --> 00:32:37,706
Speaker 3: it's one of the best and worst things, quite honestly,

710
00:32:37,706 --> 00:32:40,426
Speaker 3: about this job is you're guessing you really are. These

711
00:32:40,466 --> 00:32:44,306
Speaker 3: are all guesses we're hoping, we're imagining what it could be.

712
00:32:44,906 --> 00:32:46,546
Speaker 3: You rely on the things you can rely on, and

713
00:32:46,586 --> 00:32:49,426
Speaker 3: then you kind of cross your fingers and take a

714
00:32:49,506 --> 00:32:50,746
Speaker 3: risk on some other things.

715
00:32:51,226 --> 00:32:53,626
Speaker 1: I live in an NFL is King world where my

716
00:32:53,706 --> 00:32:58,506
Speaker 1: viewpoint is NFL first, everything else, seventh, eighth, ninth. But

717
00:32:58,546 --> 00:33:00,506
Speaker 1: I remember a couple of years ago, Peter King did

718
00:33:00,506 --> 00:33:02,466
Speaker 1: a wonderful article after the schedule came out and said,

719
00:33:02,666 --> 00:33:05,666
Speaker 1: you know, Taylor Swift having a concert tour impacted some

720
00:33:05,786 --> 00:33:07,786
Speaker 1: of the dates of the NFL schedule because they didn't

721
00:33:07,786 --> 00:33:09,706
Speaker 1: want to boot Taylor Swift's fans on a Sunday, or

722
00:33:09,746 --> 00:33:12,066
Speaker 1: they couldn't because there's a contract involve Is there any

723
00:33:12,106 --> 00:33:15,266
Speaker 1: concert tour a bad bunny, a Taylor Swift that's going

724
00:33:15,266 --> 00:33:15,866
Speaker 1: on in the fall?

725
00:33:15,946 --> 00:33:19,706
Speaker 3: Taylor Taylor's on the road, Beyonce is on the road,

726
00:33:19,906 --> 00:33:23,226
Speaker 3: Pink is on the road. Morgan Whalen's on the road.

727
00:33:23,266 --> 00:33:25,106
Speaker 1: I hope you feel his voice back.

728
00:33:26,066 --> 00:33:27,986
Speaker 3: Black Pink is on the road. I know Black Pink

729
00:33:28,106 --> 00:33:30,906
Speaker 3: is coming here in August. There's a lot. Look, it's

730
00:33:30,906 --> 00:33:32,946
Speaker 3: been a while since the concert business has.

731
00:33:32,786 --> 00:33:35,866
Speaker 1: Their back concerts right and better than ever, I mean.

732
00:33:35,786 --> 00:33:37,946
Speaker 3: And to a certain extent, Oh, how could you do this?

733
00:33:38,146 --> 00:33:41,146
Speaker 3: You're jeopardizing the integrity of the NFL schedule. We can't

734
00:33:41,146 --> 00:33:43,746
Speaker 3: work around all these blocks, But this is part of

735
00:33:43,826 --> 00:33:45,946
Speaker 3: what we do. We try to thread that needle. And

736
00:33:46,266 --> 00:33:48,386
Speaker 3: you know, maybe it's a rock concert, maybe it's a

737
00:33:48,426 --> 00:33:50,586
Speaker 3: college football game the day before and we're worried about

738
00:33:50,586 --> 00:33:53,346
Speaker 3: the field conditions. Maybe it's a NASCAR race or a

739
00:33:53,386 --> 00:33:57,266
Speaker 3: golf tournament. We're trying to as part of the interaction

740
00:33:57,346 --> 00:33:59,546
Speaker 3: with the clubs, like we said in January and February,

741
00:33:59,666 --> 00:34:01,426
Speaker 3: tell us what we need to know. And part of

742
00:34:01,426 --> 00:34:03,226
Speaker 3: it is, well, we got some other events going on

743
00:34:03,266 --> 00:34:05,066
Speaker 3: in our building, and part of it is, oh, and

744
00:34:05,146 --> 00:34:06,906
Speaker 3: we don't want to play in Florida and September, and

745
00:34:06,946 --> 00:34:08,706
Speaker 3: we don't want to play in Lambeau in December, and

746
00:34:08,786 --> 00:34:11,546
Speaker 3: you owe us a mid season by you know, those

747
00:34:11,586 --> 00:34:13,146
Speaker 3: all just kind of go into the stew. They go

748
00:34:13,186 --> 00:34:15,466
Speaker 3: into the software. You just give it a stir and

749
00:34:15,506 --> 00:34:18,866
Speaker 3: you keep hoping that the winner kind of solves all

750
00:34:18,906 --> 00:34:22,306
Speaker 3: these things that you can. Is it perfect? Never? But

751
00:34:22,626 --> 00:34:25,146
Speaker 3: if you need Taylor Swift tickets, just call me.

752
00:34:25,186 --> 00:34:28,106
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, oh well actually that might be ending you up.

753
00:34:29,866 --> 00:34:35,266
Speaker 1: Don't laugh. The broadcast partners, of course, have their requests,

754
00:34:35,266 --> 00:34:36,906
Speaker 1: and you just mentioned part of the stew being the

755
00:34:36,946 --> 00:34:40,586
Speaker 1: teams having their certain requests. How do you weigh those

756
00:34:40,706 --> 00:34:44,506
Speaker 1: because I could see certain teams saying I don't want

757
00:34:44,506 --> 00:34:48,186
Speaker 1: to play the Miami Dolphins in September, or another team

758
00:34:48,306 --> 00:34:52,546
Speaker 1: saying we actually would prefer to have more home games

759
00:34:52,666 --> 00:34:55,306
Speaker 1: up in Buffalo in December than in September. It's a

760
00:34:55,306 --> 00:34:58,026
Speaker 1: home field advantage, yep, whatever it is, how do you

761
00:34:58,106 --> 00:35:00,866
Speaker 1: factor all that? And with the broadcast partner saying, hey,

762
00:35:01,066 --> 00:35:03,266
Speaker 1: we actually want this game at this point, if you

763
00:35:03,266 --> 00:35:05,386
Speaker 1: can possibly give it to us, that would be greatly appreciated.

764
00:35:05,506 --> 00:35:08,946
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, each team is kind of a microcosm of

765
00:35:08,986 --> 00:35:11,386
Speaker 3: that same conversation that we're having here at the league

766
00:35:11,426 --> 00:35:13,786
Speaker 3: office here when we build the schedule, you could make

767
00:35:14,186 --> 00:35:17,986
Speaker 3: arguably the perfect television schedule whatever that means, nothing but

768
00:35:18,386 --> 00:35:21,866
Speaker 3: Dallas and Kansas City in primetime and television windows, you know,

769
00:35:21,986 --> 00:35:24,066
Speaker 3: all seventeen weeks of the year. If you're going to

770
00:35:24,146 --> 00:35:27,426
Speaker 3: do all that over here, then your team competitive issues,

771
00:35:27,666 --> 00:35:29,466
Speaker 3: you're probably going to be a little less fair than

772
00:35:29,466 --> 00:35:31,186
Speaker 3: you would hope to be. You could do it the

773
00:35:31,226 --> 00:35:34,026
Speaker 3: other way. You could make great team schedules, every team

774
00:35:34,106 --> 00:35:36,986
Speaker 3: home away, home away, home away, mid season. By you're

775
00:35:36,986 --> 00:35:39,226
Speaker 3: probably not then going to make your best television schedule

776
00:35:39,266 --> 00:35:42,306
Speaker 3: so somewhere between those two extremes, we're looking for that middle.

777
00:35:42,546 --> 00:35:45,226
Speaker 3: Every team is having the same conversation internally. You know,

778
00:35:45,266 --> 00:35:48,386
Speaker 3: we mentioned going to Florida in September. On the one hand,

779
00:35:48,466 --> 00:35:51,026
Speaker 3: you know, if you're the vice president of ticketing or

780
00:35:51,066 --> 00:35:53,546
Speaker 3: the vice president of marketing, you say, and you know,

781
00:35:53,666 --> 00:35:55,586
Speaker 3: hang on a second, it's one hundred and five degrees

782
00:35:55,626 --> 00:35:57,906
Speaker 3: in the shade. Can we please play our games at

783
00:35:57,906 --> 00:35:59,946
Speaker 3: four o'clock or eight o'clock or even on the road

784
00:36:00,226 --> 00:36:03,186
Speaker 3: in September. Whereas, if you're the head coach, this is

785
00:36:03,186 --> 00:36:04,306
Speaker 3: a home field advantage for you.

786
00:36:04,346 --> 00:36:04,946
Speaker 1: It's a huge event.

787
00:36:05,186 --> 00:36:07,906
Speaker 3: You're Miami and you got Buffalo coming down to Florida.

788
00:36:07,986 --> 00:36:09,946
Speaker 3: Do you want to let them out of that you know,

789
00:36:10,026 --> 00:36:13,066
Speaker 3: hot weather game. You know, every team's got to make

790
00:36:13,066 --> 00:36:15,586
Speaker 3: that decision. And to your question about you know, give

791
00:36:15,586 --> 00:36:17,826
Speaker 3: me all the home games you can give me in December,

792
00:36:18,306 --> 00:36:20,226
Speaker 3: but the weather might be bad and the fans might

793
00:36:20,266 --> 00:36:22,266
Speaker 3: not show up, and heaven forbid, you're five and ten.

794
00:36:22,706 --> 00:36:24,506
Speaker 3: Then you're gonna have a time time putting you know,

795
00:36:24,626 --> 00:36:27,786
Speaker 3: bodies in your building. Whereas, hey don't put too many

796
00:36:27,786 --> 00:36:29,746
Speaker 3: games in December, so I don't have too many to sell.

797
00:36:29,986 --> 00:36:32,026
Speaker 3: Then your coach turns around and says, hey, wait a minute,

798
00:36:32,066 --> 00:36:33,986
Speaker 3: why does this schedule have so few home games for

799
00:36:34,026 --> 00:36:36,586
Speaker 3: me when I'm in a playoff chase. So every team's

800
00:36:36,586 --> 00:36:38,386
Speaker 3: got to kind of strike that balance, and then we've

801
00:36:38,386 --> 00:36:40,626
Speaker 3: got to take that input from all thirty two and

802
00:36:40,746 --> 00:36:43,426
Speaker 3: kind of apply it globally and again kind of find

803
00:36:43,426 --> 00:36:47,786
Speaker 3: that right balance between competitive fairness and maximizing, you know,

804
00:36:47,906 --> 00:36:51,066
Speaker 3: television viewership. It's less about maximizing viewership than it is

805
00:36:51,066 --> 00:36:52,906
Speaker 3: about getting the right games to the fans. We're not

806
00:36:52,946 --> 00:36:55,386
Speaker 3: doing our jobs if the best games are buried in

807
00:36:55,426 --> 00:36:58,146
Speaker 3: one o'clock windows and only available in fourteen percent of

808
00:36:58,186 --> 00:37:00,666
Speaker 3: the country. So can we spread them around? Can everybody

809
00:37:00,706 --> 00:37:02,626
Speaker 3: see the games they really want to see? And can

810
00:37:02,666 --> 00:37:04,866
Speaker 3: every team again feel like we heard them on what

811
00:37:04,906 --> 00:37:08,106
Speaker 3: their requests and their preferences were, or nobody gets everything?

812
00:37:08,466 --> 00:37:10,226
Speaker 3: Hopefully nobody feels like they got nothing.

813
00:37:10,946 --> 00:37:13,266
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's this international aspect now where now

814
00:37:13,306 --> 00:37:16,226
Speaker 1: you have five games in the nine thirty am Eastern window.

815
00:37:16,306 --> 00:37:19,186
Speaker 1: I personally work on the Fox pregame show at eleven

816
00:37:19,226 --> 00:37:21,306
Speaker 1: am Eastern, and I could tell you our ratings were

817
00:37:21,346 --> 00:37:24,066
Speaker 1: down those five Sundays. Do you hear from the broadcast

818
00:37:24,066 --> 00:37:25,986
Speaker 1: partner saying, well, now, wait a second, how about this.

819
00:37:26,026 --> 00:37:29,786
Speaker 1: We have these pregames with these and I'm obviously on

820
00:37:29,906 --> 00:37:31,386
Speaker 1: both sides of the fence because the game's are on

821
00:37:31,506 --> 00:37:34,106
Speaker 1: NFL Network sometimes and I'm a member of that crew also,

822
00:37:34,146 --> 00:37:36,706
Speaker 1: But I feel like we've got so many different mouths

823
00:37:36,706 --> 00:37:38,666
Speaker 1: to feed now that there are some things that are

824
00:37:38,706 --> 00:37:39,946
Speaker 1: going to come up that is conflict.

825
00:37:40,026 --> 00:37:41,946
Speaker 3: Yep, that's what Howard Katz says all the time. So

826
00:37:41,986 --> 00:37:45,786
Speaker 3: many mouths to feed, and you can't keep everybody well fed.

827
00:37:45,866 --> 00:37:48,826
Speaker 3: You're gonna have somebody who's a little disappointed somewhere along

828
00:37:48,826 --> 00:37:51,666
Speaker 3: the line. And like you, you know, you wake up

829
00:37:51,706 --> 00:37:53,746
Speaker 3: the morning of a London game and maybe you click

830
00:37:53,786 --> 00:37:56,426
Speaker 3: over to your pregame show and then you realize, oh man,

831
00:37:56,466 --> 00:37:57,266
Speaker 3: there's a live football.

832
00:37:57,306 --> 00:37:57,746
Speaker 1: It's a game.

833
00:37:57,786 --> 00:37:59,986
Speaker 3: Well click right, we got to go watch the game

834
00:38:00,026 --> 00:38:03,626
Speaker 3: when it's on. So yeah, it's not ideal certainly for

835
00:38:04,026 --> 00:38:07,386
Speaker 3: our pregame show or our partner's pregame shows, but any

836
00:38:07,466 --> 00:38:09,986
Speaker 3: chance to get live football, and for those who have

837
00:38:10,106 --> 00:38:13,866
Speaker 3: traveled over and played internationally. Again, you talk about television

838
00:38:13,946 --> 00:38:17,186
Speaker 3: ratings versus competitive fairness when you go over to London

839
00:38:17,346 --> 00:38:21,666
Speaker 3: and you play in the evening over there, so the

840
00:38:21,746 --> 00:38:24,626
Speaker 3: here's in the afternoon over here. You get home really

841
00:38:24,666 --> 00:38:27,186
Speaker 3: really late, and you probably should take your buy the

842
00:38:27,186 --> 00:38:29,306
Speaker 3: week after just because of the body clock and the

843
00:38:29,346 --> 00:38:31,546
Speaker 3: miles in the air. And if you're playing a week

844
00:38:31,586 --> 00:38:35,306
Speaker 3: four London game, you're essentially volunteering for a week five bye.

845
00:38:35,626 --> 00:38:38,066
Speaker 3: And it's a long season. I don't think anybody's putting

846
00:38:38,066 --> 00:38:40,226
Speaker 3: their hand up for a Week five by somebody's gonna

847
00:38:40,226 --> 00:38:42,826
Speaker 3: get it happens every year, but it hopefully moves around

848
00:38:42,866 --> 00:38:45,306
Speaker 3: a little bit and nobody's volunteering for it. So if

849
00:38:45,346 --> 00:38:48,826
Speaker 3: you're playing over there in the afternoon to play over

850
00:38:48,866 --> 00:38:51,866
Speaker 3: here in the morning, you play in the afternoon over there.

851
00:38:51,866 --> 00:38:53,906
Speaker 3: If you're an East Coast team, you're back in your

852
00:38:53,906 --> 00:38:57,506
Speaker 3: facility midnight one am. That's probably earlier than if you

853
00:38:57,506 --> 00:39:00,666
Speaker 3: played at Seattle or San Franciscure Sunday. So you know,

854
00:39:00,866 --> 00:39:03,586
Speaker 3: there's trade offs, there's balances. I think our clothes have

855
00:39:03,626 --> 00:39:07,826
Speaker 3: gotten really really good at managing the London and you know, well.

856
00:39:07,706 --> 00:39:09,826
Speaker 1: I still think it's fascinating. There's different strategies. We were

857
00:39:09,826 --> 00:39:13,626
Speaker 1: in Germany last year and the Seahawks they're there and

858
00:39:13,706 --> 00:39:15,466
Speaker 1: I believe it was either the Seahawks were there for

859
00:39:15,506 --> 00:39:17,386
Speaker 1: several days and the Bucks just showed up the day before,

860
00:39:17,466 --> 00:39:19,186
Speaker 1: or as vice versa. But the fact that there's still

861
00:39:19,226 --> 00:39:21,506
Speaker 1: not a tried and true strategy is fascinating to me.

862
00:39:21,666 --> 00:39:23,586
Speaker 3: It also depends on where you're coming from in the States.

863
00:39:23,586 --> 00:39:26,866
Speaker 3: We talked this year to San Francisco and the Chargers.

864
00:39:26,906 --> 00:39:29,586
Speaker 3: They did not end up going over to London as

865
00:39:29,586 --> 00:39:32,426
Speaker 3: a visiting team, but they had at least ran the

866
00:39:32,466 --> 00:39:34,306
Speaker 3: traps and thought about how we would want to do this,

867
00:39:34,346 --> 00:39:36,426
Speaker 3: and they both asked for the same thing. If you're

868
00:39:36,466 --> 00:39:38,546
Speaker 3: going to send us to London, bring us to the

869
00:39:38,586 --> 00:39:42,346
Speaker 3: East Coast the week before, and we'll play in Philadelphia, Washington,

870
00:39:42,386 --> 00:39:44,866
Speaker 3: New York, New England, whatever, and then we'll go over

871
00:39:44,906 --> 00:39:48,786
Speaker 3: from there as opposed to Seattle. Last year. Didn't do that.

872
00:39:48,866 --> 00:39:51,466
Speaker 3: They stayed in Seattle and they flew to Germany. I

873
00:39:51,506 --> 00:39:53,506
Speaker 3: think they went up over the North Pole, and they

874
00:39:53,586 --> 00:39:56,106
Speaker 3: treated it more like, you know, a regular trip. I mean,

875
00:39:56,146 --> 00:39:58,466
Speaker 3: Seattle has long trips every week, so they're used to it.

876
00:39:58,866 --> 00:40:02,586
Speaker 3: Every team treats it differently. Everybody's an expert, nobody knows

877
00:40:02,626 --> 00:40:05,266
Speaker 3: for sure, and sometimes you win a game you're not

878
00:40:05,266 --> 00:40:07,586
Speaker 3: supposed to, and sometimes you get beat. Even though everything

879
00:40:07,586 --> 00:40:09,626
Speaker 3: worked out exactly the way you would hope leading up

880
00:40:09,626 --> 00:40:13,186
Speaker 3: to it. Nobody knows anything. It's a beauteous league. Mike.

881
00:40:13,226 --> 00:40:14,306
Speaker 1: How long you've been working for the.

882
00:40:14,306 --> 00:40:19,786
Speaker 3: NFL season twenty eight? For me? I believable, big shield,

883
00:40:19,866 --> 00:40:22,626
Speaker 3: love life. He still let me in the building. No,

884
00:40:22,706 --> 00:40:25,266
Speaker 3: let's me too work on such an important project. I'm

885
00:40:25,306 --> 00:40:27,986
Speaker 3: so grateful, so humble, work with so many smart people.

886
00:40:28,506 --> 00:40:31,026
Speaker 3: And again I'm old enough to remember how we used

887
00:40:31,066 --> 00:40:33,986
Speaker 3: to do this. The miracle, honestly, Peter, isn't that we

888
00:40:34,026 --> 00:40:37,306
Speaker 3: get fifty thousand or one hundred thousand schedules done today.

889
00:40:37,586 --> 00:40:39,906
Speaker 3: The miracles that we ever got one done by hand.

890
00:40:40,066 --> 00:40:44,706
Speaker 3: I can believe how this league somehow survived that inefficient,

891
00:40:44,946 --> 00:40:48,386
Speaker 3: suboptimal process. But it's just proof that, you know, the

892
00:40:48,426 --> 00:40:51,306
Speaker 3: game is the thing. Try as we might, we can't

893
00:40:51,346 --> 00:40:53,026
Speaker 3: screw it up. And try to just stay out of

894
00:40:53,066 --> 00:40:56,506
Speaker 3: the way and make good decisions and make a fair schedule.

895
00:40:56,546 --> 00:40:58,546
Speaker 3: Hopefully that everybody feels, like we said, just a little

896
00:40:58,586 --> 00:41:00,986
Speaker 3: bit disappointed by and that's probably where we should be.

897
00:41:00,986 --> 00:41:02,906
Speaker 3: And then the season starts and kind of out of

898
00:41:02,946 --> 00:41:04,706
Speaker 3: our hands and we'll react as we need to.

899
00:41:05,706 --> 00:41:07,826
Speaker 1: When you got out of college and you were working

900
00:41:07,826 --> 00:41:09,546
Speaker 1: whatever it was you were doing when you started at

901
00:41:09,546 --> 00:41:11,706
Speaker 1: the league, what was your first job, and how did

902
00:41:11,746 --> 00:41:14,826
Speaker 1: you get to this position? Because I think it's one

903
00:41:14,866 --> 00:41:16,626
Speaker 1: to one. It's one of the coolest deals, and I

904
00:41:16,666 --> 00:41:18,426
Speaker 1: know your passion for it. You love it, and it's

905
00:41:18,466 --> 00:41:21,506
Speaker 1: like me with my job, I love it. We're very blessed,

906
00:41:21,506 --> 00:41:23,546
Speaker 1: we're lucky, Like it's cool that we can do what

907
00:41:23,546 --> 00:41:25,346
Speaker 1: we want to do. And I know a lot of

908
00:41:25,346 --> 00:41:28,866
Speaker 1: people who love your passion for it, which makes it

909
00:41:28,906 --> 00:41:30,866
Speaker 1: so much fun for them, Like talking about the schedule,

910
00:41:30,866 --> 00:41:32,586
Speaker 1: because it's like, yeah, Mike and his group, like they

911
00:41:32,666 --> 00:41:35,466
Speaker 1: absolutely live and breathe and this is not work, this

912
00:41:35,546 --> 00:41:37,746
Speaker 1: is a passion. How did you get to this? And

913
00:41:37,986 --> 00:41:39,866
Speaker 1: was this kind of a goal like I'm gonna make

914
00:41:39,866 --> 00:41:40,706
Speaker 1: the schedule one day?

915
00:41:41,786 --> 00:41:44,026
Speaker 3: There really wasn't such a thing. I mean, sports scheduling

916
00:41:44,066 --> 00:41:46,426
Speaker 3: wasn't even an industry back then. I mean, I'm sure

917
00:41:46,426 --> 00:41:49,146
Speaker 3: they all just did it with like index cards or dominoes,

918
00:41:49,146 --> 00:41:50,946
Speaker 3: like we used to see those old pictures of Burt Bell.

919
00:41:52,466 --> 00:41:55,226
Speaker 3: I'm a much bigger look. The constituents have gotten a

920
00:41:55,266 --> 00:41:57,346
Speaker 3: lot smarter you know, can't beat around the bush. The

921
00:41:57,386 --> 00:42:00,786
Speaker 3: money's gotten a lot more. So you know our partners

922
00:42:00,826 --> 00:42:03,586
Speaker 3: that they're owed a better process, no toys around it.

923
00:42:03,666 --> 00:42:06,386
Speaker 3: So I got really, really lucky. I'm at a total

924
00:42:06,506 --> 00:42:08,466
Speaker 3: stranger at a New York Rangers game one day, is

925
00:42:08,586 --> 00:42:10,426
Speaker 3: that right, total stranger.

926
00:42:10,306 --> 00:42:13,386
Speaker 1: Adam Graves, you know, just Jeff Booker Boom and you're

927
00:42:13,386 --> 00:42:13,706
Speaker 1: just there.

928
00:42:13,866 --> 00:42:19,786
Speaker 3: Even longer ago, earlier ninety four, So I met a

929
00:42:19,786 --> 00:42:22,586
Speaker 3: stranger at a hockey game. I was working in advertising

930
00:42:22,586 --> 00:42:24,226
Speaker 3: at the time. I said, love to get into sports.

931
00:42:24,226 --> 00:42:25,866
Speaker 3: She said, my aunt just got a job at the NFL.

932
00:42:25,906 --> 00:42:28,666
Speaker 3: That's amazing doing what I don't know, but give me

933
00:42:28,706 --> 00:42:31,666
Speaker 3: your resume. I'll fax it tour. Two weeks later, had

934
00:42:31,666 --> 00:42:33,826
Speaker 3: the job. I fell blind, dumb luck.

935
00:42:33,706 --> 00:42:34,986
Speaker 1: Back home, Oh my gosh.

936
00:42:35,186 --> 00:42:35,466
Speaker 2: Job.

937
00:42:35,626 --> 00:42:38,106
Speaker 3: And it was when the NFL was launching its website.

938
00:42:38,386 --> 00:42:40,946
Speaker 3: So you probably heard this story. Wasn't even at NFL

939
00:42:41,026 --> 00:42:44,066
Speaker 3: dot com because someone wasn't at NFL dot com.

940
00:42:43,946 --> 00:42:48,386
Speaker 4: NFL dot Aol dot com wasl home dot com as

941
00:42:48,426 --> 00:42:52,506
Speaker 4: a podiatrist in Chicago had registered NFL dot com under

942
00:42:52,546 --> 00:42:54,626
Speaker 4: his product no foot Loss.

943
00:42:55,066 --> 00:42:56,586
Speaker 1: I don't know the story. It couldn't.

944
00:42:56,706 --> 00:42:58,786
Speaker 3: We couldn't even get NFL dot com. In the early days,

945
00:42:58,826 --> 00:43:00,466
Speaker 3: we were at NFL home dot com.

946
00:43:00,786 --> 00:43:03,546
Speaker 1: Damn foot amputation business was keeping us.

947
00:43:04,546 --> 00:43:06,346
Speaker 3: I kind of got this wrap around the building is

948
00:43:06,346 --> 00:43:11,866
Speaker 3: the computer nerd and Ashpec was shifting the scheduling process

949
00:43:11,946 --> 00:43:14,706
Speaker 3: from manual. He used to lock himself in a room

950
00:43:14,786 --> 00:43:18,226
Speaker 3: with Joe Ferrera and Dick Maxwell and you know, really

951
00:43:18,266 --> 00:43:20,146
Speaker 3: some some legends of NFL.

952
00:43:19,906 --> 00:43:22,386
Speaker 1: Lore a bunch of pistachios, right.

953
00:43:22,306 --> 00:43:24,506
Speaker 3: Yep, yep. When they were when they were gonna try

954
00:43:24,546 --> 00:43:27,466
Speaker 3: to automate the process, they needed a nerd. They needed

955
00:43:27,466 --> 00:43:30,306
Speaker 3: a computer nerd. They had one on the fifth floor

956
00:43:30,346 --> 00:43:32,786
Speaker 3: who was doing you know, the new website. And so

957
00:43:32,866 --> 00:43:35,306
Speaker 3: I got really lucky, got the job and have been

958
00:43:36,426 --> 00:43:39,186
Speaker 3: to talk about, you know, Charlie and the chocolate factory.

959
00:43:39,186 --> 00:43:41,106
Speaker 3: What do you the kid who got everything he ever wanted?

960
00:43:41,146 --> 00:43:43,546
Speaker 3: Man so lucky. You get to work with all the smartest,

961
00:43:43,546 --> 00:43:49,346
Speaker 3: brightest people, all so respected, so smart legends, and to

962
00:43:49,466 --> 00:43:52,586
Speaker 3: think where the process has gone to and what it's become.

963
00:43:53,506 --> 00:43:55,426
Speaker 3: It is. It is a labor love. It's twenty four

964
00:43:55,466 --> 00:43:58,946
Speaker 3: to seven, it's fourteen weeks. It's it's everybody, it's all

965
00:43:58,986 --> 00:44:02,466
Speaker 3: hands on deck and we are down to the minutia.

966
00:44:02,666 --> 00:44:05,866
Speaker 3: It really is like, should this game be on this window?

967
00:44:05,906 --> 00:44:07,906
Speaker 3: Because if it is, you know, it's not going to

968
00:44:07,946 --> 00:44:10,066
Speaker 3: air in Los Angeles? Or is that right that this

969
00:44:10,186 --> 00:44:12,506
Speaker 3: Titans game can't be seen in Houston? And if the

970
00:44:12,626 --> 00:44:15,146
Speaker 3: Houston Texans are playing and the Cowboys are playing, that's

971
00:44:15,186 --> 00:44:17,306
Speaker 3: not really fair to the fans in San Antonio. And

972
00:44:17,626 --> 00:44:21,426
Speaker 3: really trying to get that search all that specific about

973
00:44:21,466 --> 00:44:24,946
Speaker 3: every window, every game, every television partner. The analytics play

974
00:44:24,946 --> 00:44:26,466
Speaker 3: a huge role. Again, you go back to what we

975
00:44:26,506 --> 00:44:29,746
Speaker 3: talked about at the beginning. Never want to distrust, you know,

976
00:44:29,906 --> 00:44:32,786
Speaker 3: Roger Goodell's gut. There's a reason the guy's you know,

977
00:44:33,066 --> 00:44:35,186
Speaker 3: running the company. I trust everything he says and I'll

978
00:44:35,186 --> 00:44:37,586
Speaker 3: do whatever he tells us. But if we can supplement

979
00:44:37,866 --> 00:44:40,386
Speaker 3: some of that gut and feel and instinct with math

980
00:44:40,466 --> 00:44:42,826
Speaker 3: and science and predictive analytics, that's probably going to get

981
00:44:42,866 --> 00:44:44,346
Speaker 3: us to a better place at the end of the day.

982
00:44:44,626 --> 00:44:47,066
Speaker 3: And then, like you said, season starts and all bets

983
00:44:47,106 --> 00:44:49,266
Speaker 3: are off and you know, best laid plans right in

984
00:44:49,306 --> 00:44:51,546
Speaker 3: the garbage, and you just react and you adjust, and

985
00:44:51,586 --> 00:44:54,306
Speaker 3: that's what flexible scheduling is for. And the Saturday TVD

986
00:44:54,426 --> 00:44:57,186
Speaker 3: pools and we'll do the best we can and play

987
00:44:57,226 --> 00:44:58,146
Speaker 3: the cards that are dene.

988
00:44:58,706 --> 00:45:00,906
Speaker 1: Couple more questions and I'll let you leave because I'm

989
00:45:00,906 --> 00:45:04,306
Speaker 1: assuming you haven't slept in days. This is for the

990
00:45:04,346 --> 00:45:08,186
Speaker 1: regular season. It's important. I would think that the night

991
00:45:08,226 --> 00:45:11,106
Speaker 1: the regular season ends and figuring out which networks get

992
00:45:11,106 --> 00:45:14,906
Speaker 1: which playoff games is a far more contentious time. Or

993
00:45:14,946 --> 00:45:18,906
Speaker 1: am I overstepping my bounds and suggesting that there's actual

994
00:45:19,186 --> 00:45:20,346
Speaker 1: arguments over who gets what?

995
00:45:20,506 --> 00:45:24,506
Speaker 3: Again, I'm not sure about contentious, but it's definitely a

996
00:45:24,546 --> 00:45:27,586
Speaker 3: lot of encouraging, a lot of arm twisting, a lot

997
00:45:27,626 --> 00:45:31,266
Speaker 3: of raising their hands. Look, the truth is, at that point,

998
00:45:31,266 --> 00:45:33,666
Speaker 3: there's two things going for you. Number One, you've got

999
00:45:33,666 --> 00:45:36,786
Speaker 3: a regular season under your belt, so you know who's up,

1000
00:45:36,906 --> 00:45:40,266
Speaker 3: who's down, who just had the big game, who you

1001
00:45:40,306 --> 00:45:42,626
Speaker 3: know got a solid whether we did a flexible scheduling

1002
00:45:42,666 --> 00:45:45,106
Speaker 3: decision at one o'clock or four o'clock, Like, you're not

1003
00:45:45,266 --> 00:45:47,906
Speaker 3: just all of a sudden starting from scratch to you know,

1004
00:45:47,986 --> 00:45:49,866
Speaker 3: which of the mouths do we have to feed? Is

1005
00:45:49,906 --> 00:45:52,746
Speaker 3: the biggest mouth? You've got a whole regular season under

1006
00:45:52,746 --> 00:45:55,306
Speaker 3: your belt, so you kind of know, you know the

1007
00:45:55,386 --> 00:45:57,626
Speaker 3: roadmap to how you got here, and maybe you owe

1008
00:45:57,626 --> 00:45:59,586
Speaker 3: this guy a little something, or maybe that guy's just

1009
00:45:59,666 --> 00:46:02,946
Speaker 3: fine with whatever he gets. And then the second thing,

1010
00:46:02,986 --> 00:46:05,506
Speaker 3: and maybe the most important thing is you know, now

1011
00:46:05,506 --> 00:46:08,346
Speaker 3: you're talking about our best games. Literally, you're talking about

1012
00:46:08,346 --> 00:46:11,026
Speaker 3: playoff games, right, so every one of these games is

1013
00:46:11,066 --> 00:46:13,546
Speaker 3: a valuable asset. And look at how the playoffs have

1014
00:46:13,546 --> 00:46:16,386
Speaker 3: gone these last two years, with that incredible divisional weekend

1015
00:46:16,386 --> 00:46:18,466
Speaker 3: from a couple of years ago, the unbelievable comeback on

1016
00:46:18,546 --> 00:46:21,666
Speaker 3: wild Card weekend last year. You know, generally speaking, the

1017
00:46:21,706 --> 00:46:24,186
Speaker 3: cream rises to the top. And you know if your

1018
00:46:24,186 --> 00:46:26,306
Speaker 3: CBS or Fox and maybe you didn't get exactly the

1019
00:46:26,306 --> 00:46:28,586
Speaker 3: game you wanted on wild card weekend, well you know

1020
00:46:28,706 --> 00:46:31,066
Speaker 3: that you're getting the winners of this weekend. Yeah, on

1021
00:46:31,146 --> 00:46:34,186
Speaker 3: divisional weekend, and CBS and Fox are always sitting there

1022
00:46:34,186 --> 00:46:36,666
Speaker 3: with a championship game, so you know they're getting you know,

1023
00:46:36,866 --> 00:46:38,786
Speaker 3: the two best teams in the conference. And then whoever

1024
00:46:38,826 --> 00:46:40,746
Speaker 3: has the Super Bowl. On the one hand, you know

1025
00:46:40,746 --> 00:46:42,466
Speaker 3: they've got you know, the big win at the end,

1026
00:46:42,546 --> 00:46:44,506
Speaker 3: So maybe you don't need to feed them all the

1027
00:46:44,506 --> 00:46:46,826
Speaker 3: way along, but you also want to kind of build

1028
00:46:46,826 --> 00:46:49,146
Speaker 3: that momentum for that network, and everybody just get used

1029
00:46:49,186 --> 00:46:52,226
Speaker 3: to you know, Fox, Fox, Fox, weekend after weekend. So

1030
00:46:52,946 --> 00:46:55,946
Speaker 3: like everything else, it's a balancing act. Everybody raises their hand.

1031
00:46:55,986 --> 00:46:58,106
Speaker 3: It's a zero sum game. Anything good for one is

1032
00:46:58,146 --> 00:47:01,346
Speaker 3: a challenge for another. But hopefully over time, whether it's

1033
00:47:01,346 --> 00:47:03,986
Speaker 3: over a few weeks or a few seasons or ten years,

1034
00:47:04,346 --> 00:47:07,346
Speaker 3: everybody feels like at times they've got and you know

1035
00:47:07,426 --> 00:47:10,906
Speaker 3: that they've been heard and they've gotten, you know, they've

1036
00:47:10,906 --> 00:47:13,666
Speaker 3: they've gotten. The needle has tilted toward them just a

1037
00:47:13,746 --> 00:47:14,626
Speaker 3: little bit this time.

1038
00:47:15,186 --> 00:47:17,666
Speaker 1: I've got a buddy, Mike, who's a forty year old guy,

1039
00:47:17,946 --> 00:47:20,546
Speaker 1: grew up with me. He loves the schedule, he loves

1040
00:47:20,586 --> 00:47:24,186
Speaker 1: the broadcasting stuff. Every year before the playoffs, he like

1041
00:47:24,226 --> 00:47:26,586
Speaker 1: tries to predict, like, all right, this is a CBS division.

1042
00:47:27,506 --> 00:47:29,426
Speaker 1: His question to me to ask you was, we know

1043
00:47:29,866 --> 00:47:32,306
Speaker 1: FlexIt scheduling. You guys play a major role. We know

1044
00:47:32,986 --> 00:47:35,306
Speaker 1: that during the playoffs, you guys determine who gets what

1045
00:47:35,386 --> 00:47:38,186
Speaker 1: game For the most part, what do you, Mike North

1046
00:47:38,226 --> 00:47:41,186
Speaker 1: do once the schedule comes out up until like week ten,

1047
00:47:41,426 --> 00:47:44,186
Speaker 1: Like what's the panic? Panic? And just let's make sure

1048
00:47:44,226 --> 00:47:46,186
Speaker 1: that disaster.

1049
00:47:46,346 --> 00:47:49,706
Speaker 3: I'm watching I'm watching every game thinking about the impact

1050
00:47:49,746 --> 00:47:53,186
Speaker 3: of the outcome of this game on week eight, Week ten,

1051
00:47:53,306 --> 00:47:55,386
Speaker 3: Week fourteen, Week sixteen.

1052
00:47:55,426 --> 00:47:58,386
Speaker 1: Because we made a promise to Amazon that hey week thirteen.

1053
00:47:58,746 --> 00:48:00,946
Speaker 3: Honest but look, we put this schedule out in May,

1054
00:48:01,146 --> 00:48:03,266
Speaker 3: and you know, we didn't put it out with an

1055
00:48:03,306 --> 00:48:05,106
Speaker 3: expectation that we were going to have to flex out

1056
00:48:05,106 --> 00:48:07,786
Speaker 3: of anything. Every year we play schedule that we hope

1057
00:48:07,786 --> 00:48:10,066
Speaker 3: and pray that we could play, you know, as it lies,

1058
00:48:10,146 --> 00:48:14,106
Speaker 3: and always start thinking literally a week one, uh oh,

1059
00:48:14,186 --> 00:48:16,386
Speaker 3: anybody who lost in week one? Oh no, there goes

1060
00:48:16,426 --> 00:48:18,346
Speaker 3: the Are we gonna have to flex out of them

1061
00:48:18,386 --> 00:48:20,026
Speaker 3: in week six, week eight, week twelve?

1062
00:48:20,146 --> 00:48:22,826
Speaker 1: Should we start course some injuries, you probably get sick over.

1063
00:48:23,426 --> 00:48:27,586
Speaker 3: So, honestly, the broadcasting department our job. After we make

1064
00:48:27,626 --> 00:48:29,346
Speaker 3: the schedule, we get a little bit of a break,

1065
00:48:29,346 --> 00:48:31,506
Speaker 3: we catch our breath, get some sleep, but we're right

1066
00:48:31,546 --> 00:48:34,066
Speaker 3: back at it. By about mid July, we're doing seminars

1067
00:48:34,066 --> 00:48:36,706
Speaker 3: with our network partners. The teams are back in camp

1068
00:48:36,826 --> 00:48:39,626
Speaker 3: like the season will be here soon enough. And once

1069
00:48:39,666 --> 00:48:41,906
Speaker 3: the season starts, our job as a broadcast group is

1070
00:48:41,946 --> 00:48:44,266
Speaker 3: to work with the television networks and make sure, you know,

1071
00:48:44,586 --> 00:48:47,266
Speaker 3: let's tell the right stories, let's have the right camera angles.

1072
00:48:47,346 --> 00:48:49,506
Speaker 3: Let's make sure the highlights there, Let's run the commercials

1073
00:48:49,506 --> 00:48:51,906
Speaker 3: at the right time. These games are overlapping. We should

1074
00:48:51,946 --> 00:48:53,906
Speaker 3: do this now, and do this in five minutes. And

1075
00:48:54,106 --> 00:48:56,346
Speaker 3: this game's out of hand, we should transfer the audience

1076
00:48:56,346 --> 00:48:59,386
Speaker 3: from this game to that game. So our group is

1077
00:48:59,426 --> 00:49:01,506
Speaker 3: always working with the television partners, and you got to

1078
00:49:01,546 --> 00:49:04,546
Speaker 3: get through each game at a time. But I'm always like, oh,

1079
00:49:04,626 --> 00:49:08,346
Speaker 3: please nobody get hurt. You know, no no disasters, no

1080
00:49:08,466 --> 00:49:11,106
Speaker 3: team that's you know, owing something like, please get a win,

1081
00:49:11,306 --> 00:49:14,946
Speaker 3: just like I want everybody six and six through twelve weeks. Man,

1082
00:49:14,986 --> 00:49:18,346
Speaker 3: I want everybody in it, everybody in playoff contention. I

1083
00:49:18,386 --> 00:49:20,746
Speaker 3: know that again that's maybe not good for our broadcast partners.

1084
00:49:20,786 --> 00:49:23,706
Speaker 3: They like dynasties, they like big brands, but man, I

1085
00:49:23,746 --> 00:49:25,786
Speaker 3: want I want everybody in it. I want everybody alive.

1086
00:49:25,866 --> 00:49:28,546
Speaker 3: So I'm always rooting for the team that's behind in

1087
00:49:28,586 --> 00:49:31,226
Speaker 3: the standings, and I'm always rooting for the team that's

1088
00:49:31,226 --> 00:49:33,706
Speaker 3: behind in the game and hope that they all come

1089
00:49:33,746 --> 00:49:35,746
Speaker 3: out and everybody's still in it in week eighteen.

1090
00:49:35,786 --> 00:49:38,786
Speaker 1: That's the dream that phone ringing is Sean Payton bitching

1091
00:49:38,826 --> 00:49:40,026
Speaker 1: about the Broncos schedule.

1092
00:49:40,666 --> 00:49:44,306
Speaker 3: If you want, you could probably leak. I also probably

1093
00:49:44,346 --> 00:49:45,346
Speaker 3: put out another game.

1094
00:49:45,626 --> 00:49:48,586
Speaker 1: Donald Kelsey, that's another question, Like this whole sworn to

1095
00:49:48,586 --> 00:49:50,466
Speaker 1: see like I do the NFL draft, and these gms

1096
00:49:50,506 --> 00:49:54,106
Speaker 1: will blatantly lead me astray and we're friends, Why would

1097
00:49:54,146 --> 00:49:56,786
Speaker 1: you do that? Like they never tell me lies, but

1098
00:49:56,826 --> 00:49:59,666
Speaker 1: they certainly aren't get tipping that. Like the secrecy thing

1099
00:49:59,706 --> 00:50:01,826
Speaker 1: is there like a you know, what's the word omerica?

1100
00:50:01,946 --> 00:50:06,066
Speaker 1: Like amongst all you guys, Like, hey.

1101
00:50:04,906 --> 00:50:06,586
Speaker 3: Look, at the end of the day, we're all on

1102
00:50:06,626 --> 00:50:08,546
Speaker 3: the same team, right, we all want the same thing.

1103
00:50:08,586 --> 00:50:11,306
Speaker 3: We want the best possible schedule. We want you know,

1104
00:50:11,346 --> 00:50:14,106
Speaker 3: our fans to care as much as possible about you know,

1105
00:50:14,186 --> 00:50:16,746
Speaker 3: every game, every window. We want them to care about

1106
00:50:16,786 --> 00:50:19,146
Speaker 3: the schedule, release show. And if here we are on

1107
00:50:19,226 --> 00:50:23,466
Speaker 3: Wednesday at five o'clock and half the teams have leaked

1108
00:50:23,506 --> 00:50:26,506
Speaker 3: their schedule on social media, then tomorrow night at eight

1109
00:50:26,506 --> 00:50:29,346
Speaker 3: o'clock is not nearly as interesting. So I hope that's

1110
00:50:29,386 --> 00:50:32,426
Speaker 3: not what happens. I hope the teams, you know, heck,

1111
00:50:32,506 --> 00:50:34,906
Speaker 3: it's their network, right, they own it. I would hope

1112
00:50:34,906 --> 00:50:37,186
Speaker 3: that they would all, you know, have all of our

1113
00:50:37,226 --> 00:50:39,986
Speaker 3: best interests at heart. But yeah, no question when we

1114
00:50:39,986 --> 00:50:43,906
Speaker 3: made our team calls today, you know, senior team executives

1115
00:50:44,546 --> 00:50:46,146
Speaker 3: call them on the phone and say, okay, are you

1116
00:50:46,146 --> 00:50:48,386
Speaker 3: at your computer. You're about to get an email from

1117
00:50:48,426 --> 00:50:50,666
Speaker 3: the security department and you're going to have to click.

1118
00:50:50,706 --> 00:50:53,106
Speaker 3: And yes, I agree and know I won't disseminate it.

1119
00:50:53,146 --> 00:50:55,026
Speaker 3: And yes, only the people that need to see it

1120
00:50:55,066 --> 00:50:57,266
Speaker 3: and know I promise not to do this, and yes,

1121
00:50:57,306 --> 00:51:00,586
Speaker 3: I recognize the impact of my decision. The schedule gets out,

1122
00:51:00,626 --> 00:51:03,946
Speaker 3: they all are, yes, sworn to secrecy and have to

1123
00:51:04,386 --> 00:51:07,626
Speaker 3: make a commitment. I'm sure there's always something, you know,

1124
00:51:08,226 --> 00:51:10,666
Speaker 3: like having information, and it's hard to keep everybody quiet

1125
00:51:10,666 --> 00:51:11,666
Speaker 3: and knows such thing as a secret.

1126
00:51:11,826 --> 00:51:13,346
Speaker 1: Se If I'm you, I would get a thrill out

1127
00:51:13,346 --> 00:51:15,306
Speaker 1: of like a leak thing and everyone runs with it

1128
00:51:15,346 --> 00:51:17,426
Speaker 1: and then it's wrong and that's not good. Like we

1129
00:51:17,466 --> 00:51:17,746
Speaker 1: did it.

1130
00:51:17,986 --> 00:51:20,546
Speaker 3: We did it. This just happened, right. That newspaper in

1131
00:51:20,626 --> 00:51:23,986
Speaker 3: Germany a couple of days ago said you've got.

1132
00:51:23,906 --> 00:51:25,146
Speaker 1: Hear the teams the Patriots.

1133
00:51:26,386 --> 00:51:28,986
Speaker 3: Yeah, all wrong. And all it did was make for

1134
00:51:29,066 --> 00:51:31,626
Speaker 3: a couple of days of shoving the toothspape back toothpaste

1135
00:51:31,626 --> 00:51:33,666
Speaker 3: back in the tube for members of the media, for

1136
00:51:33,746 --> 00:51:36,306
Speaker 3: members of the team's staff people now calling and saying,

1137
00:51:36,346 --> 00:51:38,026
Speaker 3: wait a minute, I didn't even know we were candidate

1138
00:51:38,026 --> 00:51:40,106
Speaker 3: to go to London. Now I've got to start calling

1139
00:51:40,186 --> 00:51:42,466
Speaker 3: for site visits and hotel. No, no, no, no, no,

1140
00:51:42,946 --> 00:51:45,386
Speaker 3: it's fake news. Don't worry about it. You will all

1141
00:51:45,426 --> 00:51:48,386
Speaker 3: find out your schedule on Thursday night at eight o'clock

1142
00:51:48,426 --> 00:51:51,626
Speaker 3: Eastern on NFL Network. Anything you see before then, unless

1143
00:51:51,666 --> 00:51:53,866
Speaker 3: we bread crumb it out, you should take with a

1144
00:51:53,866 --> 00:51:54,746
Speaker 3: grain of salt.

1145
00:51:55,066 --> 00:51:58,146
Speaker 1: There's a famous David Stern story, the late great David Stern,

1146
00:51:58,226 --> 00:52:00,186
Speaker 1: that he was annoyed with the leaks coming out of

1147
00:52:00,666 --> 00:52:04,426
Speaker 1: fake on buildings and he sent the same memo to

1148
00:52:04,626 --> 00:52:08,066
Speaker 1: all the teams and there was one word different in

1149
00:52:08,226 --> 00:52:11,786
Speaker 1: every single memo, and you knew which teams. And then

1150
00:52:11,826 --> 00:52:13,466
Speaker 1: it came out and it ended up being the Detroit

1151
00:52:13,466 --> 00:52:15,386
Speaker 1: Pistons and whoever it was. So there was Dumars as

1152
00:52:15,386 --> 00:52:18,066
Speaker 1: the coach or whoever it was. They stung them and

1153
00:52:18,066 --> 00:52:19,586
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, you got you got a problem

1154
00:52:19,586 --> 00:52:21,346
Speaker 1: with your building right now. There's like, I mean, I

1155
00:52:21,386 --> 00:52:24,306
Speaker 1: love that stuff too, the subterfuge of secret and what

1156
00:52:24,386 --> 00:52:26,346
Speaker 1: are we going out there? But I didn't think of

1157
00:52:26,386 --> 00:52:29,466
Speaker 1: the pr and logistical nightmare that you probably deal with

1158
00:52:29,506 --> 00:52:31,186
Speaker 1: when there's a false report that comes out.

1159
00:52:31,506 --> 00:52:33,106
Speaker 3: Yep, better false than true.

1160
00:52:33,786 --> 00:52:39,706
Speaker 1: Yeah. My last question, what when do you know? Okay,

1161
00:52:39,866 --> 00:52:42,266
Speaker 1: is it whatever Goodell says this is the deadline? Or

1162
00:52:42,306 --> 00:52:44,706
Speaker 1: like if you could, would you be up doing this

1163
00:52:45,026 --> 00:52:46,946
Speaker 1: till September? First? Yeah, I mean or is it?

1164
00:52:47,026 --> 00:52:49,266
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, look I'm sick, so I'm the wrong turn.

1165
00:52:49,546 --> 00:52:49,906
Speaker 1: I get it.

1166
00:52:49,946 --> 00:52:54,226
Speaker 3: But the solution, spaces is infinite. And now that we changed,

1167
00:52:54,226 --> 00:52:56,466
Speaker 3: like we were talking about, we changed the way each

1168
00:52:56,466 --> 00:52:58,146
Speaker 3: of these games are allocated. It used to be if

1169
00:52:58,146 --> 00:52:59,826
Speaker 3: you're the AFC team and you're on the road, that

1170
00:52:59,866 --> 00:53:02,986
Speaker 3: game belongs to CBS. And if we wanted to take

1171
00:53:02,986 --> 00:53:05,466
Speaker 3: it for Sunday Night or Monday night, then you're literally

1172
00:53:05,666 --> 00:53:09,506
Speaker 3: taking it away in the network contracts takeaways, and so

1173
00:53:09,546 --> 00:53:11,746
Speaker 3: we had to manage which games and how many games

1174
00:53:11,746 --> 00:53:15,426
Speaker 3: we took away from CBS and Fox. When Hans Schroeder

1175
00:53:15,426 --> 00:53:18,346
Speaker 3: and the rest of the team negotiated the new TV deals,

1176
00:53:18,346 --> 00:53:20,266
Speaker 3: they got rid of that. So every game is a

1177
00:53:20,266 --> 00:53:22,026
Speaker 3: free agent. So the good news is we have a

1178
00:53:22,026 --> 00:53:24,386
Speaker 3: lot more flexibility. The bad news is we have a

1179
00:53:24,426 --> 00:53:27,426
Speaker 3: lot more flexibility. I mean, we weren't seeing maybe one

1180
00:53:27,466 --> 00:53:29,906
Speaker 3: tenth of one percent of the solution space before and

1181
00:53:29,946 --> 00:53:33,666
Speaker 3: now every game can go anywhere. So the time that

1182
00:53:33,706 --> 00:53:36,226
Speaker 3: it took for the computers to grind through the beach

1183
00:53:36,306 --> 00:53:39,386
Speaker 3: looking for the best grain of sand every night definitely increased.

1184
00:53:39,466 --> 00:53:41,826
Speaker 3: And the likelihood that we were going to find a

1185
00:53:41,866 --> 00:53:44,386
Speaker 3: better schedule tomorrow, and a better schedule tomorrow, and a

1186
00:53:44,386 --> 00:53:47,466
Speaker 3: better schedule tomorrow at some point, better's the wrong word.

1187
00:53:47,546 --> 00:53:49,746
Speaker 3: Now it's just flavors. It's vanilla or chocolate, but it's

1188
00:53:49,786 --> 00:53:53,146
Speaker 3: all ice cream. So to the Commissioner's credit, I mean,

1189
00:53:53,186 --> 00:53:55,986
Speaker 3: you know him better than most. He is never satisfied.

1190
00:53:56,026 --> 00:53:59,066
Speaker 3: He will never ever let you say you're done. He'll

1191
00:53:59,106 --> 00:54:01,146
Speaker 3: never ever let you say this is the best we

1192
00:54:01,186 --> 00:54:03,506
Speaker 3: can do, because you don't know that's true until you

1193
00:54:03,746 --> 00:54:06,466
Speaker 3: beat the hell out of yourself for another month. So

1194
00:54:06,826 --> 00:54:09,146
Speaker 3: you know, the SICCO and me would go another month.

1195
00:54:09,186 --> 00:54:11,066
Speaker 3: I'd love to know if there was one out there

1196
00:54:11,066 --> 00:54:14,306
Speaker 3: that didn't have that three game road trip, or maybe

1197
00:54:14,626 --> 00:54:18,706
Speaker 3: didn't quite have that sequence of Monday, Sunday Thursday for somebody,

1198
00:54:18,866 --> 00:54:21,906
Speaker 3: or maybe there was another way to maneuver the London

1199
00:54:21,946 --> 00:54:24,266
Speaker 3: games with the buy the week I mean maybe maybe

1200
00:54:24,346 --> 00:54:26,306
Speaker 3: I don't know but I would have loved to find out.

1201
00:54:27,346 --> 00:54:29,186
Speaker 3: And so that's part of the reason why we didn't

1202
00:54:29,306 --> 00:54:33,106
Speaker 3: even confirm May eleventh until just a day or two ago.

1203
00:54:33,186 --> 00:54:35,706
Speaker 3: We let the computers run all weekend, and we met

1204
00:54:35,706 --> 00:54:38,306
Speaker 3: with the commissioner on Monday afternoon, and it was it

1205
00:54:38,346 --> 00:54:40,506
Speaker 3: was four thirty at night, really four thirty in the

1206
00:54:40,506 --> 00:54:42,186
Speaker 3: afternoon before you let us get out of there with

1207
00:54:42,266 --> 00:54:43,866
Speaker 3: all right, if you're sure, this is the best you

1208
00:54:43,866 --> 00:54:45,546
Speaker 3: could do. And it was hard to look him in

1209
00:54:45,586 --> 00:54:49,066
Speaker 3: the eye and tell him this is the single best schedule, Commissioner,

1210
00:54:49,306 --> 00:54:51,226
Speaker 3: I would bet my life on it, because I wouldn't

1211
00:54:51,466 --> 00:54:53,746
Speaker 3: There is surely one out there. I just don't know

1212
00:54:53,786 --> 00:54:55,906
Speaker 3: if we would find it in another week or two

1213
00:54:55,946 --> 00:54:58,346
Speaker 3: weeks or a month. And at some point we do

1214
00:54:58,466 --> 00:55:00,386
Speaker 3: have to go. The teams need to make plans, They

1215
00:55:00,386 --> 00:55:03,186
Speaker 3: need to book their buildings, their chargers, their hotels. Fans

1216
00:55:03,226 --> 00:55:05,106
Speaker 3: want to buy tickets. I can't tell you how many

1217
00:55:05,146 --> 00:55:07,866
Speaker 3: people have asked after playing The Raiders, they want to

1218
00:55:07,866 --> 00:55:08,466
Speaker 3: get their flights.

1219
00:55:08,506 --> 00:55:10,266
Speaker 1: Now that's the game? Why is that? Why is it

1220
00:55:10,346 --> 00:55:12,186
Speaker 1: Jets at Risk Vegas thing for work?

1221
00:55:12,466 --> 00:55:14,746
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're gonna go to the road game, isn't.

1222
00:55:14,506 --> 00:55:17,786
Speaker 1: It probably fifty different people either text me or be

1223
00:55:17,906 --> 00:55:19,346
Speaker 1: I'm on the street and they know I work for

1224
00:55:19,386 --> 00:55:21,466
Speaker 1: the NFL in my neighborhood, and everyone is asking you

1225
00:55:21,466 --> 00:55:25,146
Speaker 1: about that game. When is Packers? When is Jets Raiders

1226
00:55:25,146 --> 00:55:26,306
Speaker 1: in Vegas? Fascinating?

1227
00:55:26,426 --> 00:55:28,906
Speaker 3: Fascinating? So we got to go at some point. I

1228
00:55:29,226 --> 00:55:32,426
Speaker 3: appreciate very much that everybody's you know, so eager and

1229
00:55:32,466 --> 00:55:35,386
Speaker 3: so interested. I can't believe how many you know, how

1230
00:55:35,466 --> 00:55:37,826
Speaker 3: much people care about it. I love talking about it.

1231
00:55:37,906 --> 00:55:40,546
Speaker 3: I love the pursuit of this, you know, impossible pursuit

1232
00:55:40,546 --> 00:55:43,066
Speaker 3: of perfection or whatever you call it. I don't know

1233
00:55:43,066 --> 00:55:45,146
Speaker 3: that we ever find the optimal schedule every year, but

1234
00:55:45,546 --> 00:55:48,306
Speaker 3: I do feel like this combination of Howard and Hans

1235
00:55:48,346 --> 00:55:51,866
Speaker 3: and Rogers Gut with Charlotte and Mike and Annie and

1236
00:55:51,906 --> 00:55:54,626
Speaker 3: Blake's math, and you put some predictive analytics behind it,

1237
00:55:54,626 --> 00:55:56,106
Speaker 3: and you get the ratings team and you get the

1238
00:55:56,106 --> 00:55:58,546
Speaker 3: football guys, and you get them all together, and you

1239
00:55:58,746 --> 00:56:01,946
Speaker 3: just start putting data into the black box. And at

1240
00:56:01,946 --> 00:56:04,626
Speaker 3: some point, here's one what do you think, Well, that's

1241
00:56:04,666 --> 00:56:06,586
Speaker 3: pretty good, hanging on the wall best so far. What

1242
00:56:06,586 --> 00:56:08,426
Speaker 3: would you fix about it? If you could? I'd love

1243
00:56:08,426 --> 00:56:10,186
Speaker 3: to get rid of that three game road trip. Run

1244
00:56:10,226 --> 00:56:12,906
Speaker 3: it again. Maximize getting rid of that three game road

1245
00:56:12,946 --> 00:56:15,026
Speaker 3: trip coming tomorrow. Here's one got rid of the three

1246
00:56:15,026 --> 00:56:17,066
Speaker 3: game road trip. What did we break? Well, we broke

1247
00:56:17,146 --> 00:56:19,226
Speaker 3: them in them instead. Is it worth it? Yes, boom,

1248
00:56:19,426 --> 00:56:23,386
Speaker 3: new leader worth that leader survives. If that leader survives

1249
00:56:23,946 --> 00:56:26,986
Speaker 3: a couple of days, a couple of really good contenders,

1250
00:56:27,226 --> 00:56:29,306
Speaker 3: you feel even better about it. And we literally spent

1251
00:56:29,346 --> 00:56:33,626
Speaker 3: the whole weekend throwing contenders at the leader and felt

1252
00:56:34,066 --> 00:56:36,186
Speaker 3: better and better about it. The more contenders, the more

1253
00:56:36,226 --> 00:56:38,906
Speaker 3: good contenders you threw at it. And because we had

1254
00:56:38,946 --> 00:56:43,146
Speaker 3: all this extra flexibility, now those contenders they looked very different.

1255
00:56:43,306 --> 00:56:46,066
Speaker 3: In the old days, these two finalists were very close.

1256
00:56:46,186 --> 00:56:48,826
Speaker 3: Such some changes on the margins. But now one two,

1257
00:56:48,986 --> 00:56:53,106
Speaker 3: three finalists down three different paths, wildly different. Different kickoff

1258
00:56:53,106 --> 00:56:57,466
Speaker 3: game in Kansas City, different Sunday night, different Thanksgiving, different Christmas. Really,

1259
00:56:57,586 --> 00:56:59,986
Speaker 3: those are the ten polls that we started off talking about.

1260
00:57:00,466 --> 00:57:04,146
Speaker 3: Each one of them led someplace different, all good. Pick

1261
00:57:04,186 --> 00:57:06,386
Speaker 3: a winner, vanilla or chocolate?

1262
00:57:06,426 --> 00:57:09,906
Speaker 1: It Yeah. Eighty degree weekend in New York City, the

1263
00:57:09,946 --> 00:57:12,426
Speaker 1: first nice weekend in months, and you guys are trapped

1264
00:57:12,466 --> 00:57:15,826
Speaker 1: in Park Avenue office just hammering out different schedules.

1265
00:57:15,826 --> 00:57:18,746
Speaker 3: I'd love it, thrilled to do it. They trust us,

1266
00:57:18,866 --> 00:57:23,346
Speaker 3: and hope everybody likes the effort, and honestly will take

1267
00:57:23,346 --> 00:57:25,706
Speaker 3: a day or two to catch our breath. But already

1268
00:57:25,706 --> 00:57:27,506
Speaker 3: starting to think about twenty twenty four. It's going to

1269
00:57:27,506 --> 00:57:30,346
Speaker 3: be a whole new model, all different challenges, a fewer

1270
00:57:30,426 --> 00:57:33,826
Speaker 3: number of saturdays in December that we can use. The

1271
00:57:33,866 --> 00:57:36,426
Speaker 3: college football playoffs have expanded, so there's going to be

1272
00:57:36,466 --> 00:57:41,026
Speaker 3: some additional considerations there where we playing in international games

1273
00:57:41,026 --> 00:57:46,506
Speaker 3: next year? Is Mexico back online? Already thinking about twenty four.

1274
00:57:47,746 --> 00:57:51,226
Speaker 1: Mike, You're awesome. I thank you. You know you know

1275
00:57:51,266 --> 00:57:54,026
Speaker 1: how much I love this shit and I really appreciate

1276
00:57:54,066 --> 00:57:57,346
Speaker 1: you and your team. And I always say it seems

1277
00:57:57,386 --> 00:57:59,506
Speaker 1: like it's a formality, the schedule, but it might be

1278
00:57:59,626 --> 00:58:03,626
Speaker 1: my favorite thing about the NFL offseason, the science and

1279
00:58:03,666 --> 00:58:05,266
Speaker 1: the art that goes into it, and the work that

1280
00:58:05,306 --> 00:58:07,266
Speaker 1: your fine team does. The appreciate it. I think I

1281
00:58:07,266 --> 00:58:09,266
Speaker 1: speak for all the fans. Thank you for the work

1282
00:58:09,306 --> 00:58:09,706
Speaker 1: you guys do.

1283
00:58:09,866 --> 00:58:12,546
Speaker 3: Absolute pleasure, Thanks for being interested, thanks for caring, Thanks

1284
00:58:12,586 --> 00:58:14,226
Speaker 3: for taking time out of your paternity to leave to

1285
00:58:14,266 --> 00:58:16,906
Speaker 3: talk to us. Get back to diaper duty. All right,

1286
00:58:16,946 --> 00:58:20,706
Speaker 3: my man, Yeah, I'm on it. Mike North, awesome stuff.

1287
00:58:21,346 --> 00:58:23,426
Speaker 3: VP of NFL Broadcast Planning. And by the time you

1288
00:58:23,466 --> 00:58:26,386
Speaker 3: guys listen to this, Mike schedule and his team schedule

1289
00:58:26,466 --> 00:58:28,106
Speaker 3: probably be out in the wild and we'll dissect it

1290
00:58:28,146 --> 00:58:29,706
Speaker 3: and maybe we'll have Mike on next week to go

1291
00:58:29,786 --> 00:58:31,106
Speaker 3: through the actual.

1292
00:58:30,746 --> 00:58:35,146
Speaker 1: Details of it. But until next week, this is the

1293
00:58:35,226 --> 00:58:37,746
Speaker 1: season with Peter Schrager and Mike North. Thank you so

1294
00:58:37,826 --> 00:58:49,346
Speaker 1: much for joining us. So that was Mike North, VP

1295
00:58:49,466 --> 00:58:53,386
Speaker 1: of NFL Broadcast Planning Again. Schedule comes out Thursday night.

1296
00:58:53,546 --> 00:58:56,906
Speaker 1: I know he says that there's such a rigorous anti

1297
00:58:56,986 --> 00:58:59,626
Speaker 1: leaking thing, but I usually by like one or two,

1298
00:58:59,666 --> 00:59:02,226
Speaker 1: a lot of the main games start leaking out. Eric,

1299
00:59:03,106 --> 00:59:05,666
Speaker 1: Is that just the geek in me that I eat

1300
00:59:05,746 --> 00:59:08,626
Speaker 1: that of? Or did you as a I would say

1301
00:59:08,626 --> 00:59:11,266
Speaker 1: not casual but sort of new to the in the

1302
00:59:11,306 --> 00:59:13,786
Speaker 1: weeds of this. Did you find that interest thing? Yeah?

1303
00:59:13,866 --> 00:59:16,706
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's there's so much of it that's

1304
00:59:16,786 --> 00:59:19,626
Speaker 2: hard to know. And like you were saying, like that

1305
00:59:19,626 --> 00:59:23,346
Speaker 2: that Rams Packers game, you know, like it looked so

1306
00:59:23,506 --> 00:59:25,746
Speaker 2: good and then who would have known Stafford was going

1307
00:59:25,826 --> 00:59:27,626
Speaker 2: to get hurt? Who would have known righters, we can

1308
00:59:27,666 --> 00:59:28,306
Speaker 2: get hurt, and so.

1309
00:59:28,626 --> 00:59:31,186
Speaker 1: I just I also know, like the executives of these

1310
00:59:31,226 --> 00:59:33,786
Speaker 1: media companies, and they're all so great, but they're also

1311
00:59:33,826 --> 00:59:37,306
Speaker 1: so gung ho their company. So like CBS thinks we

1312
00:59:37,306 --> 00:59:40,186
Speaker 1: should get the best games. NBC says Worstunday Night Football,

1313
00:59:40,186 --> 00:59:42,746
Speaker 1: the number one show for your Fox saying Fox Game

1314
00:59:42,786 --> 00:59:45,586
Speaker 1: of the Week is where everyone gravitates sort So it's

1315
00:59:45,586 --> 00:59:47,906
Speaker 1: like I can only imagine when to please all those

1316
00:59:47,906 --> 00:59:50,866
Speaker 1: different masters then also coming out with something that also

1317
00:59:50,946 --> 00:59:55,626
Speaker 1: satisfies the teams. You know, there's no advantage for say

1318
00:59:55,626 --> 00:59:57,226
Speaker 1: the Jets. I mean, it might be cool to be

1319
00:59:57,226 --> 00:59:58,946
Speaker 1: on Sunday Night Football a few times, but to play

1320
00:59:58,986 --> 01:00:01,586
Speaker 1: a primetime game every single week is not a great

1321
01:00:01,626 --> 01:00:04,266
Speaker 1: advantage for the Jets. That's a whole different body clock.

1322
01:00:04,346 --> 01:00:07,906
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I find it. It's it's probably

1323
01:00:07,946 --> 01:00:10,066
Speaker 1: a thankless job, and yet Mike and his team do

1324
01:00:10,106 --> 01:00:11,466
Speaker 1: it and they take such great pride in it.

1325
01:00:11,666 --> 01:00:14,586
Speaker 2: I was shocked as he was going through You asked like,

1326
01:00:14,666 --> 01:00:17,666
Speaker 2: what are the games? What's the game everyone wanted? And

1327
01:00:17,666 --> 01:00:19,386
Speaker 2: he was like, there's no one game, but here are

1328
01:00:19,426 --> 01:00:22,186
Speaker 2: the list of games people wanted. It was a huge list,

1329
01:00:22,266 --> 01:00:24,946
Speaker 2: there's so many good games, and I think.

1330
01:00:24,786 --> 01:00:27,746
Speaker 1: That AFC is so loaded. That's why, like you noticed,

1331
01:00:27,746 --> 01:00:31,706
Speaker 1: he didn't say ram Seahawks, which typically used to be

1332
01:00:31,906 --> 01:00:35,626
Speaker 1: a major game, or you know, Washington Dallas. Like the

1333
01:00:35,746 --> 01:00:38,666
Speaker 1: NFC is so so down the line when it comes to,

1334
01:00:38,946 --> 01:00:42,786
Speaker 1: you know, fan interest now, especially with Rogers coming into

1335
01:00:42,826 --> 01:00:45,306
Speaker 1: the AFC and I think Brady being out of the NFC,

1336
01:00:46,386 --> 01:00:48,586
Speaker 1: I'm interested to see it. By the time everyone listens

1337
01:00:48,626 --> 01:00:50,986
Speaker 1: to this, we might know some. But I'm gonna say,

1338
01:00:50,986 --> 01:00:53,626
Speaker 1: if we can get Mike on next week, that was fun.

1339
01:00:53,706 --> 01:00:55,346
Speaker 1: I'm going to the Nick game with Hackett. I think

1340
01:00:55,346 --> 01:00:59,066
Speaker 1: he's got that beard going. Let's see if he gets

1341
01:00:59,106 --> 01:01:02,906
Speaker 1: recognized or not. Aaron, good talking.

1342
01:01:02,666 --> 01:01:04,826
Speaker 2: About you too, man, See you next week. Have fun

1343
01:01:04,826 --> 01:01:05,386
Speaker 2: at MSG.

1344
01:01:06,506 --> 01:01:11,586
Speaker 1: Thank you on behalf of the very handsome, awesome, intelligent

1345
01:01:11,746 --> 01:01:17,266
Speaker 1: Aaron Wang Kaufman on behalf of the amazing, brilliant Jason

1346
01:01:17,346 --> 01:01:21,626
Speaker 1: English at iHeart Podcasts. On behalf of Meredith Batt and

1347
01:01:21,666 --> 01:01:25,106
Speaker 1: our fearless leader on the NFL side of NFL Media

1348
01:01:25,146 --> 01:01:29,826
Speaker 1: and the podcast division, and Matt Schneider and the great

1349
01:01:29,946 --> 01:01:34,546
Speaker 1: Jason Kleinman, who is fantastic and churns out these awesome

1350
01:01:34,546 --> 01:01:37,106
Speaker 1: clips that go on good morning football and keeps everyone

1351
01:01:37,146 --> 01:01:40,866
Speaker 1: aligned and on. Behalf of our music man, the great

1352
01:01:40,946 --> 01:01:43,506
Speaker 1: Jack Rudd, who is the man behind the funky beat

1353
01:01:43,546 --> 01:01:46,186
Speaker 1: you here. It is good to be back on the podcast.

1354
01:01:46,226 --> 01:01:49,066
Speaker 1: I know I was gone for a week, but we

1355
01:01:49,106 --> 01:02:00,946
Speaker 1: will be back soon. The Season with Peter Schrager is

1356
01:02:00,986 --> 01:02:04,626
Speaker 1: a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For

1357
01:02:04,706 --> 01:02:09,026
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1358
01:02:09,226 --> 01:02:10,986
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.