Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome everybody to a very
Speaker 1: special May edition of the Season with Peter Schrager. It's
Speaker 1: schedule release time, and I thought this was very pertinent
Speaker 1: and also very timely to do this today, which we
Speaker 1: are recording this on the Wednesday before the schedule is
Speaker 1: officially released on Thursday. And let me tell you it
Speaker 1: will be released on Thursday, but you'll start getting your
Speaker 1: leaks on Thursday morning. The reason is the schedule makers
Speaker 1: have come to their conclusion with the final schedule and
Speaker 1: they have started notifying the teams. So for today's guests,
Speaker 1: we're going to have on Mike North, who is part
Speaker 1: of the team that puts the schedule together. For years
Speaker 1: it was a gentleman named Howard Katz, and Howard still
Speaker 1: is very much involved. Howard deals with the broadcast teams
Speaker 1: and the executives at not only CBS and Fox, but
Speaker 1: now ESPN and also Amazon and of course the NFL
Speaker 1: network as well, and they figure out the best possible
Speaker 1: schedules that is going to satisfy as many parties as possible.
Speaker 1: That's their job. We're gonna have Mike on in a second.
Speaker 1: And now, as we record this, it's before the schedule
Speaker 1: has been released. You might be listening to the pod
Speaker 1: on your morning commute, even if it's after the schedule
Speaker 1: comes out. I think what you're gonna love is how
Speaker 1: the sausage is made. And that's kind of what I
Speaker 1: want to do with this podcast as I look at
Speaker 1: it from twenty thousand feet, what is going to separate
Speaker 1: this podcast from others? Well, it's here the decision makers.
Speaker 1: Here are the people that are telling you things that
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get anywhere else, And here's kind of
Speaker 1: getting ahead of things. I thought the the S two
Speaker 1: cognition test discourse was really interesting, and I'm joined, of
Speaker 1: course by my great producer Aaron wang Kaufman right now
Speaker 1: and Aerin. I feel like we had the dude from
Speaker 1: the S two cognition test well right before the huge
Speaker 1: controversy erupted with CJ. Stroud, and I felt like, that's
Speaker 1: what we want to do with this podcast, right, like
Speaker 1: first guest back from paternity to leave, let me get
Speaker 1: the guy who invented the S two cognition test. I
Speaker 1: think you might have rolled your eyes, but that ended
Speaker 1: up being a huge talking point in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three draft.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I loved it, and I mean I would
Speaker 2: never rule my eyes. I kind of love the I
Speaker 2: know the wonderlook is an imperfect part of the draft process,
Speaker 2: but I've always loved that that processing aspect of it,
Speaker 2: which I think is really interesting.
Speaker 1: Yes, So, I think Mike North is going to be
Speaker 1: a great guest, and we're gonna have him on in
Speaker 1: a second, real quick, some housekeeping items. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: this podcast throughout the off season. This is the dead
Speaker 1: time once the schedule comes out, and this is pretty
Speaker 1: dead besides franchise talk talk and maybe sae Quon Barkley.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna try to bring on some some good
Speaker 1: guests over the next few weeks. Some that are NFL related,
Speaker 1: some that are celebrities that are fans, some that are
Speaker 1: just interesting to me. This is the time to do it,
Speaker 1: and I think we're going to keep the momentum going
Speaker 1: with this podcast. One note, love my execs at the
Speaker 1: NFL network, love the way that we cover the game.
Speaker 1: I might have missed it. I thought there was a
Speaker 1: cool opportunity yesterday in the dead time of the NFL
Speaker 1: to give Joe Capp his love and who Joe Capp
Speaker 1: was and his impact on the sport. I didn't see
Speaker 1: it anywhere, and it might have been on NFN. Eric.
Speaker 1: I don't sit and watch it twenty four hours, but
Speaker 1: I didn't see much of it online. So I was
Speaker 1: walking down Henry Street in Brooklyn, where I live, and
Speaker 1: I filmed my first ever first person point of view
Speaker 1: video and just put it on Twitter. It was literally
Speaker 1: twenty seconds and I got a crazy response because I
Speaker 1: just felt like there was an opportunity to shed some
Speaker 1: light on who Joe Capp was. In short, Joe Capp
Speaker 1: is the only man in history of the sport to
Speaker 1: lead a team to the Rose Bowl. He led Cal
Speaker 1: to the Rose Bowl, to the Gray Cup, did that
Speaker 1: for the BC Lions, and then a Super Bowl, did
Speaker 1: it for the Vikings. I put this video out and
Speaker 1: I said he was also the coach of Cal for
Speaker 1: many years, he was the coach of the famous on
Speaker 1: the field game against Stanford. He was the coach of Cal.
Speaker 1: And then in his last game ever, which was nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, Joe Capp was the coach of Cal. His
Speaker 1: last game, they were down twenty one points against Stanford
Speaker 1: and they came all the way back and won and
Speaker 1: it's considered one of the greatest wins in cal football history.
Speaker 1: So I did this little video. I'm walking by Fascotti
Speaker 1: Pizza and the Ramen Place and I'm just filming it.
Speaker 1: My son's barking in the background. He's with me walking.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, here's just rest in peace. Joe Cap.
Speaker 1: Here's who he was, eighty five years old, passed away.
Speaker 1: The responses were crazy, and then I get a text
Speaker 1: from Ron Rivera this morning, who I don't know. If
Speaker 1: he's on Twitter, I don't know what he's Somehow the
Speaker 1: video made his way to him and he was like,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing that, and he's like, and I
Speaker 1: have a great Joe cap story for you. I played
Speaker 1: for the man and I'm like, damn. So we were
Speaker 1: texting a little bit and I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: little niche there, There's a little something there. So maybe
Speaker 1: we'll get that stuff going on in the podcast too,
Speaker 1: where you know, a little bit look back at history,
Speaker 1: some of the people who made the game what it is,
Speaker 1: some of the decision makers that are doing things in
Speaker 1: the league. But right now we're looking at NBA playoff talk,
Speaker 1: we're looking at a writer's strike in Hollywood, we're looking
Speaker 1: at succession on the final few weeks of that show,
Speaker 1: and we're looking at the summertime. And the summertime is
Speaker 1: where everyone takes their foot off the pedal. With the NFL,
Speaker 1: I usually say it's twenty four to seven. No, I'd
Speaker 1: be lying after the schedule comes out. This is where
Speaker 1: everyone takes a little bit of a breath. There's another
Speaker 1: league meeting next week where we'll get word on whether
Speaker 1: Amazon has the capabilities to flex on Thursday Night football.
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be a big decision. We'll find
Speaker 1: that out next week. Most likely it was tabled from March,
Speaker 1: so I would think that's then maybe we get some
Speaker 1: commander's news at that meeting, maybe not on who's gonna
Speaker 1: be the owner of that team if there is in
Speaker 1: fact going to be a sale. And then there's just
Speaker 1: like franchise tag talk, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that talk was kind of there's a pin put in
Speaker 1: it with Lamar obviously, and then it's kind of just
Speaker 1: Saquon as the last like big big that we're going
Speaker 1: to be tracking in New York that's going to be
Speaker 1: a topic tonight. I am going to the Knicks game
Speaker 1: and I'm going with an NFL related guest. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I can share it yet. Maybe I'll share
Speaker 1: it at the next podcast. But it's a new face
Speaker 1: in town, NFL related who has never been to Madison
Speaker 1: Square Garden. And we were texting and I got offered
Speaker 1: two tickets from a very generous friend who could not go.
Speaker 1: And very rarely do I get two tickets to a
Speaker 1: Knicks playoff game. The seats are not crazy. Will not
Speaker 1: see me courtside. I will not be on the Douglas
Speaker 1: Element celebrity row jumbo tron. These are seats that are
Speaker 1: up in the rafters, maybe tier below that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But I am taking someone involved in the NFL who
Speaker 1: I think is going to play a big part of
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three season. Aaron, if you were to
Speaker 1: take a guess, new to the market, big impact act
Speaker 1: on the twenty twenty three season and has never been
Speaker 1: to Madison Square Garden, that is like a weird twenty
Speaker 1: one questions, But take a guess.
Speaker 2: I mean my first thought was Rogers until you said
Speaker 2: never been Damas g because we know Rogers has already
Speaker 2: been I kind of think it's Hacket, but you're.
Speaker 1: You're right, you got it. I'm taking Hacket in that
Speaker 1: and that hideous beer to his I'm taking Hackett as
Speaker 1: my guest. Now, look, we're recording this right now. At
Speaker 1: four o'clock, I'm gonna get on the subway. I'm going
Speaker 1: to take either the two three from Clark Street or
Speaker 1: the A train from High Street, which both go right
Speaker 1: to the Garden. He's taking a New Jersey Transit train.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Look, I don't know if people are
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, swarming him or not. I
Speaker 1: was like, maybe you drive in. I don't know. And
Speaker 1: we're meeting at Penn Station and then going to the game,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're gonna talk. He's never been to the Garden,
Speaker 1: So hopefully I get some information, uh that I can
Speaker 1: share on the podcast, but more than anything, just want
Speaker 1: the experience and hopefully the NIXT win. Have you been
Speaker 1: following Knicks at all or you don't? Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, all right? Good?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I am shocked with the heat in general,
Speaker 2: like this has been. There's these there have been a
Speaker 2: lot of really good games. I watched that Nick. The
Speaker 2: last Knicks heat game I was watching, I was there
Speaker 2: were moments I was like, the heat is so much better.
Speaker 2: They don't know why.
Speaker 1: They don't miss threes. And then the Knicks are supposed
Speaker 1: to be so big with with d with Randall and
Speaker 1: Robinson and the big guy I'm going black isaaia have?
Speaker 1: Why am I going b like fifty five whatever? Big
Speaker 1: white dude who can rebound and played with Jok in
Speaker 1: Denver for a year. I forget his name, harten Steinstein.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's good, and I'm like, all right, they should
Speaker 1: at least dominate the boards. And then they're getting out
Speaker 1: rebounded by a Miami team, and like this Miami team
Speaker 1: is like, you know Kevin Love, I'm like, oh, Kevin
Speaker 1: Love is still in the NBA. Oh Kyle Lowry, Oh
Speaker 1: Kyle Lowry is still in the NBA. And I don't
Speaker 1: even know. I followed the NBA so closely and then
Speaker 1: I really pick up during the offseason. But like, I
Speaker 1: didn't know Vincent number two, I didn't know Caleb Martin
Speaker 1: number sixteen. These guys are good and they're crushing the Knicks,
Speaker 1: so we'll see tonight. I feel like the Garden might
Speaker 1: not have the same juice as it did Game two,
Speaker 1: which I was at and it was tied at one,
Speaker 1: and it was like, let's tie it up and let's
Speaker 1: get this thing going. I feel like the wind might
Speaker 1: be out of the sales of this next team. But
Speaker 1: we'll see. Hacket's going to be in attendance, so you'll
Speaker 1: hear this tomorrow morning. And I assure you we will
Speaker 1: not be on the JumboTron. The seats are not good enough.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to get Mike North on here?
Speaker 1: Should we do it? Let's work all right. Mike North
Speaker 1: is in charge of the NFL schedule. He works with
Speaker 1: a great team offhand, Charlotte Carey, Annie Bo's and the
Speaker 1: wonderful Blake Jones. Those are his teammates, and Howard Katz
Speaker 1: is kind of the godfather of it all. And they've
Speaker 1: been working on this schedule that is going to be
Speaker 1: released on Thursday. They've been working on it for months.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you if I'd be lying if Mike
Speaker 1: and I didn't have a few conversations in March about
Speaker 1: what Rogers's latest status was. But it is all settled,
Speaker 1: and Lamar is all settled, and the schedule makers can
Speaker 1: send a nice thank you note to Green Bay, to
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and to Baltimore for getting those things done
Speaker 1: before the schedule comes out. Mike North after this, with
Speaker 1: no further ado. In the monologue, I explained how much
Speaker 1: I love talking to this guy, and I'm such a
Speaker 1: geek for the schedule making process, but it's him and
Speaker 1: it really takes a village, and he's going to get
Speaker 1: into all the different parties that have been involved. But
Speaker 1: as we are recording this, it is four o'clock Eastern
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. The schedule is being announced on Thursday. So
Speaker 1: for your morning commute, for your morning workout, let's just
Speaker 1: get into it with the vice president of NFL Broadcast Planning,
Speaker 1: the great Mike North. Mike, what is up, my friend?
Speaker 3: Peter? How are you? My friend?
Speaker 1: I am amazing, and I want to start off with
Speaker 1: the way we're trickleing the news out this year. I
Speaker 1: feel like last year we started doing it with the
Speaker 1: International Games. But today, which is Wednesday, we not only
Speaker 1: got the International slate, which looks really good and robust,
Speaker 1: we also got a Black Friday game, we got a
Speaker 1: Christmas Day game, we got a New Year's Eve game.
Speaker 1: What's the strategy and kind of making this from schedule
Speaker 1: release day to now schedule release days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit of a breadcrumb approach, if you will.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm old enough to remember that. You know,
Speaker 3: when we used to build the schedule, we literally built
Speaker 3: it sequentially by hand. So we would start, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of middle of February with week one, and then
Speaker 3: we'd build week two and three, and at some point
Speaker 3: you would finish the schedule and if you didn't like it,
Speaker 3: you could go so far back up, but you could
Speaker 3: never go all the way back to the beginning. It
Speaker 3: took us ten weeks to get here. If we were
Speaker 3: going to start over, it would have been another ten
Speaker 3: weeks schedule to come out in July. That's not an option.
Speaker 3: So I'm old enough to remember that we were building
Speaker 3: it sequentially, and you'd get it done and it would
Speaker 3: be somewhere around the middle of April. You would show
Speaker 3: it to the boss and we would just put it
Speaker 3: out the next day. And there was no you know,
Speaker 3: ramp up, no runway, no marketing, no excitement. It just
Speaker 3: was almost kind of stealth. It was almost kind of
Speaker 3: ninja that the schedule just suddenly was here, and that
Speaker 3: wasn't really fair to our fans, it wasn't fair to
Speaker 3: our teams, it wasn't fair to the ticketing partners. So
Speaker 3: a few years ago, Peter O'Reilly from our events group
Speaker 3: and Hans Schroeder, who runs a broadcasting group, kind of
Speaker 3: got together and said, you know, sneaking the schedule out
Speaker 3: a week or two before the draft doesn't seem right.
Speaker 3: Doesn't seem fair. If nothing else, it's not fair to
Speaker 3: the kids who we've been talking about as draft prospects
Speaker 3: for a month. Let's let them have their moment. Let's
Speaker 3: let them have the month of a month of April,
Speaker 3: and then once the draft is over, gives us just
Speaker 3: an extra couple of weeks just to see if anything
Speaker 3: surprising happened during the draft, and then we could put
Speaker 3: the schedule out kind of middle of May. It's a
Speaker 3: little later than maybe some of our teams would prefer.
Speaker 3: They do have a lot of work to do starting
Speaker 3: tomorrow night, relative to charter flights and hotels and planning
Speaker 3: and meeting spaces and stuff like that. But as a
Speaker 3: member of the scheduling team, I like the extra couple
Speaker 3: of weeks. I like being able to search through this
Speaker 3: infinite space just a little bit longer and hopefully come
Speaker 3: up with a winner, and once we have one, Yeah,
Speaker 3: instead of just dumping in on everybody all at once,
Speaker 3: here's all two hundred and seventy two react.
Speaker 2: Go.
Speaker 3: You know, here's a little bit of a breadcom approach,
Speaker 3: a little bit of a trickle, a little couple of
Speaker 3: sexy drips, and yeah, we'll do a few more tomorrow
Speaker 3: as well. And yeah, I hope everybody gets excited and
Speaker 3: it just makes them even more interested in what's coming
Speaker 3: when the whole thing comes out on Thursday night.
Speaker 1: Well it's a smart play also because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not in on Good Morning Football right now. I'm still
Speaker 1: on the paternity leave. But I saw Taylor Rooks from
Speaker 1: Amazon was on Good Morning Football discussing the Black Friday game.
Speaker 1: I saw that Good Morning America is going to play
Speaker 1: a role. Today's show is going to play a role,
Speaker 1: Fox and Friends are going to play a role. This
Speaker 1: is really leveraging the broadcast partners to make the most
Speaker 1: out of these prime time and premiere matchups. And I
Speaker 1: feel like this, you said, Hans and Peter, but I
Speaker 1: feel like your group also, you guys roast to the
Speaker 1: occasion here. And I know we always talk about the
Speaker 1: NFL network being twenty four to seven football, but this
Speaker 1: really could be a formality. It could just be let's
Speaker 1: put it out, but we have created a tent pole
Speaker 1: event that roll your eyes. Gosh. Everywhere I walk on
Speaker 1: the street in New York, people are asking me, you know,
Speaker 1: when's the Jets game in Vegas? Do you know? It's
Speaker 1: a real thing people want to know. And it becomes
Speaker 1: almost like the NCAA tournament releasing you know, their brackets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly what it is, and you see them
Speaker 3: when they do the March Madness brackets. Everybody's doing it
Speaker 3: in real time. You know, nobody has it before then,
Speaker 3: which is fun, it's interesting, but you don't really get
Speaker 3: to kind of focus in on oh that's a big one.
Speaker 3: That's when we really need to talk about or hey,
Speaker 3: let's get a former player in here to talk about
Speaker 3: this one. And the commissioner said to us the other day, Hey,
Speaker 3: maybe we should have a fan announce one of these
Speaker 3: games next year. So all kinds of different ways that
Speaker 3: people can get excited. Everybody's got their favorite game that
Speaker 3: they're looking forward to. I know we're not supposed to
Speaker 3: read the internet comments, but I read them, and I
Speaker 3: get that. Some people are like, hey, we knew the games,
Speaker 3: we knew who was home and away. All you're doing
Speaker 3: is putting them in order. That's true to certain extent.
Speaker 3: We knew the Jets were going to Vegas at some point.
Speaker 3: We knew Kansas City was coming to New York. But
Speaker 3: you know when it happens, and which television partner it
Speaker 3: lands on, and where in the season, and who's you know,
Speaker 3: home the week before and who's the week after, and
Speaker 3: who's Thanksgiving and Christmas in London, And there's a lot
Speaker 3: that went into it, and it's it's fun to kind
Speaker 3: of let each of these kind of tent pole games
Speaker 3: have their own little moment and let fans start getting
Speaker 3: excited before we dumped the whole thing on them tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: I have so many questions, and we're going to get
Speaker 1: to them. I feel like, let me, let's let's start
Speaker 1: off with the thing that you mentioned about the sequential
Speaker 1: building of a schedule for years by hand, and then
Speaker 1: by the time you get to week eleven to go
Speaker 1: back and change week one is so difficult. What is
Speaker 1: this strategy? Now? Do you look at those tent pole games,
Speaker 1: first plug them in and then kind of coloring the
Speaker 1: dots or is it we just pump in a bunch
Speaker 1: of different permutations, but we know that Hey, Thanksgiving, we
Speaker 1: want to have a couple of big teams, like, how's
Speaker 1: it work now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way it works now? And all credit to
Speaker 3: our software to developers Optimal Planning Solutions out of Western Canada.
Speaker 3: Our hardware partner is AWS, our optimization partner GEROVI Optimization, Like,
Speaker 3: we could not do this without our really really skilled, competent,
Speaker 3: qualified partners. When we were building it by hand, we
Speaker 3: were literally doing it manually, one game at a time,
Speaker 3: one week at a time, and no human can understand
Speaker 3: if you do this in week three, what hell you
Speaker 3: hath wrought in week sixteen? And so what we realized
Speaker 3: was it's not a top down process. It's really an
Speaker 3: inside out process. What we need to put on first
Speaker 3: are the key games to your point, the ten polls,
Speaker 3: whether it's the Sunday night games, the Thursday night games,
Speaker 3: the big doubleheader games on Sunday afternoon. There's rules and
Speaker 3: restrictions and how many of each, and we don't want
Speaker 3: the same team too many weeks in a row, and
Speaker 3: you know this team's up and coming. We should get
Speaker 3: them in, but maybe not too late in the season.
Speaker 3: Maybe put that one earlier in the season. This is
Speaker 3: a big game, though, that one seems like we could
Speaker 3: save it for later in the season. So you kind
Speaker 3: of build a shell what we call as a seed
Speaker 3: schedule and call it sixty seven. The tent Pole Games said,
Speaker 3: it's a lot of games, the national television games, And
Speaker 3: we spend months just grinding on that shell, just grinding
Speaker 3: on that seed schedule, before you even worry about how
Speaker 3: could we even finish this seed? Is this seed right?
Speaker 3: Is this seed gonna grow? Is this seed gonna make
Speaker 3: a nice tree? So we build lots and lots and
Speaker 3: lots of seed schedules, and the whole team all day,
Speaker 3: every day. Howard Katz, Hans Schroeder, Annie bos Blake Jones,
Speaker 3: Charlotte Carey, Lucy Popko. It is twenty four to seven
Speaker 3: for fourteen weeks, and it's looking at these seed schedules.
Speaker 3: Would this, if it were to birth a tree, be
Speaker 3: a good seed to build off of? And if not,
Speaker 3: why not, well, maybe that's one too many primetime game
Speaker 3: for these guys. Or if we're gonna do them. Maybe
Speaker 3: we shouldn't save them all for December. How about a
Speaker 3: couple early or spread them out a little better. You
Speaker 3: know the big teams, you know, the big brands, the Dallases,
Speaker 3: the Kansas City's, the Jets. Now with Rogers Philadelphia coming
Speaker 3: off a Super Bowl run, those guys are gonna be
Speaker 3: all over your national television schedule. But it shouldn't as
Speaker 3: necessarily be the first ten weeks or the last ten weeks.
Speaker 3: So can you spread out those key ten polls? And
Speaker 3: once you've got a seed schedule that you like, can
Speaker 3: you solve around it? And when you do solve around it,
Speaker 3: there's only so many options. At that point you've put
Speaker 3: seventy of the two hundred and seventy two games on
Speaker 3: the board. There may not even be a way to
Speaker 3: put the other two hundred on it. So solve around
Speaker 3: this seed, and then solve around this seed, and solve
Speaker 3: around this seed, and we make in any given night,
Speaker 3: probably between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand seeds. Try
Speaker 3: to solve them all. Come in the morning, all right,
Speaker 3: what's good about it? What's bad about it? What would
Speaker 3: we change? What would we keep? What would we never
Speaker 3: want to see again what should we prohibit? And then
Speaker 3: if something changes, you know, the Raiders get a new quarterback,
Speaker 3: the Saints get a new quarterback, the Ravens sign a
Speaker 3: new wide receiver. The raven signed the quarterback that we
Speaker 3: weren't sure they were going to sign, Aaron Rodgers gets traded.
Speaker 3: That changes the definition of what these good seed schedules
Speaker 3: are going to look like. So fifty thousand more seeds now,
Speaker 3: with the new information that we have, try to solve
Speaker 3: each of those. And as the seed schedule wolves finish
Speaker 3: up in the finished schedules, and you try to analyze
Speaker 3: each of those what's good, what's bad, who's happy, who's mad,
Speaker 3: and try to make sure that you kind of maximize
Speaker 3: everybody who's happy and hopefully minimize everybody who's not.
Speaker 1: Okay. So you and I have been friendly for about
Speaker 1: a decade. In the last few years, I've really got
Speaker 1: because you know, I geek out on this more than
Speaker 1: anyone in the media. I love it, and I love
Speaker 1: all the science behind it. I also love the human
Speaker 1: relationship with it. So you're meeting with the broadcast partners
Speaker 1: at some point and they're giving you a wish list
Speaker 1: or is it a summit meeting where all the broadcast
Speaker 1: partners are in a room and it's a discussion, how
Speaker 1: do we know what Fox wants, what CBS wants, what
Speaker 1: NBC wants, what ESPN wants, and now what Amazon wants,
Speaker 1: and how do you stack that against? Okay, we also
Speaker 1: have to satisfy this team camping on the road three
Speaker 1: times in a row, or this team is coming off
Speaker 1: International week one of those meetings, and I guess how
Speaker 1: do you juggle all that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Look, it's you know, now that you're a father of
Speaker 3: more than one child, you know, you know you're not
Speaker 3: suppose to have favorite children. They're all tied for first.
Speaker 3: Same with our network partners. We love them all equally.
Speaker 3: We love all thirty two teams equally. But this is
Speaker 3: a zero sum game, right. Anything that's good for the
Speaker 3: Texans is by definition bad for the Jaguars. Anything that's
Speaker 3: good for CBS is probably bad for Fox. So you're
Speaker 3: trying to kind of thread that needle and strike that
Speaker 3: right balance so that, like we said, everybody gets something,
Speaker 3: nobody gets everything. Nobody, no team, no network partner should
Speaker 3: be way too happy on release day or way too disappointed.
Speaker 3: That's not our best schedule, so trying to find out where,
Speaker 3: you know, everybody's just a little disappointed hopefully, and yeah,
Speaker 3: kind of equally so, so we meet with all the
Speaker 3: network partners.
Speaker 1: Kind of the league meetings. Yeah, we should do it.
Speaker 3: During Super Bowl week either here in New York before
Speaker 3: we all travel. It's obviously.
Speaker 1: So just give me an example. It's like Eric Shanks
Speaker 1: and Sean McManus and like who, Yeah, it's Top Networks.
Speaker 3: And Eric Shanks and his programming team, Mike mobi Hill,
Speaker 3: Bill Wanger, Jacob Bowman from the production side, Mark Silverman,
Speaker 3: Jordan Bizan, all the key executives from Fox. We get
Speaker 3: them all in a room or on a zoom and
Speaker 3: we bring our whole team Brian rolap Pon Schroeder, Howard Katz,
Speaker 3: Annie Bo's, Blake Jones, Charlotte Carey, Lucy Popko. We're all
Speaker 3: there together and all right, what are we shooting for here, fellas?
Speaker 3: What's the target? What do you think? Here's what we're thinking.
Speaker 3: And we all just kind of brainstorm a little bit
Speaker 3: and kind of highball it and talk about Look, if
Speaker 3: you're Fox, you know you're still the home of the NFC.
Speaker 3: Even though the road team no longer, you're still predominantly
Speaker 3: the home of the NFC, and as such, if you're Fox,
Speaker 3: I'm sure if you could wave a magic wand you'll
Speaker 3: take a Dallas Cowboys game in the four to twenty
Speaker 3: five Eastern time window every week of the year. That's
Speaker 3: what our fans have told us they are most interested
Speaker 3: in watching. So there's a balancing act. Obviously. If everybody
Speaker 3: walks in with a wish list, here's our top ten games,
Speaker 3: and these are the games we want, every partner's wish
Speaker 3: list is going to look pretty similar, right, everybody wants
Speaker 3: Philly Dallas. Everybody wants Casey Jets, everybody wants Dallas San Fran.
Speaker 3: Everybody wants Buffalo Philly or sam Fran Philly, or Sincy
Speaker 3: Buffalo or sinckc. So everybody's wish list looks pretty similar.
Speaker 3: What we talked to them about is what's really important
Speaker 3: to you. And when you talk to a partner and
Speaker 3: they say, hey, look, here's our list, but really, even
Speaker 3: though it's not in our top five, that game right
Speaker 3: down there at number eight, that's really important to us.
Speaker 3: For instance, if CBS were to say, you know, look,
Speaker 3: I know it may not be the game that projects
Speaker 3: to do the highest viewership of the whole season. But
Speaker 3: those two teams, there are teams, and we announced one
Speaker 3: today since Kansas City they're going to play in week seventeen.
Speaker 1: I feel like that should be on CBS, that should
Speaker 1: saw it.
Speaker 3: But as you can imagine, NBC and ESPN and Amazon
Speaker 3: and everybody else will say, hey, can't we get a
Speaker 3: bite to the Cincy Casey. So it's a balancing act.
Speaker 3: If CBS gets SINCKC, then maybe somebody else should get
Speaker 3: KC jets. And if somebody got KC jets, then somebody
Speaker 3: else should getjets.
Speaker 1: Out Buffalo or Buffalo CAC.
Speaker 3: So rather than lock those in one and say you
Speaker 3: get this, you get this, you get this, go, we
Speaker 3: say from this pool of top three, top five, top eight,
Speaker 3: top fifteen, everybody should get their fair shake. Everybody should
Speaker 3: get their fair bites to those apples. And then you
Speaker 3: let the computer kind of spin around on those seed
Speaker 3: schedules and then inside out, here's a skeleton solve around it.
Speaker 3: Finish schedule? Is this our best one?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Let's see read it team by team, network by network.
Speaker 3: What could we improve? What should we never see again?
Speaker 3: What do we like and maybe we should kind of
Speaker 3: lock in and go down that rabbit hole. And that
Speaker 3: process is all day, every day, over and over and
Speaker 3: over again. We meet with the networks right around Super Bowl,
Speaker 3: the teams all get to submit their wish lists, and
Speaker 3: then frankly, we kind of close and lock the door.
Speaker 3: At that point, that's enough input, that's enough interaction, that's
Speaker 3: enough feedback and opinions. We got to get to work
Speaker 3: and we start grinding through the space.
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's funny because we released the schedule
Speaker 1: in May and we dissect it ten I remember last
Speaker 1: year I went back in my notes and I was like,
Speaker 1: Rams Packers Night Football. I think it was Week sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's the game of the year. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's get fifteenth, that's the game of the year. Ended up, obviously,
Speaker 1: Stafford gets hurt, Cup gets hurt, the Packers are listless,
Speaker 1: but they beat the Rams and what was a forgettable game.
Speaker 1: But we get so worked up about those late season
Speaker 1: games now that we might not realize that that game
Speaker 1: might not even be that significant when it matters. And
Speaker 1: I remember it was Buccaneers Patriots, and I think, when'd
Speaker 1: you guys put those Tom Brady. Going back to five,
Speaker 1: we put a week three, I want to say, week four,
Speaker 1: week four, and I remember talking to you about it,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you know what, God forbid? What if
Speaker 1: Brady gets hurt? We got to get him on the field.
Speaker 1: So like, I'll, I love all the conversations you're having,
Speaker 1: and it might not be easy for the naked eye
Speaker 1: when you look at it to determine what game is
Speaker 1: going to matter later the season. That's why some of
Speaker 1: these games are put early in the season, because we
Speaker 1: know going in, here's where the fan interest is, and
Speaker 1: here are two powerful teams popularity wise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll give you a great example of Philly KC
Speaker 3: Right Super Bowl rematch.
Speaker 1: What do you do with this?
Speaker 3: We saw those two teams, they were playing an all
Speaker 3: time great Super Bowl, and I think we all would
Speaker 3: have felled as fans, man, let's just keep going, Let's
Speaker 3: play another quarter. And we thought long and hard, quite honestly,
Speaker 3: about using that game as the kickoff game. It was
Speaker 3: the last game of last year, first game of this year.
Speaker 3: Let's pick up right where we left off. But you
Speaker 3: could also see how Philly Kansas City might be one
Speaker 3: of those games you could save until December. You got
Speaker 3: to figure both of them are in the mix. And
Speaker 3: if you could put that in a national window in December,
Speaker 3: with maybe a couple of one seeds on the line,
Speaker 3: what a great use of that asset. Maybe you kind
Speaker 3: of put it right in the middle, then split the difference,
Speaker 3: not too early, but not too late that everybody forgets
Speaker 3: it as a Super Bowl rematch, and not too late
Speaker 3: where maybe one or both have clinched or eliminated, or
Speaker 3: somebody's hurt. But not too early because we want to
Speaker 3: make sure they re establish themselves as conference superpowers. So
Speaker 3: every one of those games, that same conversation, two hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy two times, what's the best use of this
Speaker 3: game for our fans? Where would they most like to
Speaker 3: see this game? And like we said, we've announced in
Speaker 3: CKC in week seventeen. Some of us were a little hesitant,
Speaker 3: a little worried that maybe you waited too long to
Speaker 3: put that game on the schedule, one of us at least,
Speaker 3: And we'll go back and check our notes at the end.
Speaker 3: You know, I love it there, I really do. I
Speaker 3: can't wait to see me too.
Speaker 1: I also think New Year's Eve, everyone's time right apart.
Speaker 3: That's great, let's go. I love that one there, but
Speaker 3: there's others, like you said that maybe belong a little earlier.
Speaker 1: You know, you can tell me what can you tell
Speaker 1: me what the number one game was? Or is that
Speaker 1: violating some trust the game that the that like all
Speaker 1: five networks came together. We're like, if we can get
Speaker 1: any game, it's this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The truth is this year, of all years, I'm
Speaker 3: not sure there was a consensus number one. Okay, that
Speaker 3: was both good and bad for the scheduling team. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of juicy apples on the search tree this year,
Speaker 3: so certainly Cincinnati, Kansas City's got to be near the
Speaker 3: top of the list. The Super Bowl rematch, Philly, Kansas
Speaker 3: City's up there. Obviously, once Rogers went to the Jets,
Speaker 3: that casey Jets game became a monster because we never
Speaker 3: got Rogers mahomes last year. So hopefully we're going to
Speaker 3: get Rogers mahomes this year. And a good example of hey,
Speaker 3: should you wait too long to use that one? Since
Speaker 3: we waited one week too long to use it last year.
Speaker 3: Jets Dallas, both Dallas, Phillies, both Jets, Bills San fran
Speaker 3: Philly Dallas Buffalo. Man, there were so many really really
Speaker 3: good games and some that just sound like really good
Speaker 3: football games that maybe aren't necessarily going to crack that
Speaker 3: top ten list. One of the ones I like more
Speaker 3: than any Maybe not more than but one of the
Speaker 3: ones I like a lot is Bill's Chargers.
Speaker 1: I just love that game. I know, justin Herbert.
Speaker 3: Maybe on Sunday night football that doesn't do the twenty
Speaker 3: five or twenty eight million that another game might do.
Speaker 3: But it felt wasteful not to put that game in
Speaker 3: a good way.
Speaker 1: Where is that Buffalo or La.
Speaker 3: It's in La.
Speaker 1: That's cool. That's cool.
Speaker 3: And it was a lot I'm not sure there was
Speaker 3: a astis number one, and that made our jobs, you know,
Speaker 3: both easier and tougher to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love an analogy or a statement that you
Speaker 1: made years ago to me. You said, it's both a
Speaker 1: science and an art Can you explain the schedule making process,
Speaker 1: the scientific part of it and then the artistic part Again.
Speaker 3: I'm lucky enough to go all the way back, really
Speaker 3: to the beginning, to the godfather of NFL scheduling with Pinchbeck.
Speaker 3: We used to sit in that room with a peg board,
Speaker 3: and we would hang these games up one at a time,
Speaker 3: and literally every decision was made from one older gentleman's gut.
Speaker 3: Val thought that this sounded like a good game, or
Speaker 3: this was a good time to start this division series,
Speaker 3: or that team will like playing in you know, this
Speaker 3: window on this week, And so much of the schedule
Speaker 3: came out of, you know, one man's gut. And there's
Speaker 3: always going to be some of that, the transition from
Speaker 3: Val to Dennis Lewin to Glennadamo to Howard Katz for
Speaker 3: these last fifteen years, I don't think we ever want
Speaker 3: to take away, you know, the gut feel of these
Speaker 3: industry legends. I mean, Howard Katz ran ABC, forever, ran
Speaker 3: NFL film. Right. If there's one guy who's gut we
Speaker 3: could trust, I think it's Howard's. That being said, I
Speaker 3: think we can help them a little bit with some
Speaker 3: of the analytics, some of the predictive stuff, some of
Speaker 3: the data, some of the math and science. Where Okay,
Speaker 3: I get that you think that's a big game and
Speaker 3: maybe it feels right in week three or week four,
Speaker 3: but you know what, mathematically speaking, it might actually help
Speaker 3: the schedule if we put it in week six. Or
Speaker 3: week seven. So before we lock it in, why don't
Speaker 3: we just give it a little range and let the
Speaker 3: computers help us decide. Okay, big asset, deploy it here,
Speaker 3: but also be willing to deploy it here, here or here.
Speaker 3: And like we were saying before, if you put Cincinnati
Speaker 3: Kansas City on CBS, then you should probably put Buffalo
Speaker 3: Cincinnati somewhere else. And if you put Buffalo Sinci here,
Speaker 3: you should put Cincy Sandfran somewhere else. And if you
Speaker 3: put Cincy sandfri In here, you should put sand f
Speaker 3: in Philly somewhere else. You can use the data, you
Speaker 3: can use the predictive analytics to really kind of figure
Speaker 3: out the right way to deploy each of those assets
Speaker 3: so that all of our television partners, all of our fans,
Speaker 3: all of our teams feel like they were treated fairly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there a team this year? And we're going
Speaker 1: to get the schedule within twelve hours so it might
Speaker 1: be moot asking now, but Sarah a team this year
Speaker 1: that you guys were hot on. I remember last year
Speaker 1: Denver had a bunch of primetime games early it didn't
Speaker 1: work out, and you know whatever, it's even them becoming
Speaker 1: a question mark team almost came more intriguing because it's like,
Speaker 1: what's going on with this squad? But remember there was
Speaker 1: an Amazon game against the Colts. It was obviously the
Speaker 1: Monday night opener. There's a lot of Broncos early on.
Speaker 1: Is there a team this year? I know the Jets
Speaker 1: are the obvious answer. Is there another one that you
Speaker 1: guys are like, hey, and I would think Detroit.
Speaker 3: I would imagine, yeah, Detroit's a good one. Detroit's a
Speaker 3: good sort of you know, the last time we saw them,
Speaker 3: they were well, winning eight of nine, and they went
Speaker 3: into Lambeau and ruined the Packers season. I would think
Speaker 3: we're going to see more Detroit on national television. You're right,
Speaker 3: the Jets are the obvious answer. You know, I'm not
Speaker 3: sure there's anybody that we could point to and say
Speaker 3: that's the one team that we're betting on more than
Speaker 3: any other. I'll give you one. I'll give you one
Speaker 3: because it's maybe not necessarily indicative of their record from
Speaker 3: last year. I'll go with the Chicago Bears. I think
Speaker 3: that interesting. The fact that they were a three win
Speaker 3: team last year generally means you're heading for a lot
Speaker 3: of Sunday noons starts, but in that division now maybe
Speaker 3: a little more wide open than in the past. They
Speaker 3: got a haul from the raft pick trade and what
Speaker 3: do any of us know, but we keep hearing Justin
Speaker 3: Fields looks better than ever and he was nothing if
Speaker 3: not exciting last year when we watched him. So if
Speaker 3: somebody were gonna look at this year's schedule and be like,
Speaker 3: who would surprise us that they're all in on, I'm
Speaker 3: sure somebody somewhere is going to say, wow, that seems
Speaker 3: like they sure think the Bears are going to be good,
Speaker 3: And yeah, I kind of hope they are.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was listening to Andrew Marshand and John
Speaker 1: Ouran's podcasts from this week and they were talking about
Speaker 1: how when the Bears are good, NFL ratings send me like,
Speaker 1: that's an underrated market that Chicago, I know, is number
Speaker 1: three in the media market thing, but you don't think
Speaker 1: of Chicago the same way you do maybe New York.
Speaker 1: But the Bears move the needle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, there's a lot of those teams. There's you know,
Speaker 3: call them dormant fan bases or whatever you want to
Speaker 3: call them. But you know, it wasn't that long ago
Speaker 3: when the Dolphins were a top rand. I feel like
Speaker 3: the Raiders have a national following that's just kind of untapped. Look,
Speaker 3: it's great for the NFL when Dallas and Kansas City
Speaker 3: and San Francisco are good. You know, it's good for
Speaker 3: the NFL when the two New York teams are good,
Speaker 3: when the two LA teams are good. So some of
Speaker 3: this is a little bit of serendipity, a little bit
Speaker 3: of good fortune. And look, like we said best laid
Speaker 3: plans in May, the season doesn't even start for four
Speaker 3: more months. None of us know anything all our best
Speaker 3: laid plans. You go back and check your notes, and man,
Speaker 3: sure enough, somebody you thought was gonna be good kind
Speaker 3: of fell off, and somebody you never saw coming is
Speaker 3: going to be the story of the season. Some rookie
Speaker 3: we haven't even seen yet, who's going to be you know,
Speaker 3: somebody's going to be the rookie of the year. And
Speaker 3: it's one of the best and worst things, quite honestly,
Speaker 3: about this job is you're guessing you really are. These
Speaker 3: are all guesses we're hoping, we're imagining what it could be.
Speaker 3: You rely on the things you can rely on, and
Speaker 3: then you kind of cross your fingers and take a
Speaker 3: risk on some other things.
Speaker 1: I live in an NFL is King world where my
Speaker 1: viewpoint is NFL first, everything else, seventh, eighth, ninth. But
Speaker 1: I remember a couple of years ago, Peter King did
Speaker 1: a wonderful article after the schedule came out and said,
Speaker 1: you know, Taylor Swift having a concert tour impacted some
Speaker 1: of the dates of the NFL schedule because they didn't
Speaker 1: want to boot Taylor Swift's fans on a Sunday, or
Speaker 1: they couldn't because there's a contract involve Is there any
Speaker 1: concert tour a bad bunny, a Taylor Swift that's going
Speaker 1: on in the fall?
Speaker 3: Taylor Taylor's on the road, Beyonce is on the road,
Speaker 3: Pink is on the road. Morgan Whalen's on the road.
Speaker 1: I hope you feel his voice back.
Speaker 3: Black Pink is on the road. I know Black Pink
Speaker 3: is coming here in August. There's a lot. Look, it's
Speaker 3: been a while since the concert business has.
Speaker 1: Their back concerts right and better than ever, I mean.
Speaker 3: And to a certain extent, Oh, how could you do this?
Speaker 3: You're jeopardizing the integrity of the NFL schedule. We can't
Speaker 3: work around all these blocks, But this is part of
Speaker 3: what we do. We try to thread that needle. And
Speaker 3: you know, maybe it's a rock concert, maybe it's a
Speaker 3: college football game the day before and we're worried about
Speaker 3: the field conditions. Maybe it's a NASCAR race or a
Speaker 3: golf tournament. We're trying to as part of the interaction
Speaker 3: with the clubs, like we said in January and February,
Speaker 3: tell us what we need to know. And part of
Speaker 3: it is, well, we got some other events going on
Speaker 3: in our building, and part of it is, oh, and
Speaker 3: we don't want to play in Florida and September, and
Speaker 3: we don't want to play in Lambeau in December, and
Speaker 3: you owe us a mid season by you know, those
Speaker 3: all just kind of go into the stew. They go
Speaker 3: into the software. You just give it a stir and
Speaker 3: you keep hoping that the winner kind of solves all
Speaker 3: these things that you can. Is it perfect? Never? But
Speaker 3: if you need Taylor Swift tickets, just call me.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, oh well actually that might be ending you up.
Speaker 1: Don't laugh. The broadcast partners, of course, have their requests,
Speaker 1: and you just mentioned part of the stew being the
Speaker 1: teams having their certain requests. How do you weigh those
Speaker 1: because I could see certain teams saying I don't want
Speaker 1: to play the Miami Dolphins in September, or another team
Speaker 1: saying we actually would prefer to have more home games
Speaker 1: up in Buffalo in December than in September. It's a
Speaker 1: home field advantage, yep, whatever it is, how do you
Speaker 1: factor all that? And with the broadcast partner saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we actually want this game at this point, if you
Speaker 1: can possibly give it to us, that would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, each team is kind of a microcosm of
Speaker 3: that same conversation that we're having here at the league
Speaker 3: office here when we build the schedule, you could make
Speaker 3: arguably the perfect television schedule whatever that means, nothing but
Speaker 3: Dallas and Kansas City in primetime and television windows, you know,
Speaker 3: all seventeen weeks of the year. If you're going to
Speaker 3: do all that over here, then your team competitive issues,
Speaker 3: you're probably going to be a little less fair than
Speaker 3: you would hope to be. You could do it the
Speaker 3: other way. You could make great team schedules, every team
Speaker 3: home away, home away, home away, mid season. By you're
Speaker 3: probably not then going to make your best television schedule
Speaker 3: so somewhere between those two extremes, we're looking for that middle.
Speaker 3: Every team is having the same conversation internally. You know,
Speaker 3: we mentioned going to Florida in September. On the one hand,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're the vice president of ticketing or
Speaker 3: the vice president of marketing, you say, and you know,
Speaker 3: hang on a second, it's one hundred and five degrees
Speaker 3: in the shade. Can we please play our games at
Speaker 3: four o'clock or eight o'clock or even on the road
Speaker 3: in September. Whereas, if you're the head coach, this is
Speaker 3: a home field advantage for you.
Speaker 1: It's a huge event.
Speaker 3: You're Miami and you got Buffalo coming down to Florida.
Speaker 3: Do you want to let them out of that you know,
Speaker 3: hot weather game. You know, every team's got to make
Speaker 3: that decision. And to your question about you know, give
Speaker 3: me all the home games you can give me in December,
Speaker 3: but the weather might be bad and the fans might
Speaker 3: not show up, and heaven forbid, you're five and ten.
Speaker 3: Then you're gonna have a time time putting you know,
Speaker 3: bodies in your building. Whereas, hey don't put too many
Speaker 3: games in December, so I don't have too many to sell.
Speaker 3: Then your coach turns around and says, hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: why does this schedule have so few home games for
Speaker 3: me when I'm in a playoff chase. So every team's
Speaker 3: got to kind of strike that balance, and then we've
Speaker 3: got to take that input from all thirty two and
Speaker 3: kind of apply it globally and again kind of find
Speaker 3: that right balance between competitive fairness and maximizing, you know,
Speaker 3: television viewership. It's less about maximizing viewership than it is
Speaker 3: about getting the right games to the fans. We're not
Speaker 3: doing our jobs if the best games are buried in
Speaker 3: one o'clock windows and only available in fourteen percent of
Speaker 3: the country. So can we spread them around? Can everybody
Speaker 3: see the games they really want to see? And can
Speaker 3: every team again feel like we heard them on what
Speaker 3: their requests and their preferences were, or nobody gets everything?
Speaker 3: Hopefully nobody feels like they got nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's this international aspect now where now
Speaker 1: you have five games in the nine thirty am Eastern window.
Speaker 1: I personally work on the Fox pregame show at eleven
Speaker 1: am Eastern, and I could tell you our ratings were
Speaker 1: down those five Sundays. Do you hear from the broadcast
Speaker 1: partner saying, well, now, wait a second, how about this.
Speaker 1: We have these pregames with these and I'm obviously on
Speaker 1: both sides of the fence because the game's are on
Speaker 1: NFL Network sometimes and I'm a member of that crew also,
Speaker 1: But I feel like we've got so many different mouths
Speaker 1: to feed now that there are some things that are
Speaker 1: going to come up that is conflict.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's what Howard Katz says all the time. So
Speaker 3: many mouths to feed, and you can't keep everybody well fed.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have somebody who's a little disappointed somewhere along
Speaker 3: the line. And like you, you know, you wake up
Speaker 3: the morning of a London game and maybe you click
Speaker 3: over to your pregame show and then you realize, oh man,
Speaker 3: there's a live football.
Speaker 1: It's a game.
Speaker 3: Well click right, we got to go watch the game
Speaker 3: when it's on. So yeah, it's not ideal certainly for
Speaker 3: our pregame show or our partner's pregame shows, but any
Speaker 3: chance to get live football, and for those who have
Speaker 3: traveled over and played internationally. Again, you talk about television
Speaker 3: ratings versus competitive fairness when you go over to London
Speaker 3: and you play in the evening over there, so the
Speaker 3: here's in the afternoon over here. You get home really
Speaker 3: really late, and you probably should take your buy the
Speaker 3: week after just because of the body clock and the
Speaker 3: miles in the air. And if you're playing a week
Speaker 3: four London game, you're essentially volunteering for a week five bye.
Speaker 3: And it's a long season. I don't think anybody's putting
Speaker 3: their hand up for a Week five by somebody's gonna
Speaker 3: get it happens every year, but it hopefully moves around
Speaker 3: a little bit and nobody's volunteering for it. So if
Speaker 3: you're playing over there in the afternoon to play over
Speaker 3: here in the morning, you play in the afternoon over there.
Speaker 3: If you're an East Coast team, you're back in your
Speaker 3: facility midnight one am. That's probably earlier than if you
Speaker 3: played at Seattle or San Franciscure Sunday. So you know,
Speaker 3: there's trade offs, there's balances. I think our clothes have
Speaker 3: gotten really really good at managing the London and you know, well.
Speaker 1: I still think it's fascinating. There's different strategies. We were
Speaker 1: in Germany last year and the Seahawks they're there and
Speaker 1: I believe it was either the Seahawks were there for
Speaker 1: several days and the Bucks just showed up the day before,
Speaker 1: or as vice versa. But the fact that there's still
Speaker 1: not a tried and true strategy is fascinating to me.
Speaker 3: It also depends on where you're coming from in the States.
Speaker 3: We talked this year to San Francisco and the Chargers.
Speaker 3: They did not end up going over to London as
Speaker 3: a visiting team, but they had at least ran the
Speaker 3: traps and thought about how we would want to do this,
Speaker 3: and they both asked for the same thing. If you're
Speaker 3: going to send us to London, bring us to the
Speaker 3: East Coast the week before, and we'll play in Philadelphia, Washington,
Speaker 3: New York, New England, whatever, and then we'll go over
Speaker 3: from there as opposed to Seattle. Last year. Didn't do that.
Speaker 3: They stayed in Seattle and they flew to Germany. I
Speaker 3: think they went up over the North Pole, and they
Speaker 3: treated it more like, you know, a regular trip. I mean,
Speaker 3: Seattle has long trips every week, so they're used to it.
Speaker 3: Every team treats it differently. Everybody's an expert, nobody knows
Speaker 3: for sure, and sometimes you win a game you're not
Speaker 3: supposed to, and sometimes you get beat. Even though everything
Speaker 3: worked out exactly the way you would hope leading up
Speaker 3: to it. Nobody knows anything. It's a beauteous league. Mike.
Speaker 1: How long you've been working for the.
Speaker 3: NFL season twenty eight? For me? I believable, big shield,
Speaker 3: love life. He still let me in the building. No,
Speaker 3: let's me too work on such an important project. I'm
Speaker 3: so grateful, so humble, work with so many smart people.
Speaker 3: And again I'm old enough to remember how we used
Speaker 3: to do this. The miracle, honestly, Peter, isn't that we
Speaker 3: get fifty thousand or one hundred thousand schedules done today.
Speaker 3: The miracles that we ever got one done by hand.
Speaker 3: I can believe how this league somehow survived that inefficient,
Speaker 3: suboptimal process. But it's just proof that, you know, the
Speaker 3: game is the thing. Try as we might, we can't
Speaker 3: screw it up. And try to just stay out of
Speaker 3: the way and make good decisions and make a fair schedule.
Speaker 3: Hopefully that everybody feels, like we said, just a little
Speaker 3: bit disappointed by and that's probably where we should be.
Speaker 3: And then the season starts and kind of out of
Speaker 3: our hands and we'll react as we need to.
Speaker 1: When you got out of college and you were working
Speaker 1: whatever it was you were doing when you started at
Speaker 1: the league, what was your first job, and how did
Speaker 1: you get to this position? Because I think it's one
Speaker 1: to one. It's one of the coolest deals, and I
Speaker 1: know your passion for it. You love it, and it's
Speaker 1: like me with my job, I love it. We're very blessed,
Speaker 1: we're lucky, Like it's cool that we can do what
Speaker 1: we want to do. And I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who love your passion for it, which makes it
Speaker 1: so much fun for them, Like talking about the schedule,
Speaker 1: because it's like, yeah, Mike and his group, like they
Speaker 1: absolutely live and breathe and this is not work, this
Speaker 1: is a passion. How did you get to this? And
Speaker 1: was this kind of a goal like I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: the schedule one day?
Speaker 3: There really wasn't such a thing. I mean, sports scheduling
Speaker 3: wasn't even an industry back then. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 3: they all just did it with like index cards or dominoes,
Speaker 3: like we used to see those old pictures of Burt Bell.
Speaker 3: I'm a much bigger look. The constituents have gotten a
Speaker 3: lot smarter you know, can't beat around the bush. The
Speaker 3: money's gotten a lot more. So you know our partners
Speaker 3: that they're owed a better process, no toys around it.
Speaker 3: So I got really, really lucky. I'm at a total
Speaker 3: stranger at a New York Rangers game one day, is
Speaker 3: that right, total stranger.
Speaker 1: Adam Graves, you know, just Jeff Booker Boom and you're
Speaker 1: just there.
Speaker 3: Even longer ago, earlier ninety four, So I met a
Speaker 3: stranger at a hockey game. I was working in advertising
Speaker 3: at the time. I said, love to get into sports.
Speaker 3: She said, my aunt just got a job at the NFL.
Speaker 3: That's amazing doing what I don't know, but give me
Speaker 3: your resume. I'll fax it tour. Two weeks later, had
Speaker 3: the job. I fell blind, dumb luck.
Speaker 1: Back home, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Job.
Speaker 3: And it was when the NFL was launching its website.
Speaker 3: So you probably heard this story. Wasn't even at NFL
Speaker 3: dot com because someone wasn't at NFL dot com.
Speaker 4: NFL dot Aol dot com wasl home dot com as
Speaker 4: a podiatrist in Chicago had registered NFL dot com under
Speaker 4: his product no foot Loss.
Speaker 1: I don't know the story. It couldn't.
Speaker 3: We couldn't even get NFL dot com. In the early days,
Speaker 3: we were at NFL home dot com.
Speaker 1: Damn foot amputation business was keeping us.
Speaker 3: I kind of got this wrap around the building is
Speaker 3: the computer nerd and Ashpec was shifting the scheduling process
Speaker 3: from manual. He used to lock himself in a room
Speaker 3: with Joe Ferrera and Dick Maxwell and you know, really
Speaker 3: some some legends of NFL.
Speaker 1: Lore a bunch of pistachios, right.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep. When they were when they were gonna try
Speaker 3: to automate the process, they needed a nerd. They needed
Speaker 3: a computer nerd. They had one on the fifth floor
Speaker 3: who was doing you know, the new website. And so
Speaker 3: I got really lucky, got the job and have been
Speaker 3: to talk about, you know, Charlie and the chocolate factory.
Speaker 3: What do you the kid who got everything he ever wanted?
Speaker 3: Man so lucky. You get to work with all the smartest,
Speaker 3: brightest people, all so respected, so smart legends, and to
Speaker 3: think where the process has gone to and what it's become.
Speaker 3: It is. It is a labor love. It's twenty four
Speaker 3: to seven, it's fourteen weeks. It's it's everybody, it's all
Speaker 3: hands on deck and we are down to the minutia.
Speaker 3: It really is like, should this game be on this window?
Speaker 3: Because if it is, you know, it's not going to
Speaker 3: air in Los Angeles? Or is that right that this
Speaker 3: Titans game can't be seen in Houston? And if the
Speaker 3: Houston Texans are playing and the Cowboys are playing, that's
Speaker 3: not really fair to the fans in San Antonio. And
Speaker 3: really trying to get that search all that specific about
Speaker 3: every window, every game, every television partner. The analytics play
Speaker 3: a huge role. Again, you go back to what we
Speaker 3: talked about at the beginning. Never want to distrust, you know,
Speaker 3: Roger Goodell's gut. There's a reason the guy's you know,
Speaker 3: running the company. I trust everything he says and I'll
Speaker 3: do whatever he tells us. But if we can supplement
Speaker 3: some of that gut and feel and instinct with math
Speaker 3: and science and predictive analytics, that's probably going to get
Speaker 3: us to a better place at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: And then, like you said, season starts and all bets
Speaker 3: are off and you know, best laid plans right in
Speaker 3: the garbage, and you just react and you adjust, and
Speaker 3: that's what flexible scheduling is for. And the Saturday TVD
Speaker 3: pools and we'll do the best we can and play
Speaker 3: the cards that are dene.
Speaker 1: Couple more questions and I'll let you leave because I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you haven't slept in days. This is for the
Speaker 1: regular season. It's important. I would think that the night
Speaker 1: the regular season ends and figuring out which networks get
Speaker 1: which playoff games is a far more contentious time. Or
Speaker 1: am I overstepping my bounds and suggesting that there's actual
Speaker 1: arguments over who gets what?
Speaker 3: Again, I'm not sure about contentious, but it's definitely a
Speaker 3: lot of encouraging, a lot of arm twisting, a lot
Speaker 3: of raising their hands. Look, the truth is, at that point,
Speaker 3: there's two things going for you. Number One, you've got
Speaker 3: a regular season under your belt, so you know who's up,
Speaker 3: who's down, who just had the big game, who you
Speaker 3: know got a solid whether we did a flexible scheduling
Speaker 3: decision at one o'clock or four o'clock, Like, you're not
Speaker 3: just all of a sudden starting from scratch to you know,
Speaker 3: which of the mouths do we have to feed? Is
Speaker 3: the biggest mouth? You've got a whole regular season under
Speaker 3: your belt, so you kind of know, you know the
Speaker 3: roadmap to how you got here, and maybe you owe
Speaker 3: this guy a little something, or maybe that guy's just
Speaker 3: fine with whatever he gets. And then the second thing,
Speaker 3: and maybe the most important thing is you know, now
Speaker 3: you're talking about our best games. Literally, you're talking about
Speaker 3: playoff games, right, so every one of these games is
Speaker 3: a valuable asset. And look at how the playoffs have
Speaker 3: gone these last two years, with that incredible divisional weekend
Speaker 3: from a couple of years ago, the unbelievable comeback on
Speaker 3: wild Card weekend last year. You know, generally speaking, the
Speaker 3: cream rises to the top. And you know if your
Speaker 3: CBS or Fox and maybe you didn't get exactly the
Speaker 3: game you wanted on wild card weekend, well you know
Speaker 3: that you're getting the winners of this weekend. Yeah, on
Speaker 3: divisional weekend, and CBS and Fox are always sitting there
Speaker 3: with a championship game, so you know they're getting you know,
Speaker 3: the two best teams in the conference. And then whoever
Speaker 3: has the Super Bowl. On the one hand, you know
Speaker 3: they've got you know, the big win at the end,
Speaker 3: So maybe you don't need to feed them all the
Speaker 3: way along, but you also want to kind of build
Speaker 3: that momentum for that network, and everybody just get used
Speaker 3: to you know, Fox, Fox, Fox, weekend after weekend. So
Speaker 3: like everything else, it's a balancing act. Everybody raises their hand.
Speaker 3: It's a zero sum game. Anything good for one is
Speaker 3: a challenge for another. But hopefully over time, whether it's
Speaker 3: over a few weeks or a few seasons or ten years,
Speaker 3: everybody feels like at times they've got and you know
Speaker 3: that they've been heard and they've gotten, you know, they've
Speaker 3: they've gotten. The needle has tilted toward them just a
Speaker 3: little bit this time.
Speaker 1: I've got a buddy, Mike, who's a forty year old guy,
Speaker 1: grew up with me. He loves the schedule, he loves
Speaker 1: the broadcasting stuff. Every year before the playoffs, he like
Speaker 1: tries to predict, like, all right, this is a CBS division.
Speaker 1: His question to me to ask you was, we know
Speaker 1: FlexIt scheduling. You guys play a major role. We know
Speaker 1: that during the playoffs, you guys determine who gets what
Speaker 1: game For the most part, what do you, Mike North
Speaker 1: do once the schedule comes out up until like week ten,
Speaker 1: Like what's the panic? Panic? And just let's make sure
Speaker 1: that disaster.
Speaker 3: I'm watching I'm watching every game thinking about the impact
Speaker 3: of the outcome of this game on week eight, Week ten,
Speaker 3: Week fourteen, Week sixteen.
Speaker 1: Because we made a promise to Amazon that hey week thirteen.
Speaker 3: Honest but look, we put this schedule out in May,
Speaker 3: and you know, we didn't put it out with an
Speaker 3: expectation that we were going to have to flex out
Speaker 3: of anything. Every year we play schedule that we hope
Speaker 3: and pray that we could play, you know, as it lies,
Speaker 3: and always start thinking literally a week one, uh oh,
Speaker 3: anybody who lost in week one? Oh no, there goes
Speaker 3: the Are we gonna have to flex out of them
Speaker 3: in week six, week eight, week twelve?
Speaker 1: Should we start course some injuries, you probably get sick over.
Speaker 3: So, honestly, the broadcasting department our job. After we make
Speaker 3: the schedule, we get a little bit of a break,
Speaker 3: we catch our breath, get some sleep, but we're right
Speaker 3: back at it. By about mid July, we're doing seminars
Speaker 3: with our network partners. The teams are back in camp
Speaker 3: like the season will be here soon enough. And once
Speaker 3: the season starts, our job as a broadcast group is
Speaker 3: to work with the television networks and make sure, you know,
Speaker 3: let's tell the right stories, let's have the right camera angles.
Speaker 3: Let's make sure the highlights there, Let's run the commercials
Speaker 3: at the right time. These games are overlapping. We should
Speaker 3: do this now, and do this in five minutes. And
Speaker 3: this game's out of hand, we should transfer the audience
Speaker 3: from this game to that game. So our group is
Speaker 3: always working with the television partners, and you got to
Speaker 3: get through each game at a time. But I'm always like, oh,
Speaker 3: please nobody get hurt. You know, no no disasters, no
Speaker 3: team that's you know, owing something like, please get a win,
Speaker 3: just like I want everybody six and six through twelve weeks. Man,
Speaker 3: I want everybody in it, everybody in playoff contention. I
Speaker 3: know that again that's maybe not good for our broadcast partners.
Speaker 3: They like dynasties, they like big brands, but man, I
Speaker 3: want I want everybody in it. I want everybody alive.
Speaker 3: So I'm always rooting for the team that's behind in
Speaker 3: the standings, and I'm always rooting for the team that's
Speaker 3: behind in the game and hope that they all come
Speaker 3: out and everybody's still in it in week eighteen.
Speaker 1: That's the dream that phone ringing is Sean Payton bitching
Speaker 1: about the Broncos schedule.
Speaker 3: If you want, you could probably leak. I also probably
Speaker 3: put out another game.
Speaker 1: Donald Kelsey, that's another question, Like this whole sworn to
Speaker 1: see like I do the NFL draft, and these gms
Speaker 1: will blatantly lead me astray and we're friends, Why would
Speaker 1: you do that? Like they never tell me lies, but
Speaker 1: they certainly aren't get tipping that. Like the secrecy thing
Speaker 1: is there like a you know, what's the word omerica?
Speaker 1: Like amongst all you guys, Like, hey.
Speaker 3: Look, at the end of the day, we're all on
Speaker 3: the same team, right, we all want the same thing.
Speaker 3: We want the best possible schedule. We want you know,
Speaker 3: our fans to care as much as possible about you know,
Speaker 3: every game, every window. We want them to care about
Speaker 3: the schedule, release show. And if here we are on
Speaker 3: Wednesday at five o'clock and half the teams have leaked
Speaker 3: their schedule on social media, then tomorrow night at eight
Speaker 3: o'clock is not nearly as interesting. So I hope that's
Speaker 3: not what happens. I hope the teams, you know, heck,
Speaker 3: it's their network, right, they own it. I would hope
Speaker 3: that they would all, you know, have all of our
Speaker 3: best interests at heart. But yeah, no question when we
Speaker 3: made our team calls today, you know, senior team executives
Speaker 3: call them on the phone and say, okay, are you
Speaker 3: at your computer. You're about to get an email from
Speaker 3: the security department and you're going to have to click.
Speaker 3: And yes, I agree and know I won't disseminate it.
Speaker 3: And yes, only the people that need to see it
Speaker 3: and know I promise not to do this, and yes,
Speaker 3: I recognize the impact of my decision. The schedule gets out,
Speaker 3: they all are, yes, sworn to secrecy and have to
Speaker 3: make a commitment. I'm sure there's always something, you know,
Speaker 3: like having information, and it's hard to keep everybody quiet
Speaker 3: and knows such thing as a secret.
Speaker 1: Se If I'm you, I would get a thrill out
Speaker 1: of like a leak thing and everyone runs with it
Speaker 1: and then it's wrong and that's not good. Like we
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 3: We did it. This just happened, right. That newspaper in
Speaker 3: Germany a couple of days ago said you've got.
Speaker 1: Hear the teams the Patriots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all wrong. And all it did was make for
Speaker 3: a couple of days of shoving the toothspape back toothpaste
Speaker 3: back in the tube for members of the media, for
Speaker 3: members of the team's staff people now calling and saying,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, I didn't even know we were candidate
Speaker 3: to go to London. Now I've got to start calling
Speaker 3: for site visits and hotel. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's fake news. Don't worry about it. You will all
Speaker 3: find out your schedule on Thursday night at eight o'clock
Speaker 3: Eastern on NFL Network. Anything you see before then, unless
Speaker 3: we bread crumb it out, you should take with a
Speaker 3: grain of salt.
Speaker 1: There's a famous David Stern story, the late great David Stern,
Speaker 1: that he was annoyed with the leaks coming out of
Speaker 1: fake on buildings and he sent the same memo to
Speaker 1: all the teams and there was one word different in
Speaker 1: every single memo, and you knew which teams. And then
Speaker 1: it came out and it ended up being the Detroit
Speaker 1: Pistons and whoever it was. So there was Dumars as
Speaker 1: the coach or whoever it was. They stung them and
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, you got you got a problem
Speaker 1: with your building right now. There's like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: love that stuff too, the subterfuge of secret and what
Speaker 1: are we going out there? But I didn't think of
Speaker 1: the pr and logistical nightmare that you probably deal with
Speaker 1: when there's a false report that comes out.
Speaker 3: Yep, better false than true.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My last question, what when do you know? Okay,
Speaker 1: is it whatever Goodell says this is the deadline? Or
Speaker 1: like if you could, would you be up doing this
Speaker 1: till September? First? Yeah, I mean or is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, look I'm sick, so I'm the wrong turn.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 3: But the solution, spaces is infinite. And now that we changed,
Speaker 3: like we were talking about, we changed the way each
Speaker 3: of these games are allocated. It used to be if
Speaker 3: you're the AFC team and you're on the road, that
Speaker 3: game belongs to CBS. And if we wanted to take
Speaker 3: it for Sunday Night or Monday night, then you're literally
Speaker 3: taking it away in the network contracts takeaways, and so
Speaker 3: we had to manage which games and how many games
Speaker 3: we took away from CBS and Fox. When Hans Schroeder
Speaker 3: and the rest of the team negotiated the new TV deals,
Speaker 3: they got rid of that. So every game is a
Speaker 3: free agent. So the good news is we have a
Speaker 3: lot more flexibility. The bad news is we have a
Speaker 3: lot more flexibility. I mean, we weren't seeing maybe one
Speaker 3: tenth of one percent of the solution space before and
Speaker 3: now every game can go anywhere. So the time that
Speaker 3: it took for the computers to grind through the beach
Speaker 3: looking for the best grain of sand every night definitely increased.
Speaker 3: And the likelihood that we were going to find a
Speaker 3: better schedule tomorrow, and a better schedule tomorrow, and a
Speaker 3: better schedule tomorrow at some point, better's the wrong word.
Speaker 3: Now it's just flavors. It's vanilla or chocolate, but it's
Speaker 3: all ice cream. So to the Commissioner's credit, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know him better than most. He is never satisfied.
Speaker 3: He will never ever let you say you're done. He'll
Speaker 3: never ever let you say this is the best we
Speaker 3: can do, because you don't know that's true until you
Speaker 3: beat the hell out of yourself for another month. So
Speaker 3: you know, the SICCO and me would go another month.
Speaker 3: I'd love to know if there was one out there
Speaker 3: that didn't have that three game road trip, or maybe
Speaker 3: didn't quite have that sequence of Monday, Sunday Thursday for somebody,
Speaker 3: or maybe there was another way to maneuver the London
Speaker 3: games with the buy the week I mean maybe maybe
Speaker 3: I don't know but I would have loved to find out.
Speaker 3: And so that's part of the reason why we didn't
Speaker 3: even confirm May eleventh until just a day or two ago.
Speaker 3: We let the computers run all weekend, and we met
Speaker 3: with the commissioner on Monday afternoon, and it was it
Speaker 3: was four thirty at night, really four thirty in the
Speaker 3: afternoon before you let us get out of there with
Speaker 3: all right, if you're sure, this is the best you
Speaker 3: could do. And it was hard to look him in
Speaker 3: the eye and tell him this is the single best schedule, Commissioner,
Speaker 3: I would bet my life on it, because I wouldn't
Speaker 3: There is surely one out there. I just don't know
Speaker 3: if we would find it in another week or two
Speaker 3: weeks or a month. And at some point we do
Speaker 3: have to go. The teams need to make plans, They
Speaker 3: need to book their buildings, their chargers, their hotels. Fans
Speaker 3: want to buy tickets. I can't tell you how many
Speaker 3: people have asked after playing The Raiders, they want to
Speaker 3: get their flights.
Speaker 1: Now that's the game? Why is that? Why is it
Speaker 1: Jets at Risk Vegas thing for work?
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're gonna go to the road game, isn't.
Speaker 1: It probably fifty different people either text me or be
Speaker 1: I'm on the street and they know I work for
Speaker 1: the NFL in my neighborhood, and everyone is asking you
Speaker 1: about that game. When is Packers? When is Jets Raiders
Speaker 1: in Vegas? Fascinating?
Speaker 3: Fascinating? So we got to go at some point. I
Speaker 3: appreciate very much that everybody's you know, so eager and
Speaker 3: so interested. I can't believe how many you know, how
Speaker 3: much people care about it. I love talking about it.
Speaker 3: I love the pursuit of this, you know, impossible pursuit
Speaker 3: of perfection or whatever you call it. I don't know
Speaker 3: that we ever find the optimal schedule every year, but
Speaker 3: I do feel like this combination of Howard and Hans
Speaker 3: and Rogers Gut with Charlotte and Mike and Annie and
Speaker 3: Blake's math, and you put some predictive analytics behind it,
Speaker 3: and you get the ratings team and you get the
Speaker 3: football guys, and you get them all together, and you
Speaker 3: just start putting data into the black box. And at
Speaker 3: some point, here's one what do you think, Well, that's
Speaker 3: pretty good, hanging on the wall best so far. What
Speaker 3: would you fix about it? If you could? I'd love
Speaker 3: to get rid of that three game road trip. Run
Speaker 3: it again. Maximize getting rid of that three game road
Speaker 3: trip coming tomorrow. Here's one got rid of the three
Speaker 3: game road trip. What did we break? Well, we broke
Speaker 3: them in them instead. Is it worth it? Yes, boom,
Speaker 3: new leader worth that leader survives. If that leader survives
Speaker 3: a couple of days, a couple of really good contenders,
Speaker 3: you feel even better about it. And we literally spent
Speaker 3: the whole weekend throwing contenders at the leader and felt
Speaker 3: better and better about it. The more contenders, the more
Speaker 3: good contenders you threw at it. And because we had
Speaker 3: all this extra flexibility, now those contenders they looked very different.
Speaker 3: In the old days, these two finalists were very close.
Speaker 3: Such some changes on the margins. But now one two,
Speaker 3: three finalists down three different paths, wildly different. Different kickoff
Speaker 3: game in Kansas City, different Sunday night, different Thanksgiving, different Christmas. Really,
Speaker 3: those are the ten polls that we started off talking about.
Speaker 3: Each one of them led someplace different, all good. Pick
Speaker 3: a winner, vanilla or chocolate?
Speaker 1: It Yeah. Eighty degree weekend in New York City, the
Speaker 1: first nice weekend in months, and you guys are trapped
Speaker 1: in Park Avenue office just hammering out different schedules.
Speaker 3: I'd love it, thrilled to do it. They trust us,
Speaker 3: and hope everybody likes the effort, and honestly will take
Speaker 3: a day or two to catch our breath. But already
Speaker 3: starting to think about twenty twenty four. It's going to
Speaker 3: be a whole new model, all different challenges, a fewer
Speaker 3: number of saturdays in December that we can use. The
Speaker 3: college football playoffs have expanded, so there's going to be
Speaker 3: some additional considerations there where we playing in international games
Speaker 3: next year? Is Mexico back online? Already thinking about twenty four.
Speaker 1: Mike, You're awesome. I thank you. You know you know
Speaker 1: how much I love this shit and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you and your team. And I always say it seems
Speaker 1: like it's a formality, the schedule, but it might be
Speaker 1: my favorite thing about the NFL offseason, the science and
Speaker 1: the art that goes into it, and the work that
Speaker 1: your fine team does. The appreciate it. I think I
Speaker 1: speak for all the fans. Thank you for the work
Speaker 1: you guys do.
Speaker 3: Absolute pleasure, Thanks for being interested, thanks for caring, Thanks
Speaker 3: for taking time out of your paternity to leave to
Speaker 3: talk to us. Get back to diaper duty. All right,
Speaker 3: my man, Yeah, I'm on it. Mike North, awesome stuff.
Speaker 3: VP of NFL Broadcast Planning. And by the time you
Speaker 3: guys listen to this, Mike schedule and his team schedule
Speaker 3: probably be out in the wild and we'll dissect it
Speaker 3: and maybe we'll have Mike on next week to go
Speaker 3: through the actual.
Speaker 1: Details of it. But until next week, this is the
Speaker 1: season with Peter Schrager and Mike North. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. So that was Mike North, VP
Speaker 1: of NFL Broadcast Planning Again. Schedule comes out Thursday night.
Speaker 1: I know he says that there's such a rigorous anti
Speaker 1: leaking thing, but I usually by like one or two,
Speaker 1: a lot of the main games start leaking out. Eric,
Speaker 1: Is that just the geek in me that I eat
Speaker 1: that of? Or did you as a I would say
Speaker 1: not casual but sort of new to the in the
Speaker 1: weeds of this. Did you find that interest thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's there's so much of it that's
Speaker 2: hard to know. And like you were saying, like that
Speaker 2: that Rams Packers game, you know, like it looked so
Speaker 2: good and then who would have known Stafford was going
Speaker 2: to get hurt? Who would have known righters, we can
Speaker 2: get hurt, and so.
Speaker 1: I just I also know, like the executives of these
Speaker 1: media companies, and they're all so great, but they're also
Speaker 1: so gung ho their company. So like CBS thinks we
Speaker 1: should get the best games. NBC says Worstunday Night Football,
Speaker 1: the number one show for your Fox saying Fox Game
Speaker 1: of the Week is where everyone gravitates sort So it's
Speaker 1: like I can only imagine when to please all those
Speaker 1: different masters then also coming out with something that also
Speaker 1: satisfies the teams. You know, there's no advantage for say
Speaker 1: the Jets. I mean, it might be cool to be
Speaker 1: on Sunday Night Football a few times, but to play
Speaker 1: a primetime game every single week is not a great
Speaker 1: advantage for the Jets. That's a whole different body clock.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I find it. It's it's probably
Speaker 1: a thankless job, and yet Mike and his team do
Speaker 1: it and they take such great pride in it.
Speaker 2: I was shocked as he was going through You asked like,
Speaker 2: what are the games? What's the game everyone wanted? And
Speaker 2: he was like, there's no one game, but here are
Speaker 2: the list of games people wanted. It was a huge list,
Speaker 2: there's so many good games, and I think.
Speaker 1: That AFC is so loaded. That's why, like you noticed,
Speaker 1: he didn't say ram Seahawks, which typically used to be
Speaker 1: a major game, or you know, Washington Dallas. Like the
Speaker 1: NFC is so so down the line when it comes to,
Speaker 1: you know, fan interest now, especially with Rogers coming into
Speaker 1: the AFC and I think Brady being out of the NFC,
Speaker 1: I'm interested to see it. By the time everyone listens
Speaker 1: to this, we might know some. But I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: if we can get Mike on next week, that was fun.
Speaker 1: I'm going to the Nick game with Hackett. I think
Speaker 1: he's got that beard going. Let's see if he gets
Speaker 1: recognized or not. Aaron, good talking.
Speaker 2: About you too, man, See you next week. Have fun
Speaker 2: at MSG.
Speaker 1: Thank you on behalf of the very handsome, awesome, intelligent
Speaker 1: Aaron Wang Kaufman on behalf of the amazing, brilliant Jason
Speaker 1: English at iHeart Podcasts. On behalf of Meredith Batt and
Speaker 1: our fearless leader on the NFL side of NFL Media
Speaker 1: and the podcast division, and Matt Schneider and the great
Speaker 1: Jason Kleinman, who is fantastic and churns out these awesome
Speaker 1: clips that go on good morning football and keeps everyone
Speaker 1: aligned and on. Behalf of our music man, the great
Speaker 1: Jack Rudd, who is the man behind the funky beat
Speaker 1: you here. It is good to be back on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I know I was gone for a week, but we
Speaker 1: will be back soon. The Season with Peter Schrager is
Speaker 1: a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For
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