Peter sits down with Vice President of Broadcast Planning at the NFL Mike North for their annual schedule rundown. North gives us a behind the scenes look at how it all came together, what to expect from the Netflix Christmas Day games, how Tom Brady's first game was decided, and the impact of Taylor Swift's tour on the NFL schedule.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
What's Up Everyone? Cool episode of the season with Peter Schreger.
We're recording this Thursday morning. The NFL schedules came out
Wednesday evening, but the team's got them Tuesday night. And
my guest is one of my favorites. It's Mike North,
the vice president of broadcast Planning. With no further ado,
let's get Mike the bone. Mike, what's up man? Peter?
(00:46):
Good to see you, buddy, good morning, Great to see you.
You and I seem to be texting about the schedule
for over a twelve month period, but we're talking about
if the Jets finishing third and not fourth, the Packers
finishing third and not fourth, does that mean we get
a potential Rogers game? And that's the stuff we do
during the year. And now that the schedule is out
there and it's done and it's been put to bed,
(01:08):
what is the feeling the morning after knowing there are
no chances to be made and this is the schedule
that everyone is going to be dealing with for the
next eight to ten months.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean, that's Honestly, the weirdest part about this.
You know, usually you what work on a big project,
you get instant feedback. You you know, turn in a paper,
you get a grade. Like, we don't even grade it
on this until the season's over, So you're talking eight
months away before anybody even really does the forensics on Hey,
how good was that schedule? So last couple of days,
(01:40):
a lot of you know, initial emotional visceral reaction from
our clubs, from our network partners, always wondering what did
we miss, what could we have done better? Was there
a previous version of this schedule that maybe we had
in our hands on Friday or Saturday, and maybe we
should have played that one instead of the one the
commissioner approved on Monday. It's just a constant sort of rehash, reimagining,
(02:02):
you know, did we pick the right one? When you
get down to the end like this, we've obviously made
some of the big your decision. So we've painted ourselves
into a nice, tidy, little corner. And now it's not
so much as this schedule better than that schedule. It's
just different flavors. So vanilla chop at strawberry, you know,
O Schroeder likes Oreo, likes butter Pecan like pick one somebody,
(02:23):
but always kind of wondering, you know, what could we
have done just a little bit better?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, so you said the commissioner gets a final approval.
I guess on Monday. Is that the timeline, because right
now we're recording this on Thursday morning. The schedule or
is at least Wednesday, I believe, And tell me if
I'm wrong. Tuesday night you told the team, so is
the order of the week. You guys work, you know,
tirelessly for months. You present to the to everybody. There's
(02:49):
back and forth. Goodell checks off like a seal of approval,
and then you guys sell the teams Tuesday and then
the world finds out Wednesday. Is that kind of the time. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
The only thing I would check you on there is
we don't uh check. We don't show the schedule to
anybody except the commissioner. The teams don't see it, the
network don't see and nobody sees it. I know some
of the other sports leaves we've got this weird little
you know, nerd fraternity of all the schedule makers. We
have professional sports leagues, and I know some of those
guys actually send out beta versions of their schedules to
(03:18):
their clubs and say, hey, what do you think of this?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Like a living document, like lets you know I think this.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
They hate it, and everybody's like, well I would change this,
and I would change that, And so you change one
little thing, you change everything. So don't we don't do
a test run, We don't do a beta version. We
just grind and grind and grind. But yet at the
end of the day, Commissioner, we don't do anything in
this league obviously without his approval. We certainly don't put
out the playing schedule.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Checkpoint with him. Haydence is really kind of like weekly
start in early April. Here's kind of what we're thinking
about for prime time. First age box for the big
windows for the holidays, and then more like you know,
bi weekly as we get closer to the end, and
then really down the stretch. It was every day last week,
so he saw again Vanilla Chop and Strawberry different versions. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
(04:06):
sent us home over the weekend, the computers ran all night.
We were on a zoom with Hans Schroeder and the
scheduling team Mother's Day night for about that right, and
then at midnight we drop one in his inbox. Commissioner's
inbox came in Monday, walked him through it. He obviously
approved it, so he liked it. But you know, never perfect.
None of these things are ever perfect. So once you
(04:27):
hit his final blessing on Monday, then the train starts rolling.
Do the paperwork, do the game by game, week by week,
broadcast partners, kickoff times, call the teams on Tuesday. They've
got work to do, obviously, those fabulous social media executions
that they all did, they've got business to do, right,
They've got to do their dynamic pricing, set the costs
of the tickets, get that stuff over to ticketmasters, so
(04:48):
that on Wednesday, Wednesday night, eight pm Eastern, when it
goes live, everything's were ready to go. So Tuesday to
the teams, Wednesday to the broadcast partners, Wednesday night to
the world. But nothing happens without the commissioner's approval on Monday.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Which makes it interesting with those like you know, here's
a scheduling leak. You're here, okay, couple of things to
there's like the myths and the facts, so I know,
and I don't know if this is breaking news. I
said it on McAfee SJA and people were surprised that.
Like when the teams get the schedules from you guys
on Tuesday, it's watermarked with their emails. So if forever
reason they wanted to send it to someone, we've got
(05:24):
your red handed. You're you're the culprit, like your email
specific to the email and it says that person's email
on the schedule, all right, any like scheduling leak that
you would hear from like a week ago, Like there
was rumors that, you know, Cowboys versus Texans on Thanksgiving,
Like that's all bs, because you guys hadn't even come
(05:47):
up together with a schedule yet.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I was watching your guesses for hey, here's that prediction
for week one. Not only were they all wrong, but
we wouldn't know because week one wasn't done yet. Right
in the old days, when we were sitting in that
room that you've seen without pinchback and we're hanging the
tags one at a time, Yeah, week one was done.
You did that a month ago, and now you're just
grinding on, you know, week fourteen, just to finish the
(06:09):
puzzle doesn't work that way anymore. The computers are so smart.
We kind of call it Howard Katz's brain in a box.
We just kind of put everything that's in his mind
into the software program, and it's searching through an infinite
solution space. And it came back today with Baltimore Kansas
City for kickoff. They could come back tomorrow with Chargers
Kansas City for kickoff. Maybe we're gonna use Houston, Kansas
City for kickoff. No, let's use Houston, Kansas City for
(06:32):
the Christmas round robin and just around and around permutations combinations.
It is truly an infinite space and anything could change,
literally right up to the last minute.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So let's get into the nitty griddo of this year's schedule.
The Jets are prominently featured again and up front of
the marrow. Oh well, this is a role. Were they
before Rodgers? I feel like they were definitely last year.
And are the Jets one of these marquite? I think
they have more primetime games than any other team in
the NFL on the schedule, including the Chiefs. Is that true?
(07:05):
I think seven? I think seven.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
We think about they might stand alone windows if you
throw London in there somewhere. But you know, we don't
just think about it in terms of primetime. I know
that's a big thing that everybody goes out there and
talks about, but you can't really talk primetime without also
talking about.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
America's Game of the Week on Fox, which is a
bigger rating sometime. Yeah, yeah, always. I mean, that's our
average highest window.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I think I may have not have this exactly right,
but I think Fox and CBS both average twenty five
million viewers for that four to twenty five double header window,
and I think the gap between the two of them
was like fifteen thousand viewers when the whole thing finished.
Those two Still like, that's our window where we get
more eyeballs than any other. Every now and then you
(07:47):
get something pop on a Sunday night or a Monday
night obviously Thanksgiving, Christmas, you see some thirty thirty five
million numbers, But average day to day, week to week
cadence of the NFL season, that's Sunday four twenty five
windows really where you get the most eyeballs, so that
should count. You may not be in prime, but if
you're in four twenty five, that's maybe even a big
or give to the brand, and I mean even bigger
(08:08):
indication of what we think you're going to be this year.
So here in Sunday afternoons, then you really get a set.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
That's it. So it's seven standalone games in the first
eleven weeks for the Jets.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Oh man, I mean last year from Aaron like that,
anybody who thinks the NFL is scripted, I assure you
that was not was not the way you drew it up.
Are we maybe a little too all in on the
Jets again this year? Look, if he's healthy and they're relevant,
then no, this is the games that you know, our
broadcast partners asked for early in the season, that our
(08:41):
fans want to see. And then you get to the
second half of the season, and if he is healthy
and their playoff relevant, they've got a really good schedule
down the stretch against the Rams, the Bills, the Dolphins,
the Seahawks. Maybe those games move into flexible scheduling windows
or get into a bigger footprint on a Sunday afternoon.
So yeah, maybe a little heavy on the Jets early,
but I think that's a story that everybody's going to
be following this year, and that's what we're to do.
(09:03):
We're here to tell the stories.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Totally. Giants fans were upset. I got a lot oft
Giants fans. My buddy Deetro's text to be are you
having Mike North on tomorrow asking what Giants? Ask them?
What the Giants did wrong? Two Thursday games against the Cowboys?
What do we talk? We just play them on a regular,
(09:25):
regular day when it's not a short at a regular day.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You're playing both Cowboys Giants games on exactly the same rest,
exactly the same situation, two short week thursdays, one in
New York, one in Dallas. That's unfair. Come on, that's unfair.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I don't know. But I also ask about the Giants,
like they're such a unique situation in that they're usually
one of these parocial, stay behind the scenes franchises that like,
we're not going to beat our own chest. Now they're
doing this hundredth year anniversary where it's like marketing power
of the Giants, and they're doing hard knocks and they
want to be out there. I see that you guys
(10:01):
gave them some prominent games. But also I noticed and
I wonder, like do they come to you and say, hey,
that we play the cults, like the greatest game ever
was played this weekend in nineteen fifty eight. Can you
align it up with that? Like is that kind of stuff?
Take it into account where it sounds so in the weed,
So like that's but like there's a big marketing initiative
(10:21):
from a team. They might want to make a big
piece out of this one particular weekend. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Look, you know this, because we've talked about this quite
a lot. It's never as easy to just say, oh well,
just put this game there. What's the problem. It can't
be that hard like it is so to say we're
going to build the schedule around you know, a Coults
Giants game is probably not what's going to happen. But
the big focus for them this year, obviously they're doing
that offseason, show that off season hard. It's gonna be
(10:46):
a lot of attention on them all summer. They were
kind of building toward that week one, you know, start
the hundred season. Can we bring back a whole bunch
of alumni to do that on a Sunday night or
a Monday night changes logistics. Us old guys can't stay
up that late. So you know, they were really looking
for that Sunday one o'clock afternoon home could have been
the Colts. We saw schedules with the Colts, we saw Tampa,
(11:08):
we saw Many. It wasn't one where we said, oh,
it's got to be this team, it's got to be
that week. They were also pretty focused on Germany. You know,
they have Germany as one of their marketing territories. So
once the Panthers signed up, we knew it was going
to be a Panthers game in Germany. You start looking
at the Panther's list of home opponents, which of them
are going to get you know, drafted to go over
(11:29):
to Germany with them. The Giants did raise their hand
for that one. So really did they get locked in
day one? They did not, But were they you know,
serious candidate and easy to consider and thought of it
kind of as a win for the scheduling team if
it landed that way. Yeah, So that that was one
they were volunteering for. Like we said, the Thursday night
early in the season with the Cowboys seems like a
(11:49):
nice give to Amazon. You play it back on Thanksgiving.
Giants Cowboys just sounds like Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
They got a Sunday nighter in there.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
A Monday nighter in there like, Yeah, they're a traditional
national brand, and obviously a lot of attention on the
quarterback coming back from injury and a couple of the
draft pieces they added again a storyline you want to
tell early.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
In the season.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
In the early part of the season, it's storylines, it's
quarterbacks coming back from injuries, it's new coaches, new faces,
and new places. The second half of the season, the
playoff implications.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Tell the matchups. We're not manufacturing anything at that point totally.
And I love the back half of the schedule. I
saw so many good matchups, especially on those Christmas Day games,
which is my next question. Christmas Day games Wednesday football.
So many logistical things to keep in mind with the
days off and the rest, but also how are we
gonna promote this Christmas Day slate and also who's going
(12:42):
to broadcast it? It ends up being Netflix. I don't
know how much you can go into the weeds with this.
Was this months in planning it was going to be Netflix.
Were they late additions to the conversations?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Was months in planning to land on Netflix. It was
months in planning to figure out can we play on
a Wednesday? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
When what took what was the what was the give back?
Because I think a lot of players were like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Answer you to question is the fans have spoken right?
Think about where Christmas has been these last what is it,
two triple headers each to the last two years, for
the last five years we're playing on Christmas. The fans
are there, you know. Last year, I'm pretty sure the
three games on Christmas average something like twenty seven to
twenty eight million viewers. That's monumental numbers. They're there, they
(13:28):
want the games, they expect the games from us. Now,
But it's a Wednesday. We'll figure it out. Well, we
figured it out. We play Sunday to Thursday in this
league all the time. Could we play Saturday to Wednesday.
It's really the same thing. It's a couple of short
weeks back to back Sunday Saturday Wednesday. But it's doable.
So early in the process we kind of figured out
a path to how we could get there. The real
(13:50):
challenge for us was finding the right teams because you're
talking about this little round robin between four teams that
all have to play each other, but they all have
to have one home in one road, and they have
to be four teams that we can think we can
count on here in May, they're going to be playoff
relev and national television worthy seven months from now, like
it's sports.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
God only knows, right.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So, could you've teams that all play each other, one home,
one away, put them on a Saturday and a Wednesday.
We kind of settled in on this AFC North, maybe
AFC North with the team or two. You could throw
Philly in there, You could throw Houston in there. You
can throw Kansas City in there. What's the trickle down
effect on the rest of the broadcast partners if you
do take a couple of Kansas City games out of
the mix like this? So we taught the computer put
(14:34):
these games in here to Saturday to Wednesday round robin go,
but turn them black college instead of all the pretty
colors for all our broadcast partners like we usually do.
Turn them black, take them away from everybody. They could
go anywhere. Now. Once we thought we could do it,
then Hans Schroeder and the business team started reaching out
to the existing and apparently non existing broadcast partners and hey,
(14:56):
who's interested, And thankfully everybody was a really kind of detailed,
drawn out process and really excited to land on something
really historic. We've never had nobody's ever had a global
rights deal like this, one broadcaster, one sports league, truly
global reach. It's gonna be fascinating to see what Netflix
could do. And it's part of the reason we put
(15:17):
the games in the afternoon. By playing at one o'clock
Eastern in the States. Now you're in primetime in other countries,
You're not in the overnight for some big markets.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
For US, Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
On the afternoon for US made for a better global
opportunity for Netflix. And then you back up afternoon on Wednesday.
We probably shouldn't be then playing Saturday night. That's a
short week made shorter, so afternoon Wednesday kind of led
to afternoon Saturday, and that's how we kind of backed
into the time slots. Then which broadcaster we're going to
take them? Yeah, really went down to the wire. There
(15:47):
were a lot of people interested, and it's gonna be
really fascinating to see how this works.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So this was an international play in many ways in that,
and I would assume Netflix has a very wide ranging
international viewership as opposed to maybe some of the linear
traditional broadcast partners. AM I overstepping tradition. I'm sure they
would argue that.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
But yes, look, our traditional linear broadcast partners, when they're
purchasing rights from us, they're purchasing domestic rights, right, That's
what we're selling you A whole other group that goes
out and says, Hey New Zealand, Hey Australia, Hey Germany,
Hey Asia. You know, here's a package of games. This
is the first time we've taken one broadcast partner and
sold them rights on a truly global scale like this.
(16:29):
And I'm not sure I have the numbers right, but
I think I saw maybe two hundred and sixty million
subscribers worldwide. How many of them are going to be
sitting home on Christmas in Hey, a Kansas City Chiefs game,
A Pittsburgh Taylor's game, A lot.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I know those teams. Yeah, yeah, And then I guess
that might be a Hans question how Netflix ended up
being the home for these games. But I have to
imagine when we push back a week extra than we
have usually, that there was some late flurry of action
maybe with you know, there is a weird narrative out
there that week. Is that not true? Or no?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
We put the schedule out on May eleventh last year, Okay,
here came out on May fifteen.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Is that I think. I think it's the upfronts is
what everyone was circling. That parts true, That part's fair,
and usually you have your full schedule before the network
up fronts and.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Give everybody at least one game. So they had a
little something to tease that they're upfronts, that that part's fair.
But look, frankly, I wish they'd give us another month.
Like I said, yeah, I hear woreo butter pecan budge
ripple Like, there's so many possible schedules out there. Is
there one more out there that we just never got
to put our eyes on that Charlotte Charlotte Carey never
got to think about the CBS regional map for Week seven.
(17:39):
It might have been a little bit better. I would
I would take every minute they give us. The solution
space is infinite. I'm not sure we saw, you know,
more than one tenth of one percent of it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The Netflix zeal is that for one year or is
that a multi year thing? Okay, year, they're gonna be uh.
I believe the Home of Christmas Games for two games?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Two games this year, and I think it's at least
one okay, next two years and then still a little
wiggle room for us to figure out. Let's see how
it works. Let's see if they've earned and you know,
the additional windows. Let's see how it you know, fans react.
Let's see about their production. As you hinted at right now,
they don't have a sports production team, so they're gonna
need a producer or a director.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
They're gonna need talent. What are you doing on Christmas? Man?
Then they need an announcer. I'm interested, Uh, figure it out,
that's the question. Though. It's like, is it one of
those deals where you know because it is pe listeners,
if you're listening to my podcast, it's usually pretty well
versed in the stuff because we go in the weeds.
When Amazon launched, Fred Goodelli from NBC played a real
influential role, and when the Thursday night games first came
(18:39):
out on I want to say NFL network part of
those packages where CBS or Fox would assist with the production.
And even when you see those Saturday games on NFL
Network for years, Mark Titleman and Fox was the producer.
And now I think someone at CBS does it I
assume that there's anything with Netflix, right, I would assume,
but it is it? Is it?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Like?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Is it assumed or is that like, hey, Fox?
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Is my knowledge, I wasn't obviously in the room where
did it deals were getting made, But to the best
of my knowledge, Netflix will go out and find you know,
NFL production corew I assume they'll reach out to CBS
and Fox and you know, hey, you're you know, b
C D Cruise. There's really talented people totally all the
way down the roster for those networks. I assume Netflix
(19:23):
will reach out to those guys try to find a
deal there. What I doubt they'll do is just take
the announcers from there. I think there's gonna be some weeks.
I agree unity you know, producer, director, camera guy, sound
guy like, you know, they're the they're the grunt workers,
but they're the ones that actually put it on television totally,
you know, the announcers. I think we could probably try
something a little bit different, But it's.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
A big it's a big it's a big deal totally,
and it's a big deal for Netflix obviously for their
you know, union with the NFL. And I've mentioned it before,
like I think just dipping their toe in the water
with the Quarterback Show and then doing live events with
the golf and they did tennis and they you know
I mentioned on Pat Mcaty yesterday they did a Chris
Rock Live special. They did this Love Is Blind Live special.
(20:03):
Like they've dipped their toe in live events and this
ghost last Sunday. Whether or not it was favorable for
the NFL or favorable for Tom Brady, it was a
major hit and it was live and it was produced
and it was a success. So they've shown they can
do live TV. But like to put on a game,
like you said, has to have the look and field
an NFL game, it also has to have a graphics
package music like this is a major, major deal. And
(20:25):
if Netflix is probably not gonna start from scratch, right,
I assume they're gonna go find somebody to do this
for them who does this for a living.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And again, I think it'll look and sound like NFL
football on your television when you see it. Maybe try
a little something different with you know, the global audience
or the announced team or something like that. But I imagine
they'll end up with you know, an experienced NFL crew
producing the game.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, it's burn one Quist to play by play. You're
gonna have Burt Kreischer the Machine as your analyst, big
Netflix star, and Kevin Hart as your sideline reporter. And
I'm here for it. Look, let's go watch. I would
watch it, all right. The Taylor Swift questions next, which
I'm sure you're getting a lot. Obviously, the Chiefs have
(21:14):
won two Super Bowls in a row. They're looking to
be the first team to threepet in over twenty years.
There's no reason we have to say that Taylor Swift's
the reason the Chiefs are being premiered. My question is,
did you guys keep an account her tour schedule at
offer where where the Chiefs were playing, and if there's
any possibility that maybe they can sync up with their
fall tour.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I only know the tour dates that were impacting NFL stadiums,
So whether it was Miami or New Orleans or wherever
it was where I knew those teams had reached out
to us and said, look, no, we can't block our
stadium for you know, concert tours, but if there's any
way you can find us on the road or on
by this weekend, here's what the load in for the
(21:56):
concert would be. Here's the date, here's the load out.
We'll be ready to play again by Monday or Thursday,
whatever it is. So I only knew the dates that
were truly impacting our schedule. I have since heard or
somebody sent it to me on social that she's in Toronto.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yes, the same weekend. Do you guys play coming to Flow?
I assure you that was non intense. It's funny.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
It's one of the things actually, Holland Schroeder when he
kind of came into the room and we're grinding through
thousands and thousands and you know, Vanilla chop at Strawberry,
one of the things he was really focused on was,
you know, the we've settled kind of early that Kansas
City was probably going to be part of this round
robin for the Chris that takes Kansas City off the
table for CBS for week sixteen and seventeen. We know,
(22:42):
we get the TVD. We wanted a Kansas City Chiefs
game on NBC Sunday Night Football in December. That's sort
of how we edge against flexible scheduling. Put a Dallas game,
put a Kansas City game, put a Green Bay game
in December. We wanted Kansas City for Black Friday because
Amazon is so focused on continuing to you know, change
consumer behavior and change the idea of Black Friday into
(23:03):
a real national holiday, and so nothing moves to needle
right now like Kansas City. So you think about how
we're deploying Kansas City week thirteen, fifteen, sixteen seventeen, Where
exactly is CBS going to get their city doubleheader game?
And this Buffalo Kansas City game that we know is
one of the most anticipated games.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Of the year. And I picture in Nanson Romo calling
thirty of their games.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, so last year it was Cincy Kansas City. We
saved it all the way to week seventeen. Hey, this
is going to be great, the one seed in the
AFC on the line, and we didn't get there. Borough
got hurt. It was still a good game, it still
did a good rating, but we waited too long to
quote deploy that asset. So one of the things Hans
was really looking for every time he looked at a
schedule was how late could we get that Buffalo Kansas
City game? Can we can we get it all the
(23:46):
way to week eleven or week twelve? So at least
it's not gone too early or we waited too long,
and once it kind of settled in a week eleven,
we felt like that was a good sort of folcrum
for the middle of the schedule. That buffcase hanging out
there week eleven. I assure you, I did not know
Taylor was in Toronto that way.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Sometimes sometimes the scheduling gods and the music tour gods
were out in mysterious ways. That's what we're learning. And
if she's there again, great, Okay. So that's the chief
thing the Texans get that. I'm going to say the
Lions situation from last year and that they were the
hot team. Everyone fell in love with them. At the
end of the season. I thought CJ. Stroud was magnificent
(24:24):
in that Cleveland playoff game. And also it's just a
lovely team to follow this offseason, and then they made
big deals getting Digs and Hunter and they really went
all in last year. You guys put the Lions on
a lot and it turned out to be the right decision.
You guys looked very smart because the Lions were the story.
Texans get a lot of love this year. Is that
deliberate or is that just how the schedule works out.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, no, they earned it. I mean there's no cho
ways around it. If there was a miss by the
scheduling team last year, you know it was probably the Texans.
It was what zero national television appearances.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Everything, Every game was at one pm, every single regulations.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And the one that was at three o'clock, I think
we moved back to noon like it was. It was
a team that what three or four years in a
row of three or four or wins Like hard to
blame the schedule makers for not seeing them coming. But
that's the kind of thing you always wonder who's this
year's Texans, Who's this year's Lions, And maybe it was
the Texans that early in the process Texans chiefs for
(25:19):
kickoff was absolutely on the table. That would be like
run it back, like you said that Detroit Kansas City
from last year. But maybe even a bigger testament to
our belief in the Texans is not using that Houston
Kansas City game for kickoff. Using it down there in
the Christmas around Robin like that tells you we're banking
on the Texans not to be relevant in story worthy
Week one, but to be relevant and worthy of national
(25:41):
Football National Television Week sixteen and seventeen. There's no flex
for the Saturday and the Wednesday Christmas around Robin. Those
four teams are going to be there. Think you can
count on Baltimore and Kansas City. Mike Tomlinson never had
to lose in season, so you know, the Seals are
going to be there. Houston might have been the you know,
arguably the risk in those four, but I think that
(26:01):
you know, shows our commitment to them maybe more than
putting them in the kickoff. You could have done anything
for kickoff, right nine. Friends could have played the Chiefs
in Week one on kickoff and fans watch it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Could have been.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Chargers, those Harbos first game would have been fun. Could
have been Raiders. We ended up using the Raiders for
Black Friday and Sunday because they played on Christmas last
year and the Raiders went in the ahead and beat them,
so awesome game. Those are the kind of conversations that
go into literally every schedule. Vanilla Chocolate Strawberry landed on
one where yeah, a lot of Texans, you know a
(26:32):
lot of Bears kind of count on Caleb down there.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Obviously, You're you know, Cowboys, Niners, Packers Bears, Bears Lions.
Thanksgiving is an awesome game.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Thanks we started. That's cool for to Bears Texans Sunday
Night a week two. I think that was great fun.
You could have if your predictions a year ago were
Bears Texans Sunday Night Football Week two, people would have
thought you were nuts.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's the NFL. Though I'm a Fox guy. I think
they did very well. A lot of hackers, a lot
of Niners. They have to be very happy it's a
super Bowl year? Do you keep that in consideration that, hey, everything, it's.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Less about the regular season and it's more about as
we head into the postseason. Because you got to know
that four week run to the super Bowl. You want
to make sure that the super Bowl broadcaster is obviously
front of mine. It's not like you have to promote
to something that people wouldn't otherwise find, right, totally. No,
it's the super Bowl and if it's not on Channel two,
then it's on channel four, channel five. People are going
to find the super Bowl. Are they going to find
(27:30):
you know, Black Friday on Amazon? Are they going to
find the Brazil game on Peacock? Those are the things
that you have to really use your marketing and promotional muscle.
For I don't think we have to worry about people
finding the super Bowl. They're going to find it.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Browns hosting Cowboys. Obviously it's Dallas Fox with the static.
They premiered that at their upfront, so straight hand and Brady.
It is an amazing unveiling. Brady has no connection to Cleveland.
Brady has no connection to the Browns. Did that take
in any to me? It's kind of like, all right,
that's a great matchup, but it's certainly not around Brady.
(28:03):
So I would have tried.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Maybe the very early in this problem. I tried to
sell Fox on New England San Francisco for Brady's first
and I thought that would have been pretty fun. They
were not as excited about it.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, the Patriots are bad, but like, that's that's an
exciting Brady story.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
And if you're Fox, if you're Mike Mobilehill and you're
thinking about what's the biggest splash wee can make for
Week one Tom Brady's first game. You know, we've had
this double double header in Week one, which has been
I think really fun for the fans, where you think
about four games every market Week one four games every market.
Week eighteen, great little bookend. But for Fox, it's like,
all right, we got you know, fifteen million people watching, Like, okay,
(28:42):
thanks Tom Brady for all, you know, the effort. You know, Instead,
this way, you take that double doubleheader out a week one,
you move it down to December, and now week one
you kind of go back to what we used to do,
a standalone Nasho exclusive double header. For Fox, the best
way for them to make the biggest splash in week
one is to grab a Cowboys game. So we started
talking pretty early with them about which Cowboys game. Their
(29:04):
stadium's not available week one. They've got what's going on
in Dallas Week one soccer game or something like that.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So Cowboys the road.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
They couldn't go to Pittsburgh because the Pirates are playing
maybe I Love, I Love, but you know, we've got
San Fran in another window that week. They could have
gone to Atlanta. That would have been interesting. Kirk Cousins
first game obviously could have gone to the Giants like
we talked about, but the Giants were really looking for.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
A one of the four thirty.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So you come back around to Cleveland and you're like,
that's a big market it relevant playoff team. A playoff
team with what four different quarterbacks? Ye I saw Deshawnee
was what fourteen for fourteen with a couple of touchdowns. Like,
that's a team that, again we believe is going to
be relevant. Cowboys Browns Week one. I think the fans
(29:49):
are going to care. And for Tom Brady to have
that first game and then for Fox to be able
to tout on Monday morning twenty five, twenty six, twenty
eight million people watch Tom Brady's debut. That's a better
story for Fox and maybe maybe better for us to
take that double double header out of Week one, move
it down into the seven Wavin Magic wand I put
it in week seventeen. I like the idea at seventeen
(30:11):
and eighteen, four games in every market, everybody getting to
watch more for fall awesome games. Seventeen was tough this
year just because of two Wednesday, you know, one Thursday second.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And the four teams being committed were all pretty good,
good teams already.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Here we put in week fifteen. But I feel like
if you're trying to balance the double double header between
CBS and Fox, we've got a pretty good shot at
balancing those two windows after thirteen weeks of football, instead
of heading into Week one where none of us know
what these teams are yet. So is that wrinkle always
trying new stuff and trying to see what the fans like?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Is that Patriots Niners game still a Fox game later
in the schedule or it is a Fox game? Okay?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I don't know that Brady's gonna do it. It depends what
games are, But yeah, it did land on the Fox.
Good okay, because I do.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I do love that too. I love Brady going back
into Foxboro. I think that's kind of cool and sure.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
As they you know, Jacob Allman and the guys set
the production schedule for the year. Obviously, Brady's going to
do the biggest games of the weekend. Of course, he's
going to do Thanksgiving like that's why they hired him,
That's why they're paying them all the money. But I'm
sure if they can find a chance for him to
do a New England game, to do it Tampa Bay game,
I'm sure they're looking for something like that.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Absolutely does like the Cousins signing with Atlanta have any
oomph as like they know that Rogers.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Kind of storyline games Cousins you know, going back to Minnesota, Cousins,
going back to Washington, Like, those are interesting storylines. Maybe
the one game I think I'm more surprised than any
that didn't end up in a national window probably Buffalo Houston.
Like you said, with the Digret and all that kind
of stuff, Like we saw schedules where it was a
Monday night, or we saw schedules where.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
It was where did that end up? That's like a
one o'clock CBS.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Look, we shouldn't dismiss one o'clock any kind of dump.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
You're either doing Nance or iron Eagle. That's still pretty good, and.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
It's still might end up going to sixty five to
seventy percent of the country. CBS and thoughts need good
one o'clock anchors for every week of the season as well.
You can't just put all the good stuff in prime.
So you know, some of those storyline games, like you
could find a one o'clock home for Buffalo Houston, You're
not going to find a one o'clock home for Baltimore Chargers.
For the hardball ball, it's a late window game. It
can't be played at one o'clock, and should it be
(32:16):
in a four to twenty five window and have that
beyond in LA instead of the Cowboys or the Chiefs game.
So finding a primetime home for Baltimore Chargers felt like
the right thing to do, being willing to see a
Minnesota Atlanta or a Buffalo Houston and a one o'clock window. Again,
you tell the computer what you're open to, what you're
willing to see, and then the computer searches this infinite
space and comes back and says, here, so I think
(32:37):
we can best use these two hundred and seventy two assets.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
What do you guys think?
Speaker 3 (32:40):
And then it's just constant iteration back and forth, humans
and computers, humans and computers, until pencils down and the
commissioner says, that's the one butter pick.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, let's go Butterfergain. I obsess over the mock draft
and try my hardest to get as close possible this year.
How to do I did very well, Mike, it did
very well. I would just say number one on the internet.
We're on TV thirteen Direct hits twenty nine to thirty
two first round picks. We'll just leave it at that.
Just dropped them, Mike. You know, it's what we do.
It's worked the scheduling thing. Scheduling picks are throwing darts.
(33:14):
But one thing I thought was that Harball was such
a big success on Thanksgiving night. But I would assume,
and you tell me if I'm wrong. Once he got
the Ravens in the mix for that Christmas Day game,
it was also put them on Thanksgiving evening. Is that true?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
If in retrospect, maybe asking the Ravens to play on
the road on Christmas two years in.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
A row made again because last year Christmas was at Niners, right, which.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And you remember that day like it felt like a
Super Bowl pro Oh my gosh, it's one seeds and
it was gonna be such a big game and it
was gonna be the culmination of this incredible weekend and
it didn't turn out to be.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
It was still a cool game.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
It was, but like the Ravens were rolling right already
had five and Cisco is like, jeesus, these guys are unstoppable,
look hard and fast. Rule that you can't play Thanksgiving Christmas. No,
I'm not sure that's the right thing to do to
the players, to their families. Maybe having both of those
games at home wouldn't be the right thing to do
to the fans asking them to show up on both holidays.
But look, if we're gonna be playing on Christmas now,
(34:16):
and you know, we're playing on Thanksgiving, and we're playing
on you know, Black Friday, and we'll play on New
Year's and we'll play on you know, just about any
holiday they'll give us. It's going to land on the
teams that are good. Right, we put our biggest games
and our biggest windows, and that those holiday tenth polls
have become such good storylines for us and such good
(34:36):
results for our broadcast partners, You're gonna find the good teams,
the teams would think are going to be Playoff relevant
in those bigger windows over and over and over again.
We probably shouldn't put the Ravens on the road on
Christmas again next year, but excited to see what they
do on Christmas this year.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That the playoff schedule to me, like I've talked about
this with you at nauseum, I think there should be
a live television event after the Week eighteen for now,
and it's all the different network executives with all the
lead broadcast crews on a zoom or in person somehow
(35:12):
after their Week eighteen games, And like we do the
NCAA tournament, we dole out play off the side it
because I think a live review, I think that is
such a big deal. And the difference between getting you
know whatever it is the Sunday night game being the team.
Do you hear more from the networks going into the
regular season schedule or are they lobbying that week seventeen
(35:35):
week eighteen time frame, like hey, if we don't get
the Cowboys this year, Like what are we doing here?
What do you hear more from from the networks going
into the season or at the end of the regular
season when the real big dogs in the real primetime
and the real big numbers are lying in the balance.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
The good news with the postseason schedule is that you
can't get a bad game, right, you can't make a
bad decision. All right, maybe you didn't get the Cowboys,
but you know, here's Rams Detroit, or here's Philly Tampa
or whatever it is, Like, you know, there's no bad
games or all our best teams this playoff weekend. You know,
wild card is still a bit of a scattershot. You know,
(36:12):
two Saturday, three Sunday, one Monday. That's a lot of football.
But then once you get to wild card weekend, like
when you get to division weekend, like that's that's maybe
the best weekend of NFL football the whole year, right,
it's the best day teams to Saturday to Sunday. You
can't make a bad decision. So are they lobbying? Are
they making requests? It's usually a chance to kind of,
like you said, maybe you're kind of greasing the runway
(36:34):
for the super Bowl broadcaster. Maybe the super Bowl broadcaster,
you know, is holding the super Bowl at the end,
so maybe they don't need that bigger game on divisional weekend.
They're gonna be just fine. You kind of use it
to maybe pay off a debt. Maybe somebody was down
three to five percent year over year, and hey, here's
a little for something in your stocking. You know, you
get see one of the better playoff games. Maybe there
(36:57):
was a flex scheduling move that we made that didn't
work out, or we didn't make that you would hope
that we did. So you can use those playoff windows
to kind of, you know, make everybody whole, make everybody
feels seen and heard. But you can't make a bad decision.
There are best games. They're monster viewership numbers, Our fans
are interested. We're thinking about things like truck movements. We're
thinking about weather. We got, you know, either lucky or unlucky,
(37:19):
depending on your view last year with the weather, the
freezing cold temperatures.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
The peacock game, twenty three million.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
What do any of us know? So I think the
answer to your question is yes, everybody's lobbying week seventeen eighteen,
wild Card weekend, but we hear more from them this
time of year. This is really more where we got
to get in their heads and really understand. You know,
what is Eric Shanks thinking, What is Rick Cordella thinking?
What is David Burston thinking? Help us understand what your
priorities are, what your you know, key windows are, the
(37:47):
key weeks for you, the key venues for you. Like
nobody gets everything, but everybody gets something. You got to
tell us what your something is so we can then
figure out if we can check a couple of boxes
for you. And judging by their reactions yesterday when they
all got their schedule, I think they all felt heard,
they all felt seen again. We're in a really really
good position in this league. The games are so close,
(38:07):
the teams are so good, young quarterbacks everywhere, like we're
in such a good spot right now. It's it's almost
like you said you could throw darts and whatever schedule
comes out, we're gonna be fine. It's a little more
sophisticated than that. But the only way we get better
is understanding from them what's important to them. So a
lot more conversation kind of February March, April than there
is December January. At that point, you get what you
(38:29):
get and it's all great.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I would imagine most of the teams either acknowledge the
schedule to you or they'll call in and say, hey,
good job. But their job is that, right? Is there
not one person like Patt in the back of man like, hey, Mike,
I know it's a tough deal, and I know that
we don't know.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
The guys who have been in the league for a
long time, they know it's an impossible task, like it's
truly a zero something.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But no one's one hundred percent happy.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
They shouldn't be right. No teams should get everything they want.
No teams should look at their schedule like this is perfect.
You did everything we asked. That's probably not the job here.
But no teams should be how could you This is
completely unfair. We told you this was the one thing
that you've done to us eleven times in the last
fourteen years, and the data supports that it's unfair, and
(39:14):
you did it again. How could you?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Like?
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Those are the calls that we're hoping to avoid. It
would be nice if somebody called and said thank you,
but I'm more worried about somebody calling and saying, you fools.
How could you have done this again? We talked about this,
you know this, and you blew it like. Those are
the calls I dread, Thankfully, They're pretty few and far
between these days. Harder when we were doing it by hand,
hanging one game that we if we've got our minds
(39:38):
right and we've got the computer thinking the way we're thinking,
we really shouldn't have those. This schedule is unfair. Nobody
should believe that on release day, and nobody would say
it right. You never want to tell your fans and
your teams we can't compete because everybody says the same thing.
You tell us when to play, and we'll show up.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
We'll be there.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
We're good, We'll overcome whatever obstacles you put in our way.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I mean the schedule release show becomes this parade of
here are pups, and here we're gona interview over our
and everyone we're gonna be and here's everybody's record. I mean,
I don't I don't take part in that predicting. Our
record in May is amazing. But I think if we're
being honest, one of the one of the things we
don't do is what's a what's the main complaints that?
(40:21):
Like not enough prime like hearing like a team's complaints
like it?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
It depends on who you talk to, right, because you're
in buildings every week, like you know this, if you talk.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
We didn't get enough primetime games. Sometimes the other one
is how could you give us three road games in
a row? Like and what which one do you hear
more from?
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, look, i'll give you a real good example. One
of the teams that was a little disappointed with their
schedule this year was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They have
a few one o'clock Eastern time home games in September
and it is apparently ninety degrees yeah, in September. So
(40:58):
the marketing guy, the ticketing guy, the fan services guy
is like, hey, this is a lot to ask of
our fans to come out and sit in the sunlight.
This But you talk to the head coach and I
suspect he would say, that's our home field advantage. Right.
We've been practicing in this heat throughout training camp. Give
me Buffalo, give yeah, give me those cold weather teams
(41:18):
down often?
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Do you still always give the Patriots fits? In September,
it was like, this is our natural element. They're not
ready for this. This is our home field advantage. So
like always, you know, the football side of the house
and the marketing and revenue side of the house. That's
what this whole puzzle really is. We're trying to, you know,
maximize the viewership and the ratings and the revenue while
minimizing the competitive inequities. And as those two things balance out,
(41:40):
you know, where's that perfect mythical schedule where every team
feels like, you know, they were heard. You know when
when teams react to their schedule initially, when they got
it on Tuesday, it's emotional, it's visceral, it's it's gut reaction.
Let's give them a couple of days, Let's let them
do the digging. Let's let them see the other schedules.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Because they're only reacting to their own Tuesday Wednesday now
that they've seen everybody else's. This is when the phone
starts to ring. Oh you did this to us, but
what you did to them now I feel even worse
or even better about what you did to me. So
give it a couple of days. They're not shy. They'll
find us if there's something we need to think about.
And then it's a conversation with Donna Ponte, our senior
pet book person, Mike Lopez, who runs our analytics team, Like,
(42:21):
those are the guys that are really going to try
to dig in with us and figure out, Hey, is
this something that we shouldn't do next time? Is this
something that really is unfair? Forget the pursuit of ratings
and revenue. You got to make sure that the competitive
equity is first and foremost, player health and safety, fan comfort,
statement availability. Those things really do have to take precedence
over this, you know, relentless pursuit of more eyeballs watching television.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Two more questions, because I think this one leads into
that there are so many analytic models that you guys,
Now have you said it used to be taking hands
on a board and figuring out how you've got simulations
and not that long ago, and I've assumed with AI
there's going to even more help and assistance from how
this thing's going to go. Is there a world where
(43:04):
you wake up this mo or you wake up Wednesday
morning after you reveal it to you and you're like,
you know what really did screw this team over? Where
we didn't as a total blind spot, like we didn't
even think of that? Or has that now been to
the point where like I remember one year, Bay was
seventy one days in a row without being at home
and Bruce arians blew a gasket and we had you
on the show and you're like, well they have a reason, yeah,
(43:27):
reason to be upset, Like it won't happen again. That
stuff kind of still happens.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Is you learn those things, like kind of like we
do with our rules, right when you see something happen
on the field and you need to change what was
it that NFC Championship game, Burda Manuel right, like we
nine because we had something that didn't make sense. If
if we've got something in our schedule that doesn't make sense,
we should change our rules. So hopefully as these things
come up, that are truly unfair, truly onerous. We shouldn't
(43:54):
ever do them again. Now the question becomes, what is
that to your point earlier? You know, some teams looking
they see a three game road trip and they're like,
how could you do that to us? Well, we could
break up your three game road trip by giving you
a home game and third week, but you might have
to host Kansas City. Are you telling me a home
game versus Kansas City and bet better than a road
game against a team that didn't make the playoffs last year.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Road after road Monday, having to play Dallas, coming off
of Dallas's by two, A way to start too, a
way to finish, playing in September in the heat, playing
in Lambeau in the cold? What every team's got a
slightly different reaction to the things that we all think
are competitive inequities. If we could ever truly get you know,
maybe Coach Belichick, now that he's you know, looking for
a gig, maybe he could actually help us. I think
(44:37):
he was playing the parade of horribles and what is
the worst that you could do to somebody versus, Hey,
you worry so much about doing this to somebody and
it doesn't even matter. I hope we're solving for the
right things. And kind of where I think you were
going is. You know, it's one thing to have Howard
Katz here, unbelievably lucky to have him here for the
last fifteen years. I hope we have him here for
the next fifteen years. But can you take Howard Katz's
(44:59):
brain and put it in a box? Can you take
Bill Belichick's brain and put it in a box? Can
you have this AIML super tool, quantum whatever? Taking all
this input in everything, the fans care about everything, the scouts,
the PR directors, the airlines, the hotels, the fans, the
ticket holders. Put it all in a big, just you know,
black box and hit a button and walk away and
(45:21):
come back. And here is the best way for the
two hundred and seventy. That'll be awesome. We're gonna get
there anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
We have humans still involved, and I.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Never want to take the humans out of this process.
There's a lot of gut and feel and emotion about this.
You can't just trust the computers to do it all.
So you guide the computers, right. You put up some constraints,
You put up some guardrails, really hoping to see this
game in a window like this, really not willing to
see that game in a window like this. Let's not
give that team a three game road trip. Let's go
ahead and try to avoid the Taylor Swift concert in Miami.
(45:51):
All of it goes into the big pot and it
just churns and churns and churns. Do we see the
entire infinite solution space? Probably not. Do we see one
tenth of one percent of the solution space? I hope
we got through a little bit more of it. Vanilla
chock at strawberry pick a winner.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Another thing is in November, there's something called the election.
I don't know what you could do from a scheduling
standpoint to combat or compliment election coverage or whatever happens
after the election is decided. Does that have That's what
I'm gonna say. How do you even like every four years,
(46:28):
does that come up? Or is it just like there
was one year where show regardless, there was one year
where ESPN and I'm pretty sure it was Mike Turrico
it was. It was his idea. He asked, could we
get an ESPN Monday Night game in Washington for the election,
and then can we I don't want to say, have
some fun with it, but could we do something, you know,
(46:49):
sense of place and maybe extend halftime by a couple
of minutes and do a news hit. Maybe the candidates
want to come on and have a little debate during halftime.
Look the way this particular election is going to go,
and there's no fun in games.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
There's I don't think we're you know, programming toward it
or programming away from it. There's time and I feel
like sports is a nice escape from all that kind
of stuff. So we were talking a lot about the
Monday night before, the Thursday after, or even gonna know
the winner duringday night?
Speaker 2 (47:16):
What is I don't have it. What is the Monday
night before? What is it? November?
Speaker 3 (47:19):
It would be Monday night before. I'm pretty sure it
is Kansas City. I think it's Bucks Chiefs, a couple
of division winners. And the Thursday after is Cincinnati Baltimore
on Thursday night. Kind of running that one back? Is
we goin to throw you on like that? Since the
Baltimore game last year, she lost Joe Burrow for Amazon,
and we lost Joe so it sucked. Look I don't
think we can avoid the election. We know it's there.
(47:40):
I wonder if maybe people are having a little bit
of fatigue and it's not really gonna have the impact
on you know, our viewership. The previous election year cycles
have had who knows what the world's gonna look like
five months from now. But look, the election is gonna happen.
The country's gonna stay in business, and we're gonna have
somebody in the White House after the election, and there
(48:00):
will still be NFL football on television, including on Netflix
on Christmas.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
There you go. My last question. Taylor swift ovisally a
major rue, but I'm a Billy Joel guy. Did the
Billy Joel Sting Concert Tour play any role on any
scheduling things?
Speaker 3 (48:14):
I'm a huge day there in Vegas. I'm pretty sure,
right Vegas. I think we have Vegas on the road
that weekend.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Look, these venues are you know, expensive and paid often
times with taxpayer dollars, and we're using them ten times
a year, so there's a lot of days in the
year where they need to be available for something else.
To their credit, most of the stadium operators try really
hard to avoid having you know events in their buildings
during our season, not just because it impacts, you know,
(48:42):
our scheduling process and the integrity of the NFL schedule,
but also because it impacts the team. Right you think
about you go to the team and you say, hey,
team president, when you submit your form to the league
office this year, tell them that your stadium's blocked in
weeks fourteen and fifteen. That team president is all but
signing up for a three game road trip totally thirteen
(49:04):
fourteen fifteen or fourteen fifteen on them, and his head
coach is going to kill him. And so you have
to be, like we said, a little bit of revenue,
a little bit of competitive fairness. You got to be
careful about too many stadium blocks because it is going
to have an impact on your team's schedule. And then
you look at a team like you know, Green Bay
who doesn't book anything in their building until after the
(49:26):
Packers schedule comes out.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I'm not sure it's fair that they should get a
three game road trip.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Then yeah, we're we're giving the NFL first DIBs. We
should be rewarded.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Get some giants share a building if they want to
block one weekend. That's going to create a weekend somewhere
where there is going to be you know, Sunday Monday
or Thursday Sunday. And that's a challenge for you know,
everybody who works there. So far, with the Chargers and Rams,
I think there's a Green Day concert in there week two.
So you know that the Rams and Chargers both have
to be on the road week two. If you don't
(49:56):
get them both home in week one, somebody's starting with
a two game road trip. That's what happens when your
building gets blocked. So, yes, you have to have these other,
you know, revenue rating events in your building, but yes,
there's an impact on your football team.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I grew up with Billy Joe Tolliver and Billy Joe
Robudo Billy Joe Armstrong clubusing problems in the NFL schedule
in week two. Interesting, Uh, Mike, you're the man. I
love this. I honestly could do this for two hours,
and I think we have enough open space on the
NFL network where we probably should be doing this for
two hours. Man, what are we doing what? Maybe I
(50:32):
wasn't planning on it until I heard Green Day is
going to be there week two. Now, thanks change for
a weekend a month. How about that. I'm out there
every weekend for Fox. So I get my I get
my packed up.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
The kids head out. West California is the place you
ought to be, buddy. Yes, I've got a laptop and
I still get a laptop.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yeah, I signed it, signed a MacBook Pro, Twitter and
West Coast, good boarding, football really popular topics in my
household these days. On that Uh Mike all.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Good to see you, buddy. And look, you know what
we talk about this in May. Season doesn't even start
for a few months. It's like once the season starts,
we should talk again in like October, like weekend. We'd
love to what did we do that worked? What are
we looking at coming ahead? That you know fans should
be nimble? That's a candidate for flex Or how about
this team coming out of nowhere? God forbid, there's a
quarterback injury. Happy to come on and do this again
(51:23):
and kind of give everybody a sense of what just
happened and what's coming up.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
If you want. I love it's an annual tradition that
I really do cherish and I so appreciate your time.
Fifty minutes on the NFL schedule and I could do
two hours. But Mike, oh, all day, buddy. Go pour
yourself a coffee or bourbon, whatever you do to celebrate.
You did an excellent job as always, and ignore those
calls of what'd you say, the parade of terribles that
I love that term. Ignore them because you did a
(51:48):
wonderful job and you deserve a pat in the back
and share that with your whole team.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
And the team is outstanding. We're really lucky. We talked
a little bit about AI and mL those things are coming.
We're going to need some, you know, really smart people
helping solve a really hard math problem. But you're right,
it's still about the humans. It's still about those players
playing the game. It's still about us fans watching on television.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
You said it best, you said it way back. You
said Howard Katz said it's an art and a science.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
Yeah, art science, and don't lose the art a little
bit more towards the science than the art.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Don't lose the art.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
But don't ever want to give up on a guy
like Howard Katz or Hans Schroeder or Annie Bo's like,
what they think and what they know is real, and
we shouldn't just dismiss that and just always trust the
hardware and the software. There's there's got to be room
for a human element in here. It's human beings playing
the game, coaching the game, calling the games, officiating the games.
It's it's part of why we love sports and don't
ever want to lose that human touch.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
If we can. All Right, you're the best. Thank you.
Good to seeing my friend take care. All Right, that
was awesome. Thanks for listening. If you're in the weeds
like I am, that is just candy. It's so good.
We're gonna do a lot of stuff this offseason. Obviously,
we're going to interview coaches and gms like we do
every off season, and I'll give you my thoughts on
(52:59):
all the NFL things that are happening. But also I
think it's really interesting to to hit New York City,
which is in the middle of a NIS and Rangers run,
which over the next few weeks might extend. Will continue
to keep talking about that, So appreciate everyone listening on
behalf of Aaron Wan Kaufman, Jason English, the entire iHeart
(53:22):
team than everyone with the NFL media side scheduling talk.
That was great. Thanks for listening until next week.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
What's Up Everyone? Cool episode of the season with Peter Schreger.
We're recording this Thursday morning. The NFL schedules came out
Wednesday evening, but the team's got them Tuesday night. And
my guest is one of my favorites. It's Mike North,
the vice president of broadcast Planning. With no further ado,
let's get Mike the bone. Mike, what's up man? Peter?
(00:46):
Good to see you, buddy, good morning, Great to see you.
You and I seem to be texting about the schedule
for over a twelve month period, but we're talking about
if the Jets finishing third and not fourth, the Packers
finishing third and not fourth, does that mean we get
a potential Rogers game? And that's the stuff we do
during the year. And now that the schedule is out
there and it's done and it's been put to bed,
(01:08):
what is the feeling the morning after knowing there are
no chances to be made and this is the schedule
that everyone is going to be dealing with for the
next eight to ten months.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean, that's Honestly, the weirdest part about this.
You know, usually you what work on a big project,
you get instant feedback. You you know, turn in a paper,
you get a grade. Like, we don't even grade it
on this until the season's over, So you're talking eight
months away before anybody even really does the forensics on Hey,
how good was that schedule? So last couple of days,
(01:40):
a lot of you know, initial emotional visceral reaction from
our clubs, from our network partners, always wondering what did
we miss, what could we have done better? Was there
a previous version of this schedule that maybe we had
in our hands on Friday or Saturday, and maybe we
should have played that one instead of the one the
commissioner approved on Monday. It's just a constant sort of rehash, reimagining,
(02:02):
you know, did we pick the right one? When you
get down to the end like this, we've obviously made
some of the big your decision. So we've painted ourselves
into a nice, tidy, little corner. And now it's not
so much as this schedule better than that schedule. It's
just different flavors. So vanilla chop at strawberry, you know,
O Schroeder likes Oreo, likes butter Pecan like pick one somebody,
(02:23):
but always kind of wondering, you know, what could we
have done just a little bit better?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, so you said the commissioner gets a final approval.
I guess on Monday. Is that the timeline, because right
now we're recording this on Thursday morning. The schedule or
is at least Wednesday, I believe, And tell me if
I'm wrong. Tuesday night you told the team, so is
the order of the week. You guys work, you know,
tirelessly for months. You present to the to everybody. There's
(02:49):
back and forth. Goodell checks off like a seal of approval,
and then you guys sell the teams Tuesday and then
the world finds out Wednesday. Is that kind of the time. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
The only thing I would check you on there is
we don't uh check. We don't show the schedule to
anybody except the commissioner. The teams don't see it, the
network don't see and nobody sees it. I know some
of the other sports leaves we've got this weird little
you know, nerd fraternity of all the schedule makers. We
have professional sports leagues, and I know some of those
guys actually send out beta versions of their schedules to
(03:18):
their clubs and say, hey, what do you think of this?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Like a living document, like lets you know I think this.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
They hate it, and everybody's like, well I would change this,
and I would change that, And so you change one
little thing, you change everything. So don't we don't do
a test run, We don't do a beta version. We
just grind and grind and grind. But yet at the
end of the day, Commissioner, we don't do anything in
this league obviously without his approval. We certainly don't put
out the playing schedule.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Checkpoint with him. Haydence is really kind of like weekly
start in early April. Here's kind of what we're thinking
about for prime time. First age box for the big
windows for the holidays, and then more like you know,
bi weekly as we get closer to the end, and
then really down the stretch. It was every day last week,
so he saw again Vanilla Chop and Strawberry different versions. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
(04:06):
sent us home over the weekend, the computers ran all night.
We were on a zoom with Hans Schroeder and the
scheduling team Mother's Day night for about that right, and
then at midnight we drop one in his inbox. Commissioner's
inbox came in Monday, walked him through it. He obviously
approved it, so he liked it. But you know, never perfect.
None of these things are ever perfect. So once you
(04:27):
hit his final blessing on Monday, then the train starts rolling.
Do the paperwork, do the game by game, week by week,
broadcast partners, kickoff times, call the teams on Tuesday. They've
got work to do, obviously, those fabulous social media executions
that they all did, they've got business to do, right,
They've got to do their dynamic pricing, set the costs
of the tickets, get that stuff over to ticketmasters, so
(04:48):
that on Wednesday, Wednesday night, eight pm Eastern, when it
goes live, everything's were ready to go. So Tuesday to
the teams, Wednesday to the broadcast partners, Wednesday night to
the world. But nothing happens without the commissioner's approval on Monday.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Which makes it interesting with those like you know, here's
a scheduling leak. You're here, okay, couple of things to
there's like the myths and the facts, so I know,
and I don't know if this is breaking news. I
said it on McAfee SJA and people were surprised that.
Like when the teams get the schedules from you guys
on Tuesday, it's watermarked with their emails. So if forever
reason they wanted to send it to someone, we've got
(05:24):
your red handed. You're you're the culprit, like your email
specific to the email and it says that person's email
on the schedule, all right, any like scheduling leak that
you would hear from like a week ago, Like there
was rumors that, you know, Cowboys versus Texans on Thanksgiving,
Like that's all bs, because you guys hadn't even come
(05:47):
up together with a schedule yet.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I was watching your guesses for hey, here's that prediction
for week one. Not only were they all wrong, but
we wouldn't know because week one wasn't done yet. Right
in the old days, when we were sitting in that
room that you've seen without pinchback and we're hanging the
tags one at a time, Yeah, week one was done.
You did that a month ago, and now you're just
grinding on, you know, week fourteen, just to finish the
(06:09):
puzzle doesn't work that way anymore. The computers are so smart.
We kind of call it Howard Katz's brain in a box.
We just kind of put everything that's in his mind
into the software program, and it's searching through an infinite
solution space. And it came back today with Baltimore Kansas
City for kickoff. They could come back tomorrow with Chargers
Kansas City for kickoff. Maybe we're gonna use Houston, Kansas
City for kickoff. No, let's use Houston, Kansas City for
(06:32):
the Christmas round robin and just around and around permutations combinations.
It is truly an infinite space and anything could change,
literally right up to the last minute.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So let's get into the nitty griddo of this year's schedule.
The Jets are prominently featured again and up front of
the marrow. Oh well, this is a role. Were they
before Rodgers? I feel like they were definitely last year.
And are the Jets one of these marquite? I think
they have more primetime games than any other team in
the NFL on the schedule, including the Chiefs. Is that true?
(07:05):
I think seven? I think seven.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
We think about they might stand alone windows if you
throw London in there somewhere. But you know, we don't
just think about it in terms of primetime. I know
that's a big thing that everybody goes out there and
talks about, but you can't really talk primetime without also
talking about.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
America's Game of the Week on Fox, which is a
bigger rating sometime. Yeah, yeah, always. I mean, that's our
average highest window.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I think I may have not have this exactly right,
but I think Fox and CBS both average twenty five
million viewers for that four to twenty five double header window,
and I think the gap between the two of them
was like fifteen thousand viewers when the whole thing finished.
Those two Still like, that's our window where we get
more eyeballs than any other. Every now and then you
(07:47):
get something pop on a Sunday night or a Monday
night obviously Thanksgiving, Christmas, you see some thirty thirty five
million numbers, But average day to day, week to week
cadence of the NFL season, that's Sunday four twenty five
windows really where you get the most eyeballs, so that
should count. You may not be in prime, but if
you're in four twenty five, that's maybe even a big
or give to the brand, and I mean even bigger
(08:08):
indication of what we think you're going to be this year.
So here in Sunday afternoons, then you really get a set.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
That's it. So it's seven standalone games in the first
eleven weeks for the Jets.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Oh man, I mean last year from Aaron like that,
anybody who thinks the NFL is scripted, I assure you
that was not was not the way you drew it up.
Are we maybe a little too all in on the
Jets again this year? Look, if he's healthy and they're relevant,
then no, this is the games that you know, our
broadcast partners asked for early in the season, that our
(08:41):
fans want to see. And then you get to the
second half of the season, and if he is healthy
and their playoff relevant, they've got a really good schedule
down the stretch against the Rams, the Bills, the Dolphins,
the Seahawks. Maybe those games move into flexible scheduling windows
or get into a bigger footprint on a Sunday afternoon.
So yeah, maybe a little heavy on the Jets early,
but I think that's a story that everybody's going to
be following this year, and that's what we're to do.
(09:03):
We're here to tell the stories.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Totally. Giants fans were upset. I got a lot oft
Giants fans. My buddy Deetro's text to be are you
having Mike North on tomorrow asking what Giants? Ask them?
What the Giants did wrong? Two Thursday games against the Cowboys?
What do we talk? We just play them on a regular,
(09:25):
regular day when it's not a short at a regular day.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You're playing both Cowboys Giants games on exactly the same rest,
exactly the same situation, two short week thursdays, one in
New York, one in Dallas. That's unfair. Come on, that's unfair.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I don't know. But I also ask about the Giants,
like they're such a unique situation in that they're usually
one of these parocial, stay behind the scenes franchises that like,
we're not going to beat our own chest. Now they're
doing this hundredth year anniversary where it's like marketing power
of the Giants, and they're doing hard knocks and they
want to be out there. I see that you guys
(10:01):
gave them some prominent games. But also I noticed and
I wonder, like do they come to you and say, hey,
that we play the cults, like the greatest game ever
was played this weekend in nineteen fifty eight. Can you
align it up with that? Like is that kind of stuff?
Take it into account where it sounds so in the weed,
So like that's but like there's a big marketing initiative
(10:21):
from a team. They might want to make a big
piece out of this one particular weekend. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Look, you know this, because we've talked about this quite
a lot. It's never as easy to just say, oh well,
just put this game there. What's the problem. It can't
be that hard like it is so to say we're
going to build the schedule around you know, a Coults
Giants game is probably not what's going to happen. But
the big focus for them this year, obviously they're doing
that offseason, show that off season hard. It's gonna be
(10:46):
a lot of attention on them all summer. They were
kind of building toward that week one, you know, start
the hundred season. Can we bring back a whole bunch
of alumni to do that on a Sunday night or
a Monday night changes logistics. Us old guys can't stay
up that late. So you know, they were really looking
for that Sunday one o'clock afternoon home could have been
the Colts. We saw schedules with the Colts, we saw Tampa,
(11:08):
we saw Many. It wasn't one where we said, oh,
it's got to be this team, it's got to be
that week. They were also pretty focused on Germany. You know,
they have Germany as one of their marketing territories. So
once the Panthers signed up, we knew it was going
to be a Panthers game in Germany. You start looking
at the Panther's list of home opponents, which of them
are going to get you know, drafted to go over
(11:29):
to Germany with them. The Giants did raise their hand
for that one. So really did they get locked in
day one? They did not, But were they you know,
serious candidate and easy to consider and thought of it
kind of as a win for the scheduling team if
it landed that way. Yeah, So that that was one
they were volunteering for. Like we said, the Thursday night
early in the season with the Cowboys seems like a
(11:49):
nice give to Amazon. You play it back on Thanksgiving.
Giants Cowboys just sounds like Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
They got a Sunday nighter in there.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
A Monday nighter in there like, Yeah, they're a traditional
national brand, and obviously a lot of attention on the
quarterback coming back from injury and a couple of the
draft pieces they added again a storyline you want to
tell early.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
In the season.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
In the early part of the season, it's storylines, it's
quarterbacks coming back from injuries, it's new coaches, new faces,
and new places. The second half of the season, the
playoff implications.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Tell the matchups. We're not manufacturing anything at that point totally.
And I love the back half of the schedule. I
saw so many good matchups, especially on those Christmas Day games,
which is my next question. Christmas Day games Wednesday football.
So many logistical things to keep in mind with the
days off and the rest, but also how are we
gonna promote this Christmas Day slate and also who's going
(12:42):
to broadcast it? It ends up being Netflix. I don't
know how much you can go into the weeds with this.
Was this months in planning it was going to be Netflix.
Were they late additions to the conversations?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Was months in planning to land on Netflix. It was
months in planning to figure out can we play on
a Wednesday? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
When what took what was the what was the give back?
Because I think a lot of players were like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Answer you to question is the fans have spoken right?
Think about where Christmas has been these last what is it,
two triple headers each to the last two years, for
the last five years we're playing on Christmas. The fans
are there, you know. Last year, I'm pretty sure the
three games on Christmas average something like twenty seven to
twenty eight million viewers. That's monumental numbers. They're there, they
(13:28):
want the games, they expect the games from us. Now,
But it's a Wednesday. We'll figure it out. Well, we
figured it out. We play Sunday to Thursday in this
league all the time. Could we play Saturday to Wednesday.
It's really the same thing. It's a couple of short
weeks back to back Sunday Saturday Wednesday. But it's doable.
So early in the process we kind of figured out
a path to how we could get there. The real
(13:50):
challenge for us was finding the right teams because you're
talking about this little round robin between four teams that
all have to play each other, but they all have
to have one home in one road, and they have
to be four teams that we can think we can
count on here in May, they're going to be playoff
relev and national television worthy seven months from now, like
it's sports.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
God only knows, right.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So, could you've teams that all play each other, one home,
one away, put them on a Saturday and a Wednesday.
We kind of settled in on this AFC North, maybe
AFC North with the team or two. You could throw
Philly in there, You could throw Houston in there. You
can throw Kansas City in there. What's the trickle down
effect on the rest of the broadcast partners if you
do take a couple of Kansas City games out of
the mix like this? So we taught the computer put
(14:34):
these games in here to Saturday to Wednesday round robin go,
but turn them black college instead of all the pretty
colors for all our broadcast partners like we usually do.
Turn them black, take them away from everybody. They could
go anywhere. Now. Once we thought we could do it,
then Hans Schroeder and the business team started reaching out
to the existing and apparently non existing broadcast partners and hey,
(14:56):
who's interested, And thankfully everybody was a really kind of detailed,
drawn out process and really excited to land on something
really historic. We've never had nobody's ever had a global
rights deal like this, one broadcaster, one sports league, truly
global reach. It's gonna be fascinating to see what Netflix
could do. And it's part of the reason we put
(15:17):
the games in the afternoon. By playing at one o'clock
Eastern in the States. Now you're in primetime in other countries,
You're not in the overnight for some big markets.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
For US, Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
On the afternoon for US made for a better global
opportunity for Netflix. And then you back up afternoon on Wednesday.
We probably shouldn't be then playing Saturday night. That's a
short week made shorter, so afternoon Wednesday kind of led
to afternoon Saturday, and that's how we kind of backed
into the time slots. Then which broadcaster we're going to
take them? Yeah, really went down to the wire. There
(15:47):
were a lot of people interested, and it's gonna be
really fascinating to see how this works.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So this was an international play in many ways in that,
and I would assume Netflix has a very wide ranging
international viewership as opposed to maybe some of the linear
traditional broadcast partners. AM I overstepping tradition. I'm sure they
would argue that.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
But yes, look, our traditional linear broadcast partners, when they're
purchasing rights from us, they're purchasing domestic rights, right, That's
what we're selling you A whole other group that goes
out and says, Hey New Zealand, Hey Australia, Hey Germany,
Hey Asia. You know, here's a package of games. This
is the first time we've taken one broadcast partner and
sold them rights on a truly global scale like this.
(16:29):
And I'm not sure I have the numbers right, but
I think I saw maybe two hundred and sixty million
subscribers worldwide. How many of them are going to be
sitting home on Christmas in Hey, a Kansas City Chiefs game,
A Pittsburgh Taylor's game, A lot.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I know those teams. Yeah, yeah, And then I guess
that might be a Hans question how Netflix ended up
being the home for these games. But I have to
imagine when we push back a week extra than we
have usually, that there was some late flurry of action
maybe with you know, there is a weird narrative out
there that week. Is that not true? Or no?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
We put the schedule out on May eleventh last year, Okay,
here came out on May fifteen.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Is that I think. I think it's the upfronts is
what everyone was circling. That parts true, That part's fair,
and usually you have your full schedule before the network
up fronts and.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Give everybody at least one game. So they had a
little something to tease that they're upfronts, that that part's fair.
But look, frankly, I wish they'd give us another month.
Like I said, yeah, I hear woreo butter pecan budge
ripple Like, there's so many possible schedules out there. Is
there one more out there that we just never got
to put our eyes on that Charlotte Charlotte Carey never
got to think about the CBS regional map for Week seven.
(17:39):
It might have been a little bit better. I would
I would take every minute they give us. The solution
space is infinite. I'm not sure we saw, you know,
more than one tenth of one percent of it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The Netflix zeal is that for one year or is
that a multi year thing? Okay, year, they're gonna be uh.
I believe the Home of Christmas Games for two games?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Two games this year, and I think it's at least
one okay, next two years and then still a little
wiggle room for us to figure out. Let's see how
it works. Let's see if they've earned and you know,
the additional windows. Let's see how it you know, fans react.
Let's see about their production. As you hinted at right now,
they don't have a sports production team, so they're gonna
need a producer or a director.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
They're gonna need talent. What are you doing on Christmas? Man?
Then they need an announcer. I'm interested, Uh, figure it out,
that's the question. Though. It's like, is it one of
those deals where you know because it is pe listeners,
if you're listening to my podcast, it's usually pretty well
versed in the stuff because we go in the weeds.
When Amazon launched, Fred Goodelli from NBC played a real
influential role, and when the Thursday night games first came
(18:39):
out on I want to say NFL network part of
those packages where CBS or Fox would assist with the production.
And even when you see those Saturday games on NFL
Network for years, Mark Titleman and Fox was the producer.
And now I think someone at CBS does it I
assume that there's anything with Netflix, right, I would assume,
but it is it? Is it?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Like?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Is it assumed or is that like, hey, Fox?
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Is my knowledge, I wasn't obviously in the room where
did it deals were getting made, But to the best
of my knowledge, Netflix will go out and find you know,
NFL production corew I assume they'll reach out to CBS
and Fox and you know, hey, you're you know, b
C D Cruise. There's really talented people totally all the
way down the roster for those networks. I assume Netflix
(19:23):
will reach out to those guys try to find a
deal there. What I doubt they'll do is just take
the announcers from there. I think there's gonna be some weeks.
I agree unity you know, producer, director, camera guy, sound
guy like, you know, they're the they're the grunt workers,
but they're the ones that actually put it on television totally,
you know, the announcers. I think we could probably try
something a little bit different, But it's.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
A big it's a big it's a big deal totally,
and it's a big deal for Netflix obviously for their
you know, union with the NFL. And I've mentioned it before,
like I think just dipping their toe in the water
with the Quarterback Show and then doing live events with
the golf and they did tennis and they you know
I mentioned on Pat Mcaty yesterday they did a Chris
Rock Live special. They did this Love Is Blind Live special.
(20:03):
Like they've dipped their toe in live events and this
ghost last Sunday. Whether or not it was favorable for
the NFL or favorable for Tom Brady, it was a
major hit and it was live and it was produced
and it was a success. So they've shown they can
do live TV. But like to put on a game,
like you said, has to have the look and field
an NFL game, it also has to have a graphics
package music like this is a major, major deal. And
(20:25):
if Netflix is probably not gonna start from scratch, right,
I assume they're gonna go find somebody to do this
for them who does this for a living.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And again, I think it'll look and sound like NFL
football on your television when you see it. Maybe try
a little something different with you know, the global audience
or the announced team or something like that. But I imagine
they'll end up with you know, an experienced NFL crew
producing the game.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, it's burn one Quist to play by play. You're
gonna have Burt Kreischer the Machine as your analyst, big
Netflix star, and Kevin Hart as your sideline reporter. And
I'm here for it. Look, let's go watch. I would
watch it, all right. The Taylor Swift questions next, which
I'm sure you're getting a lot. Obviously, the Chiefs have
(21:14):
won two Super Bowls in a row. They're looking to
be the first team to threepet in over twenty years.
There's no reason we have to say that Taylor Swift's
the reason the Chiefs are being premiered. My question is,
did you guys keep an account her tour schedule at
offer where where the Chiefs were playing, and if there's
any possibility that maybe they can sync up with their
fall tour.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I only know the tour dates that were impacting NFL stadiums,
So whether it was Miami or New Orleans or wherever
it was where I knew those teams had reached out
to us and said, look, no, we can't block our
stadium for you know, concert tours, but if there's any
way you can find us on the road or on
by this weekend, here's what the load in for the
(21:56):
concert would be. Here's the date, here's the load out.
We'll be ready to play again by Monday or Thursday,
whatever it is. So I only knew the dates that
were truly impacting our schedule. I have since heard or
somebody sent it to me on social that she's in Toronto.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yes, the same weekend. Do you guys play coming to Flow?
I assure you that was non intense. It's funny.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
It's one of the things actually, Holland Schroeder when he
kind of came into the room and we're grinding through
thousands and thousands and you know, Vanilla chop at Strawberry,
one of the things he was really focused on was,
you know, the we've settled kind of early that Kansas
City was probably going to be part of this round
robin for the Chris that takes Kansas City off the
table for CBS for week sixteen and seventeen. We know,
(22:42):
we get the TVD. We wanted a Kansas City Chiefs
game on NBC Sunday Night Football in December. That's sort
of how we edge against flexible scheduling. Put a Dallas game,
put a Kansas City game, put a Green Bay game
in December. We wanted Kansas City for Black Friday because
Amazon is so focused on continuing to you know, change
consumer behavior and change the idea of Black Friday into
(23:03):
a real national holiday, and so nothing moves to needle
right now like Kansas City. So you think about how
we're deploying Kansas City week thirteen, fifteen, sixteen seventeen, Where
exactly is CBS going to get their city doubleheader game?
And this Buffalo Kansas City game that we know is
one of the most anticipated games.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Of the year. And I picture in Nanson Romo calling
thirty of their games.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, so last year it was Cincy Kansas City. We
saved it all the way to week seventeen. Hey, this
is going to be great, the one seed in the
AFC on the line, and we didn't get there. Borough
got hurt. It was still a good game, it still
did a good rating, but we waited too long to
quote deploy that asset. So one of the things Hans
was really looking for every time he looked at a
schedule was how late could we get that Buffalo Kansas
City game? Can we can we get it all the
(23:46):
way to week eleven or week twelve? So at least
it's not gone too early or we waited too long,
and once it kind of settled in a week eleven,
we felt like that was a good sort of folcrum
for the middle of the schedule. That buffcase hanging out
there week eleven. I assure you, I did not know
Taylor was in Toronto that way.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Sometimes sometimes the scheduling gods and the music tour gods
were out in mysterious ways. That's what we're learning. And
if she's there again, great, Okay. So that's the chief
thing the Texans get that. I'm going to say the
Lions situation from last year and that they were the
hot team. Everyone fell in love with them. At the
end of the season. I thought CJ. Stroud was magnificent
(24:24):
in that Cleveland playoff game. And also it's just a
lovely team to follow this offseason, and then they made
big deals getting Digs and Hunter and they really went
all in last year. You guys put the Lions on
a lot and it turned out to be the right decision.
You guys looked very smart because the Lions were the story.
Texans get a lot of love this year. Is that
deliberate or is that just how the schedule works out.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, no, they earned it. I mean there's no cho
ways around it. If there was a miss by the
scheduling team last year, you know it was probably the Texans.
It was what zero national television appearances.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Everything, Every game was at one pm, every single regulations.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And the one that was at three o'clock, I think
we moved back to noon like it was. It was
a team that what three or four years in a
row of three or four or wins Like hard to
blame the schedule makers for not seeing them coming. But
that's the kind of thing you always wonder who's this
year's Texans, Who's this year's Lions, And maybe it was
the Texans that early in the process Texans chiefs for
(25:19):
kickoff was absolutely on the table. That would be like
run it back, like you said that Detroit Kansas City
from last year. But maybe even a bigger testament to
our belief in the Texans is not using that Houston
Kansas City game for kickoff. Using it down there in
the Christmas around Robin like that tells you we're banking
on the Texans not to be relevant in story worthy
Week one, but to be relevant and worthy of national
(25:41):
Football National Television Week sixteen and seventeen. There's no flex
for the Saturday and the Wednesday Christmas around Robin. Those
four teams are going to be there. Think you can
count on Baltimore and Kansas City. Mike Tomlinson never had
to lose in season, so you know, the Seals are
going to be there. Houston might have been the you know,
arguably the risk in those four, but I think that
(26:01):
you know, shows our commitment to them maybe more than
putting them in the kickoff. You could have done anything
for kickoff, right nine. Friends could have played the Chiefs
in Week one on kickoff and fans watch it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Could have been.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Chargers, those Harbos first game would have been fun. Could
have been Raiders. We ended up using the Raiders for
Black Friday and Sunday because they played on Christmas last
year and the Raiders went in the ahead and beat them,
so awesome game. Those are the kind of conversations that
go into literally every schedule. Vanilla Chocolate Strawberry landed on
one where yeah, a lot of Texans, you know a
(26:32):
lot of Bears kind of count on Caleb down there.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Obviously, You're you know, Cowboys, Niners, Packers Bears, Bears Lions.
Thanksgiving is an awesome game.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Thanks we started. That's cool for to Bears Texans Sunday
Night a week two. I think that was great fun.
You could have if your predictions a year ago were
Bears Texans Sunday Night Football Week two, people would have
thought you were nuts.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's the NFL. Though I'm a Fox guy. I think
they did very well. A lot of hackers, a lot
of Niners. They have to be very happy it's a
super Bowl year? Do you keep that in consideration that, hey, everything, it's.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Less about the regular season and it's more about as
we head into the postseason. Because you got to know
that four week run to the super Bowl. You want
to make sure that the super Bowl broadcaster is obviously
front of mine. It's not like you have to promote
to something that people wouldn't otherwise find, right, totally. No,
it's the super Bowl and if it's not on Channel two,
then it's on channel four, channel five. People are going
to find the super Bowl. Are they going to find
(27:30):
you know, Black Friday on Amazon? Are they going to
find the Brazil game on Peacock? Those are the things
that you have to really use your marketing and promotional muscle.
For I don't think we have to worry about people
finding the super Bowl. They're going to find it.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Browns hosting Cowboys. Obviously it's Dallas Fox with the static.
They premiered that at their upfront, so straight hand and Brady.
It is an amazing unveiling. Brady has no connection to Cleveland.
Brady has no connection to the Browns. Did that take
in any to me? It's kind of like, all right,
that's a great matchup, but it's certainly not around Brady.
(28:03):
So I would have tried.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Maybe the very early in this problem. I tried to
sell Fox on New England San Francisco for Brady's first
and I thought that would have been pretty fun. They
were not as excited about it.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, the Patriots are bad, but like, that's that's an
exciting Brady story.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
And if you're Fox, if you're Mike Mobilehill and you're
thinking about what's the biggest splash wee can make for
Week one Tom Brady's first game. You know, we've had
this double double header in Week one, which has been
I think really fun for the fans, where you think
about four games every market Week one four games every market.
Week eighteen, great little bookend. But for Fox, it's like,
all right, we got you know, fifteen million people watching, Like, okay,
(28:42):
thanks Tom Brady for all, you know, the effort. You know, Instead,
this way, you take that double doubleheader out a week one,
you move it down to December, and now week one
you kind of go back to what we used to do,
a standalone Nasho exclusive double header. For Fox, the best
way for them to make the biggest splash in week
one is to grab a Cowboys game. So we started
talking pretty early with them about which Cowboys game. Their
(29:04):
stadium's not available week one. They've got what's going on
in Dallas Week one soccer game or something like that.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So Cowboys the road.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
They couldn't go to Pittsburgh because the Pirates are playing
maybe I Love, I Love, but you know, we've got
San Fran in another window that week. They could have
gone to Atlanta. That would have been interesting. Kirk Cousins
first game obviously could have gone to the Giants like
we talked about, but the Giants were really looking for.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
A one of the four thirty.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So you come back around to Cleveland and you're like,
that's a big market it relevant playoff team. A playoff
team with what four different quarterbacks? Ye I saw Deshawnee
was what fourteen for fourteen with a couple of touchdowns. Like,
that's a team that, again we believe is going to
be relevant. Cowboys Browns Week one. I think the fans
(29:49):
are going to care. And for Tom Brady to have
that first game and then for Fox to be able
to tout on Monday morning twenty five, twenty six, twenty
eight million people watch Tom Brady's debut. That's a better
story for Fox and maybe maybe better for us to
take that double double header out of Week one, move
it down into the seven Wavin Magic wand I put
it in week seventeen. I like the idea at seventeen
(30:11):
and eighteen, four games in every market, everybody getting to
watch more for fall awesome games. Seventeen was tough this
year just because of two Wednesday, you know, one Thursday second.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And the four teams being committed were all pretty good,
good teams already.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Here we put in week fifteen. But I feel like
if you're trying to balance the double double header between
CBS and Fox, we've got a pretty good shot at
balancing those two windows after thirteen weeks of football, instead
of heading into Week one where none of us know
what these teams are yet. So is that wrinkle always
trying new stuff and trying to see what the fans like?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Is that Patriots Niners game still a Fox game later
in the schedule or it is a Fox game? Okay?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I don't know that Brady's gonna do it. It depends what
games are, But yeah, it did land on the Fox.
Good okay, because I do.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I do love that too. I love Brady going back
into Foxboro. I think that's kind of cool and sure.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
As they you know, Jacob Allman and the guys set
the production schedule for the year. Obviously, Brady's going to
do the biggest games of the weekend. Of course, he's
going to do Thanksgiving like that's why they hired him,
That's why they're paying them all the money. But I'm
sure if they can find a chance for him to
do a New England game, to do it Tampa Bay game,
I'm sure they're looking for something like that.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Absolutely does like the Cousins signing with Atlanta have any
oomph as like they know that Rogers.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Kind of storyline games Cousins you know, going back to Minnesota, Cousins,
going back to Washington, Like, those are interesting storylines. Maybe
the one game I think I'm more surprised than any
that didn't end up in a national window probably Buffalo Houston.
Like you said, with the Digret and all that kind
of stuff, Like we saw schedules where it was a
Monday night, or we saw schedules where.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
It was where did that end up? That's like a
one o'clock CBS.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Look, we shouldn't dismiss one o'clock any kind of dump.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
You're either doing Nance or iron Eagle. That's still pretty good, and.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
It's still might end up going to sixty five to
seventy percent of the country. CBS and thoughts need good
one o'clock anchors for every week of the season as well.
You can't just put all the good stuff in prime.
So you know, some of those storyline games, like you
could find a one o'clock home for Buffalo Houston, You're
not going to find a one o'clock home for Baltimore Chargers.
For the hardball ball, it's a late window game. It
can't be played at one o'clock, and should it be
(32:16):
in a four to twenty five window and have that
beyond in LA instead of the Cowboys or the Chiefs game.
So finding a primetime home for Baltimore Chargers felt like
the right thing to do, being willing to see a
Minnesota Atlanta or a Buffalo Houston and a one o'clock window. Again,
you tell the computer what you're open to, what you're
willing to see, and then the computer searches this infinite
space and comes back and says, here, so I think
(32:37):
we can best use these two hundred and seventy two assets.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
What do you guys think?
Speaker 3 (32:40):
And then it's just constant iteration back and forth, humans
and computers, humans and computers, until pencils down and the
commissioner says, that's the one butter pick.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, let's go Butterfergain. I obsess over the mock draft
and try my hardest to get as close possible this year.
How to do I did very well, Mike, it did
very well. I would just say number one on the internet.
We're on TV thirteen Direct hits twenty nine to thirty
two first round picks. We'll just leave it at that.
Just dropped them, Mike. You know, it's what we do.
It's worked the scheduling thing. Scheduling picks are throwing darts.
(33:14):
But one thing I thought was that Harball was such
a big success on Thanksgiving night. But I would assume,
and you tell me if I'm wrong. Once he got
the Ravens in the mix for that Christmas Day game,
it was also put them on Thanksgiving evening. Is that true?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
If in retrospect, maybe asking the Ravens to play on
the road on Christmas two years in.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
A row made again because last year Christmas was at Niners, right, which.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And you remember that day like it felt like a
Super Bowl pro Oh my gosh, it's one seeds and
it was gonna be such a big game and it
was gonna be the culmination of this incredible weekend and
it didn't turn out to be.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
It was still a cool game.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
It was, but like the Ravens were rolling right already
had five and Cisco is like, jeesus, these guys are unstoppable,
look hard and fast. Rule that you can't play Thanksgiving Christmas. No,
I'm not sure that's the right thing to do to
the players, to their families. Maybe having both of those
games at home wouldn't be the right thing to do
to the fans asking them to show up on both holidays.
But look, if we're gonna be playing on Christmas now,
(34:16):
and you know, we're playing on Thanksgiving, and we're playing
on you know, Black Friday, and we'll play on New
Year's and we'll play on you know, just about any
holiday they'll give us. It's going to land on the
teams that are good. Right, we put our biggest games
and our biggest windows, and that those holiday tenth polls
have become such good storylines for us and such good
(34:36):
results for our broadcast partners, You're gonna find the good teams,
the teams would think are going to be Playoff relevant
in those bigger windows over and over and over again.
We probably shouldn't put the Ravens on the road on
Christmas again next year, but excited to see what they
do on Christmas this year.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That the playoff schedule to me, like I've talked about
this with you at nauseum, I think there should be
a live television event after the Week eighteen for now,
and it's all the different network executives with all the
lead broadcast crews on a zoom or in person somehow
(35:12):
after their Week eighteen games, And like we do the
NCAA tournament, we dole out play off the side it
because I think a live review, I think that is
such a big deal. And the difference between getting you
know whatever it is the Sunday night game being the team.
Do you hear more from the networks going into the
regular season schedule or are they lobbying that week seventeen
(35:35):
week eighteen time frame, like hey, if we don't get
the Cowboys this year, Like what are we doing here?
What do you hear more from from the networks going
into the season or at the end of the regular
season when the real big dogs in the real primetime
and the real big numbers are lying in the balance.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
The good news with the postseason schedule is that you
can't get a bad game, right, you can't make a
bad decision. All right, maybe you didn't get the Cowboys,
but you know, here's Rams Detroit, or here's Philly Tampa
or whatever it is, Like, you know, there's no bad
games or all our best teams this playoff weekend. You know,
wild card is still a bit of a scattershot. You know,
(36:12):
two Saturday, three Sunday, one Monday. That's a lot of football.
But then once you get to wild card weekend, like
when you get to division weekend, like that's that's maybe
the best weekend of NFL football the whole year, right,
it's the best day teams to Saturday to Sunday. You
can't make a bad decision. So are they lobbying? Are
they making requests? It's usually a chance to kind of,
like you said, maybe you're kind of greasing the runway
(36:34):
for the super Bowl broadcaster. Maybe the super Bowl broadcaster,
you know, is holding the super Bowl at the end,
so maybe they don't need that bigger game on divisional weekend.
They're gonna be just fine. You kind of use it
to maybe pay off a debt. Maybe somebody was down
three to five percent year over year, and hey, here's
a little for something in your stocking. You know, you
get see one of the better playoff games. Maybe there
(36:57):
was a flex scheduling move that we made that didn't
work out, or we didn't make that you would hope
that we did. So you can use those playoff windows
to kind of, you know, make everybody whole, make everybody
feels seen and heard. But you can't make a bad decision.
There are best games. They're monster viewership numbers, Our fans
are interested. We're thinking about things like truck movements. We're
thinking about weather. We got, you know, either lucky or unlucky,
(37:19):
depending on your view last year with the weather, the
freezing cold temperatures.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
The peacock game, twenty three million.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
What do any of us know? So I think the
answer to your question is yes, everybody's lobbying week seventeen eighteen,
wild Card weekend, but we hear more from them this
time of year. This is really more where we got
to get in their heads and really understand. You know,
what is Eric Shanks thinking, What is Rick Cordella thinking?
What is David Burston thinking? Help us understand what your
priorities are, what your you know, key windows are, the
(37:47):
key weeks for you, the key venues for you. Like
nobody gets everything, but everybody gets something. You got to
tell us what your something is so we can then
figure out if we can check a couple of boxes
for you. And judging by their reactions yesterday when they
all got their schedule, I think they all felt heard,
they all felt seen again. We're in a really really
good position in this league. The games are so close,
(38:07):
the teams are so good, young quarterbacks everywhere, like we're
in such a good spot right now. It's it's almost
like you said you could throw darts and whatever schedule
comes out, we're gonna be fine. It's a little more
sophisticated than that. But the only way we get better
is understanding from them what's important to them. So a
lot more conversation kind of February March, April than there
is December January. At that point, you get what you
(38:29):
get and it's all great.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I would imagine most of the teams either acknowledge the
schedule to you or they'll call in and say, hey,
good job. But their job is that, right? Is there
not one person like Patt in the back of man like, hey, Mike,
I know it's a tough deal, and I know that
we don't know.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
The guys who have been in the league for a
long time, they know it's an impossible task, like it's
truly a zero something.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But no one's one hundred percent happy.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
They shouldn't be right. No teams should get everything they want.
No teams should look at their schedule like this is perfect.
You did everything we asked. That's probably not the job here.
But no teams should be how could you This is
completely unfair. We told you this was the one thing
that you've done to us eleven times in the last
fourteen years, and the data supports that it's unfair, and
(39:14):
you did it again. How could you?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Like?
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Those are the calls that we're hoping to avoid. It
would be nice if somebody called and said thank you,
but I'm more worried about somebody calling and saying, you fools.
How could you have done this again? We talked about this,
you know this, and you blew it like. Those are
the calls I dread, Thankfully, They're pretty few and far
between these days. Harder when we were doing it by hand,
hanging one game that we if we've got our minds
(39:38):
right and we've got the computer thinking the way we're thinking,
we really shouldn't have those. This schedule is unfair. Nobody
should believe that on release day, and nobody would say
it right. You never want to tell your fans and
your teams we can't compete because everybody says the same thing.
You tell us when to play, and we'll show up.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
We'll be there.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
We're good, We'll overcome whatever obstacles you put in our way.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I mean the schedule release show becomes this parade of
here are pups, and here we're gona interview over our
and everyone we're gonna be and here's everybody's record. I mean,
I don't I don't take part in that predicting. Our
record in May is amazing. But I think if we're
being honest, one of the one of the things we
don't do is what's a what's the main complaints that?
(40:21):
Like not enough prime like hearing like a team's complaints
like it?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
It depends on who you talk to, right, because you're
in buildings every week, like you know this, if you talk.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
We didn't get enough primetime games. Sometimes the other one
is how could you give us three road games in
a row? Like and what which one do you hear
more from?
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, look, i'll give you a real good example. One
of the teams that was a little disappointed with their
schedule this year was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They have
a few one o'clock Eastern time home games in September
and it is apparently ninety degrees yeah, in September. So
(40:58):
the marketing guy, the ticketing guy, the fan services guy
is like, hey, this is a lot to ask of
our fans to come out and sit in the sunlight.
This But you talk to the head coach and I
suspect he would say, that's our home field advantage. Right.
We've been practicing in this heat throughout training camp. Give
me Buffalo, give yeah, give me those cold weather teams
(41:18):
down often?
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Do you still always give the Patriots fits? In September,
it was like, this is our natural element. They're not
ready for this. This is our home field advantage. So
like always, you know, the football side of the house
and the marketing and revenue side of the house. That's
what this whole puzzle really is. We're trying to, you know,
maximize the viewership and the ratings and the revenue while
minimizing the competitive inequities. And as those two things balance out,
(41:40):
you know, where's that perfect mythical schedule where every team
feels like, you know, they were heard. You know when
when teams react to their schedule initially, when they got
it on Tuesday, it's emotional, it's visceral, it's it's gut reaction.
Let's give them a couple of days, Let's let them
do the digging. Let's let them see the other schedules.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Because they're only reacting to their own Tuesday Wednesday now
that they've seen everybody else's. This is when the phone
starts to ring. Oh you did this to us, but
what you did to them now I feel even worse
or even better about what you did to me. So
give it a couple of days. They're not shy. They'll
find us if there's something we need to think about.
And then it's a conversation with Donna Ponte, our senior
pet book person, Mike Lopez, who runs our analytics team, Like,
(42:21):
those are the guys that are really going to try
to dig in with us and figure out, Hey, is
this something that we shouldn't do next time? Is this
something that really is unfair? Forget the pursuit of ratings
and revenue. You got to make sure that the competitive
equity is first and foremost, player health and safety, fan comfort,
statement availability. Those things really do have to take precedence
over this, you know, relentless pursuit of more eyeballs watching television.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Two more questions, because I think this one leads into
that there are so many analytic models that you guys,
Now have you said it used to be taking hands
on a board and figuring out how you've got simulations
and not that long ago, and I've assumed with AI
there's going to even more help and assistance from how
this thing's going to go. Is there a world where
(43:04):
you wake up this mo or you wake up Wednesday
morning after you reveal it to you and you're like,
you know what really did screw this team over? Where
we didn't as a total blind spot, like we didn't
even think of that? Or has that now been to
the point where like I remember one year, Bay was
seventy one days in a row without being at home
and Bruce arians blew a gasket and we had you
on the show and you're like, well they have a reason, yeah,
(43:27):
reason to be upset, Like it won't happen again. That
stuff kind of still happens.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Is you learn those things, like kind of like we
do with our rules, right when you see something happen
on the field and you need to change what was
it that NFC Championship game, Burda Manuel right, like we
nine because we had something that didn't make sense. If
if we've got something in our schedule that doesn't make sense,
we should change our rules. So hopefully as these things
come up, that are truly unfair, truly onerous. We shouldn't
(43:54):
ever do them again. Now the question becomes, what is
that to your point earlier? You know, some teams looking
they see a three game road trip and they're like,
how could you do that to us? Well, we could
break up your three game road trip by giving you
a home game and third week, but you might have
to host Kansas City. Are you telling me a home
game versus Kansas City and bet better than a road
game against a team that didn't make the playoffs last year.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Road after road Monday, having to play Dallas, coming off
of Dallas's by two, A way to start too, a
way to finish, playing in September in the heat, playing
in Lambeau in the cold? What every team's got a
slightly different reaction to the things that we all think
are competitive inequities. If we could ever truly get you know,
maybe Coach Belichick, now that he's you know, looking for
a gig, maybe he could actually help us. I think
(44:37):
he was playing the parade of horribles and what is
the worst that you could do to somebody versus, Hey,
you worry so much about doing this to somebody and
it doesn't even matter. I hope we're solving for the
right things. And kind of where I think you were
going is. You know, it's one thing to have Howard
Katz here, unbelievably lucky to have him here for the
last fifteen years. I hope we have him here for
the next fifteen years. But can you take Howard Katz's
(44:59):
brain and put it in a box? Can you take
Bill Belichick's brain and put it in a box? Can
you have this AIML super tool, quantum whatever? Taking all
this input in everything, the fans care about everything, the scouts,
the PR directors, the airlines, the hotels, the fans, the
ticket holders. Put it all in a big, just you know,
black box and hit a button and walk away and
(45:21):
come back. And here is the best way for the
two hundred and seventy. That'll be awesome. We're gonna get
there anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
We have humans still involved, and I.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Never want to take the humans out of this process.
There's a lot of gut and feel and emotion about this.
You can't just trust the computers to do it all.
So you guide the computers, right. You put up some constraints,
You put up some guardrails, really hoping to see this
game in a window like this, really not willing to
see that game in a window like this. Let's not
give that team a three game road trip. Let's go
ahead and try to avoid the Taylor Swift concert in Miami.
(45:51):
All of it goes into the big pot and it
just churns and churns and churns. Do we see the
entire infinite solution space? Probably not. Do we see one
tenth of one percent of the solution space? I hope
we got through a little bit more of it. Vanilla
chock at strawberry pick a winner.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Another thing is in November, there's something called the election.
I don't know what you could do from a scheduling
standpoint to combat or compliment election coverage or whatever happens
after the election is decided. Does that have That's what
I'm gonna say. How do you even like every four years,
(46:28):
does that come up? Or is it just like there
was one year where show regardless, there was one year
where ESPN and I'm pretty sure it was Mike Turrico
it was. It was his idea. He asked, could we
get an ESPN Monday Night game in Washington for the election,
and then can we I don't want to say, have
some fun with it, but could we do something, you know,
(46:49):
sense of place and maybe extend halftime by a couple
of minutes and do a news hit. Maybe the candidates
want to come on and have a little debate during halftime.
Look the way this particular election is going to go,
and there's no fun in games.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
There's I don't think we're you know, programming toward it
or programming away from it. There's time and I feel
like sports is a nice escape from all that kind
of stuff. So we were talking a lot about the
Monday night before, the Thursday after, or even gonna know
the winner duringday night?
Speaker 2 (47:16):
What is I don't have it. What is the Monday
night before? What is it? November?
Speaker 3 (47:19):
It would be Monday night before. I'm pretty sure it
is Kansas City. I think it's Bucks Chiefs, a couple
of division winners. And the Thursday after is Cincinnati Baltimore
on Thursday night. Kind of running that one back? Is
we goin to throw you on like that? Since the
Baltimore game last year, she lost Joe Burrow for Amazon,
and we lost Joe so it sucked. Look I don't
think we can avoid the election. We know it's there.
(47:40):
I wonder if maybe people are having a little bit
of fatigue and it's not really gonna have the impact
on you know, our viewership. The previous election year cycles
have had who knows what the world's gonna look like
five months from now. But look, the election is gonna happen.
The country's gonna stay in business, and we're gonna have
somebody in the White House after the election, and there
(48:00):
will still be NFL football on television, including on Netflix
on Christmas.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
There you go. My last question. Taylor swift ovisally a
major rue, but I'm a Billy Joel guy. Did the
Billy Joel Sting Concert Tour play any role on any
scheduling things?
Speaker 3 (48:14):
I'm a huge day there in Vegas. I'm pretty sure,
right Vegas. I think we have Vegas on the road
that weekend.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Look, these venues are you know, expensive and paid often
times with taxpayer dollars, and we're using them ten times
a year, so there's a lot of days in the
year where they need to be available for something else.
To their credit, most of the stadium operators try really
hard to avoid having you know events in their buildings
during our season, not just because it impacts, you know,
(48:42):
our scheduling process and the integrity of the NFL schedule,
but also because it impacts the team. Right you think
about you go to the team and you say, hey,
team president, when you submit your form to the league
office this year, tell them that your stadium's blocked in
weeks fourteen and fifteen. That team president is all but
signing up for a three game road trip totally thirteen
(49:04):
fourteen fifteen or fourteen fifteen on them, and his head
coach is going to kill him. And so you have
to be, like we said, a little bit of revenue,
a little bit of competitive fairness. You got to be
careful about too many stadium blocks because it is going
to have an impact on your team's schedule. And then
you look at a team like you know, Green Bay
who doesn't book anything in their building until after the
(49:26):
Packers schedule comes out.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I'm not sure it's fair that they should get a
three game road trip.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Then yeah, we're we're giving the NFL first DIBs. We
should be rewarded.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Get some giants share a building if they want to
block one weekend. That's going to create a weekend somewhere
where there is going to be you know, Sunday Monday
or Thursday Sunday. And that's a challenge for you know,
everybody who works there. So far, with the Chargers and Rams,
I think there's a Green Day concert in there week two.
So you know that the Rams and Chargers both have
to be on the road week two. If you don't
(49:56):
get them both home in week one, somebody's starting with
a two game road trip. That's what happens when your
building gets blocked. So, yes, you have to have these other,
you know, revenue rating events in your building, but yes,
there's an impact on your football team.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I grew up with Billy Joe Tolliver and Billy Joe
Robudo Billy Joe Armstrong clubusing problems in the NFL schedule
in week two. Interesting, Uh, Mike, you're the man. I
love this. I honestly could do this for two hours,
and I think we have enough open space on the
NFL network where we probably should be doing this for
two hours. Man, what are we doing what? Maybe I
(50:32):
wasn't planning on it until I heard Green Day is
going to be there week two. Now, thanks change for
a weekend a month. How about that. I'm out there
every weekend for Fox. So I get my I get
my packed up.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
The kids head out. West California is the place you
ought to be, buddy. Yes, I've got a laptop and
I still get a laptop.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yeah, I signed it, signed a MacBook Pro, Twitter and
West Coast, good boarding, football really popular topics in my
household these days. On that Uh Mike all.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Good to see you, buddy. And look, you know what
we talk about this in May. Season doesn't even start
for a few months. It's like once the season starts,
we should talk again in like October, like weekend. We'd
love to what did we do that worked? What are
we looking at coming ahead? That you know fans should
be nimble? That's a candidate for flex Or how about
this team coming out of nowhere? God forbid, there's a
quarterback injury. Happy to come on and do this again
(51:23):
and kind of give everybody a sense of what just
happened and what's coming up.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
If you want. I love it's an annual tradition that
I really do cherish and I so appreciate your time.
Fifty minutes on the NFL schedule and I could do
two hours. But Mike, oh, all day, buddy. Go pour
yourself a coffee or bourbon, whatever you do to celebrate.
You did an excellent job as always, and ignore those
calls of what'd you say, the parade of terribles that
I love that term. Ignore them because you did a
(51:48):
wonderful job and you deserve a pat in the back
and share that with your whole team.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
And the team is outstanding. We're really lucky. We talked
a little bit about AI and mL those things are coming.
We're going to need some, you know, really smart people
helping solve a really hard math problem. But you're right,
it's still about the humans. It's still about those players
playing the game. It's still about us fans watching on television.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
You said it best, you said it way back. You
said Howard Katz said it's an art and a science.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
Yeah, art science, and don't lose the art a little
bit more towards the science than the art.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Don't lose the art.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
But don't ever want to give up on a guy
like Howard Katz or Hans Schroeder or Annie Bo's like,
what they think and what they know is real, and
we shouldn't just dismiss that and just always trust the
hardware and the software. There's there's got to be room
for a human element in here. It's human beings playing
the game, coaching the game, calling the games, officiating the games.
It's it's part of why we love sports and don't
ever want to lose that human touch.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
If we can. All Right, you're the best. Thank you.
Good to seeing my friend take care. All Right, that
was awesome. Thanks for listening. If you're in the weeds
like I am, that is just candy. It's so good.
We're gonna do a lot of stuff this offseason. Obviously,
we're going to interview coaches and gms like we do
every off season, and I'll give you my thoughts on
(52:59):
all the NFL things that are happening. But also I
think it's really interesting to to hit New York City,
which is in the middle of a NIS and Rangers run,
which over the next few weeks might extend. Will continue
to keep talking about that, So appreciate everyone listening on
behalf of Aaron Wan Kaufman, Jason English, the entire iHeart
(53:22):
team than everyone with the NFL media side scheduling talk.
That was great. Thanks for listening until next week.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
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