The Season with Peter Schrager: Crafting the 2024 Season Schedule with Mike North, NFL VP of Broadcast Planning

Published May 16, 2024, 4:18 PM

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.

The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio.

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? 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, 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.

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, 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, 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, but always kind of wondering, you know, what could we have done just a little bit better?

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 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.

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 their clubs and say, hey, what do you think of this?

Like a living document, like lets you know I think this.

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.

So kind of.

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, 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 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 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.

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 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 up together with a schedule yet.

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 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 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.

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? I think seven? I think seven.

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.

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.

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 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 indication of what we think you're going to be this year. So here in Sunday afternoons, then you really get a set.

That's it. So it's seven standalone games in the first eleven weeks for the Jets.

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 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. We're here to tell the stories.

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, regular day when it's not a short at a regular day.

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.

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 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 from a team. They might want to make a big piece out of this one particular weekend. Yeah.

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 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, 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 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 nice give to Amazon. You play it back on Thanksgiving. Giants Cowboys just sounds like Thanksgiving.

They got a Sunday nighter in there.

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.

In the season.

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.

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 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?

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.

When what took what was the what was the give back? Because I think a lot of players were like, yeah.

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 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 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.

God only knows, right.

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 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, 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 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.

For US, Oh that's interesting.

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 were a lot of people interested, and it's gonna be really fascinating to see how this works.

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.

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. 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.

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?

We put the schedule out on May eleventh last year, Okay, here came out on May fifteen.

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.

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. 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.

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?

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.

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 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?

Like?

Is it assumed or is that like, hey, Fox?

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 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.

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. 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 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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

Yes, the same weekend. Do you guys play coming to Flow? I assure you that was non intense. It's funny.

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, 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 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.

Of the year. And I picture in Nanson Romo calling thirty of their games.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

Everything, Every game was at one pm, every single regulations.

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 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 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 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.

Could have been.

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 lot of Bears kind of count on Caleb down there.

Obviously, You're you know, Cowboys, Niners, Packers Bears, Bears Lions. Thanksgiving is an awesome game.

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.

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.

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 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.

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. So I would have tried.

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.

Yeah, the Patriots are bad, but like, that's that's an exciting Brady story.

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, 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 stadium's not available week one. They've got what's going on in Dallas Week one soccer game or something like that.

So Cowboys the road.

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.

A one of the four thirty.

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 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 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.

And the four teams being committed were all pretty good, good teams already.

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?

Is that Patriots Niners game still a Fox game later in the schedule or it is a Fox game? Okay?

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.

I do love that too. I love Brady going back into Foxboro. I think that's kind of cool and sure.

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.

Absolutely does like the Cousins signing with Atlanta have any oomph as like they know that Rogers.

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.

It was where did that end up? That's like a one o'clock CBS.

Look, we shouldn't dismiss one o'clock any kind of dump.

You're either doing Nance or iron Eagle. That's still pretty good, and.

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 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 we can best use these two hundred and seventy two assets.

What do you guys think?

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.

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. 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?

If in retrospect, maybe asking the Ravens to play on the road on Christmas two years in.

A row made again because last year Christmas was at Niners, right, which.

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.

It was still a cool game.

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, 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 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.

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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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, depending on your view last year with the weather, the freezing cold temperatures.

The peacock game, twenty three million.

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 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, 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 get and it's all great.

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.

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.

But no one's one hundred percent happy.

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 you did it again. How could you?

Like?

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 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.

We'll be there.

We're good, We'll overcome whatever obstacles you put in our way.

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? Like not enough prime like hearing like a team's complaints like it?

It depends on who you talk to, right, because you're in buildings every week, like you know this, if you talk.

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?

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 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 down often?

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, 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.

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, 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.

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 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, reason to be upset, Like it won't happen again. That stuff kind of still happens.

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 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.

I don't know the answer to that.

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 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 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 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.

We have humans still involved, and I.

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. 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.

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, 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, 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.

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?

What is I don't have it. What is the Monday night before? What is it? November?

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. 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 will still be NFL football on television, including on Netflix on Christmas.

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?

I'm a huge day there in Vegas. I'm pretty sure, right Vegas. I think we have Vegas on the road that weekend.

Yeah.

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, 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 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 Packers schedule comes out.

That's awesome.

I'm not sure it's fair that they should get a three game road trip.

Then yeah, we're we're giving the NFL first DIBs. We should be rewarded.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 and kind of give everybody a sense of what just happened and what's coming up.

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 wonderful job and you deserve a pat in the back and share that with your whole team.

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.

You said it best, you said it way back. You said Howard Katz said it's an art and a science.

Yeah, art science, and don't lose the art a little bit more towards the science than the art.

Don't lose the art.

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.

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 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 team than everyone with the NFL media side scheduling talk. That was great. Thanks for listening until next week.

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.