Also play in the factor that the arenas are also used for concert and other sporting events as well. I am aware the NHL and NBA teams have priority first for home games over concert and other entertainment events.
it depends on who the primary tenant is in the builidng. the nba team may have priority over the nhl team or vice versa which has to be taken into account
I’m sure the NHL and NBA have priority over everything else. The people who do those schedules, while also working around other events at those are paid extremely well, they’re definitely not making peanuts.
Actually a really cool BTS of the scheduling process. Was interesting to think about how the draft could affect the schedule just a couple weeks before its released.
They used to release the schedule before the draft. Doing so after the draft now doesn’t just add a news cycle where the NFL is in the headlines, it also allows them to ensure that the key draft storylines are somehow reflected in the scheduled.
Yeah, but it really glazes over the #1 problem, and that's regardless of how fair the schedule is via the computer, it still gets modified by higher ups because "oh we need to have these teams playing on prime time" which by default removes a bit of that fairness. I mean I get it there are some teams in certain years you dont want in Primetime because... well they suck... but by doing that you really do skew the fairness aspect of things, and show that it really is all about the money primarily. I mean if my team didn't have a single prime time game, as a fan I don't care I still get to watch my team every week, it only matters for the networks, and then also for certain owners who have more power than others it seems, ultimately those teams are popular by virtue of them making sure they are always in the limelight.
I hear you but even on that front is wishy washy. Bengals and Jets have been trash for several years but they each got a couple primetime games last year. Broncos have been mediocre since Manning retired and Broncos got 4 primetime games last year including a Sunday night battle against chiefs. It’s an inconsistent rubric to be honest
Computer science. It’s a task scheduling problem with conflict optimization. You’ll never get it “right”, but you have to do the best you can. You could learn it.
@@johnsalem1795 Depends if your a hardcore NFL person this could be awesome... trying to argue the proper timing for primetime matchups... like TBvs NE in Week 4.... both teams are likely to walk in 2-1 or 3-0 based on early schedule indicators. However, New England is projected to compete for a wildcard while Tampa is a Super Bowl projected contender. Therefore the later in the season it goes the more of mismatch it might seem to the casual viewer. Nevermind the underlying storylines... like Mac Jones starting for New England is more likely to happen later in the season if at all. A major star could get hurt and derail the contest entirely.
The appeal of this is like putting a 1000 piece puzzle together. But the pieces are three dimensional. And they all have powerful attracting and repulsing magnets.
@@LplusRatioplusNobodyCares Not theoretically - you could have 6 all-divisional game weeks, and then no divisional games for the other 12 weeks - but sure, that's purely a theoretical scenario, it will almost surely never happen. On the practical level, the past seasons there were no in-division games on weeks 3 (www.nfl.com/schedules/2020/REG3/) and 4 (www.nfl.com/schedules/2020/REG4/).
i made my own 16 team league with axis football. i spent all night making a 12 game + bye week schedule, and though it wasnt perfect i was still proud of myself for making my own football schedule. i cant imagine having to do 18 weeks and 32 teams
@@rafa57games i wish but no it has a default 32 team schedule just like the nfl. you can however put your custom teams in the league and choose their division and conference
@@Riley_Mundt The only way he goes to Denver is if he retires and then unretires. You have 0 draft capital and Miller and Bridgewater is not that good of a trade.
So basically Aaron Rodgers potentially leaving GB is making them full panic, since they literally mentioned that they went out of their way to schedule games based on him, and that major quarterbacks moving would disrupt their whole schedule xD
I worked on scheduling systems for General Motors. There is real science behind every large scheduling system and real money to be made in a great schedule.
@@ramuelcruzada3207 my best guess is that they just use a randomizer for the NBA and MLB that follows the rules, because 82 or 162 games per team just seems impossible
@@liamskidmore5926 The MLB schedule was done by hand until the early 2000's www.espn.com/watch/player?bucketId=9410&id=52815513-8535-4f11-b4aa-278b9389ff11
Leagues with more games in the season might be easier. The schedulers have a full week to stick games in, rather than just three or four days that most NFL games are usually played on. Once you get past what the various national networks want, the rest is probably just filling in around dates that arenas aren't available. What might be more frustrating is that the NBA, for example, is more likely to mess with how they want to do their schedules, and do that more often. The NFL is slow to change, and Baseball is practically an iceberg in comparison.
This was a great video. Loved the production on it, the music, the suspense, the drama. Extremely well done and fascinating way of telling a fascinating story. Please make more just like this.
Fascinating. Great production value and perfect balance between straightforward education, exclusive insights and entertainment. What makes a great documentary.
I’m glad they uploaded this! I absolutely love the aspect of how they make the NFL Schedule! I made an 18 week NFL Schedule in my head! I think this is so awesome!
I made my own schedule at 12 that followed some of these rules. I figured out the 6 in division games ,etc etc. I didn't follow the Television, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday night football thing but I had a very good understanding then. I am very proud that I could understand it more
So that additional game is indeed going to annually be purely based on standings? I knew it was always going to be versus the 2-years-off division and that they had arranged this year based on standings, but I figured that it was ultimately going to be a sixteen-year rotation and that they used standings as a way to initially form the rotation (since they had no previous constraint on which team should come first in the rotation).
I'm curious what is the most recent draft that caused major changes to the schedule before its release? That would be a fun mini video to watch. Same for last minute trades and signings.
Compared to literally any other sport, football schedule making seems to be way easier. There’s a pretty rough guideline that most games are played on Sunday, and no matter what a team only plays once a week. Now imagine baseball and basketball, where teams schedules don’t line up perfectly by week. The white Sox may end their series June 1st, but the guardians series lasts from may 29th-June 3rd. So much more difficult
Yeah but the NFL having less games has forced them to make every game as high quality as possible. Baseball teams are fine with having 100+ games that are shitty and boring and unwatchable with empty stands, but thats because they’re playing 100+ games anyway. Because it *is* easier to organize 32 teams into an 18 week schedule, one game per week + a bye week, there are a lot more demands from both teams and broadcasters. So, each game in the NFL has expectations in a way that something like basketball or baseball simply don’t. It’s the difference between a lake that’s 10 miles wide and 2 feet deep,, or a lake that’s half a mile wide and 200 feet deep, if that makes any sense.
@@DoctorCyan I mean I kinda agree, but the schedule is made out ahead of time. Like I could tell you who every team will face no matter what after week 18 next year. Won’t know when or what day, but they already have the matchups made, so it’s literally just slot and place
I run a Greatest Players of All Time League (using an old - but very good! - football simulation program) and one thing I've learned is to never schedule more than two games in any given week between two divisions. So, for example, the N.F.C. West plays both the N.F.C. North and the A.F.C. South in full in 2021 so in any given week there aren't more than two N.F.C. West vs. N.F.C. North or A.F.C. South games scheduled (I checked). Good stuff!
For the schedule makers that game was one of the greatest successes of all time. Yes, both teams were bad the year before and the Jets continued to be bad that season, but from a storyline perspective it was great. Rookie QB vs. rookie QB, first win in 20 games for Cleveland, 14 point comeback by the number 1 pick coming in in the middle of the game for his first game like it's a wrestling storyline and two massive interceptions in the last two minutes in a one possesion game. For the schedule it doesn't matter that both teams are bad, it probably was better that they were both at a similar low level to allow a close game than if a good team blows one of these teams away. The Jets played only two prime time games that season, their season starter on monday night where they outscored the Lions by 31 points, the sort of debut performance from Sam Darnold that has people hoping he can become good after three bad seasons, and this loss to Cleveland were the Brown's loosing streak ended. The rest of that season the Jets were well hidden at 1:00 PM on sunday.
Does seem interesting to say the least. I'd like to see them add a penalty for things that keep happening over and over. For instance, two things about the Vikings and Bears: - The first of two matchup's each season since 2010 has been at Soldier Field (haven't had the 2nd matchup at Soldier since 2009) - For the 6th time in the last 8 seasons including a stretch of 4 in a row from 2016-19, the Vikings will host the Bears in the final regular season game (the same thing can almost be said for Packers & Lions too). I just think there should be a rotation of divisional opponents for the final week instead of the same ones almost year after year (quite simply, the Vikings in Week 17/18 have played the Packers 2x, Lions 3x, and Bears 7x since the league mandated division games for the final week in 2010)
I wish that they would make the last 3 weeks of the schedule division games against all 3 teams in your division. That would make the divisions up for grabs and it would narrow down a few scheduling possibilities.
I think if you put too many division games toward the end of the season, you could end up having a lot of meaningless games among division opponents, because one team could have the division wrapped up with 3 weeks to go in the season.
@@williamshultz4620 That's definitely a risk, but I'm thinking that oftentimes the division games are the ones that determine the division winners, so if you delay those, then it's more likely that at least one of them per team will help determine the division. Also, wild card positions are often determined by division record and position within the division, so many of them are still very relevant at the end of the season.
@@jasonfischer8946 yes divisional tiebreakers are to be decided before you would apply wildcard tiebreakers against another team in the conference. I guess to me it would depend on the recent track record of a certain division. Like when Brady was in New England, it was New England winning and usually in unconvincing fashion. So you woulda ended up with New England with a cakewalk to finish the season with only home field to decide and in that case maybe have them play a against a more competitive team in the conference 2nd or 3rd last week of the season at least.
Everything is about storylines, plots, subplots, rivalries both old and new, they usually try to mix in some old Super Bowl match ups and some dream match ups, or this coach used to be at this team, let his old team play the new team, etc. It's really quite brilliant. Oh and ratings, ratings, ratings. But duh
One thing that always confused me was which team you played coming off a bye. For a few years there the Chargers played multiple games each year against teams coming off their bye. Which means some teams weren't facing a team off a bye at all. Surely it would have been easier and fairer to make the game after your bye week to always be against another team coming off their bye. That way any advantage would be evened out.
It’s just very difficult to make a schedule perfect in terms of that kind of fairness. If you take the time to look at the list at 10:27, there are things that take much higher priority and are absolute musts compared to things like bye-week fairness. It takes that into consideration but other things get priority. And if you watch later at 13:37 the fairness score (lower being more fair) of a very-good schedule was 3000+, meaning it’s incredibly rare to find an even close to perfectly fair schedule.
Bro...as an IT admin that uses AWS...this is just amazing. Gotta love that trusty alarm clock. I know it all too well...especially in the first two months
Neat! Never thought about how Draft/Trades would impact scheduling. Then it's up to teams to live up to the hype cough*2022 Denver Broncos*cough to not let down the Networks and Schedule Makers.
To my knowledge there are no byes during the first or last 4 weeks of a season....at least that’s what I’ve seen from previous seasons since I heard about it
Maybe not it’s intention but every programmer watching this just realized how easy this is with the right code base. Should you ever have a strike, give me a weekend & a machine and I’ll knock this out for you.
I been making my own NFL schedule, almost done with it. To start the season, I would put LV @ KC. Raiders were the last team to beat KC before they went on their Super Bowl run, plus Chiefs won SB58 in Raiders house. Raiders been talking about how they want to get after Mahomes so this could be a very interesting game to kick off the season. It would be nice to turn this in to the NFL
10:36 "Division series should be well-spaced and spread throughout the season." Wash schedule at end of season: Dallas, Philly, Dallas, Philly, Giants. O_o
I've understood the schedule rotation and exactly how opponents are decided and how you can in theory predict a teams schedule years in advance outside of 3 games.......but whenever I try to explain it to people their eyes kind of gaze over and they start daydreaming about ponies
