Senior Manager, Scheduling Planning Analytics- Broadcast

Overview /Objective

Senior Manager, Scheduling Planning Analytics- Broadcast: The creation and in-season management of the NFL schedule is a foundational and critical infrastructure element for the League. The NFL Broadcasting department is looking to hire a core member of the NFL Scheduling team who will participate in all aspects of the scheduling process and help drive the evolution of the next generation of schedule creation, including the incorporation of viewership modeling.  

The Senior Manager, Scheduling Planning & Analytics- Broadcast, will act as a mission critical resource in the optimization and transformation of the league scheduling functionality.  The ideal candidate will have a familiarity with combinatorial optimization and data/analytics, while being comfortable as a super-user of our proprietary scheduling software program and acting as a driver of future scheduling technology innovations.  The successful candidate will also bring a can-do attitude with a willingness to be part of a lean and dedicated team that jumps in to tackle any challenge that arises across the season and in off-season.  An in-depth understanding of football and the clubs that encompass the league will be extremely valuable to make an impact in this pivotal role. 

Responsibilities

• Key Scheduling Responsibilities
  • Participate in all aspects of creation of playing schedule from January to May each year, including meetings with network partners and solicitation of Club feedback, daily meetings with scheduling team analyzing contender schedules, and utilizing data & analytics to help drive key decisions on viewership projections and competitive inequities.
  • Specific focus on utilizing the scheduling software to drive creation of rules and constraints for optimization heuristics to maximize overall viewership.
    • Continue testing and developing new scheduling approaches between annual scheduling processes (May-January).
    • Develop awareness and expertise in emerging technologies in scheduling and analytics, including understanding processes that other sports leagues use and how other industries and companies approach solving complicated mixed-integer and optimization problems.
    • Work with Scheduling Team Leadership, Information Technology, Business Intelligence & Data Analytics, and Finance Stakeholders on identifying opportunities to test new processes / tools/ partners to align with on developing and executing the next generation of scheduling process.
  • Support department Director and VP working closely with outside stakeholders and partners (Recentive Analytics, AWS) on development of machine learning/artificial intelligence tools to better gauge and predict fan interest in specific matchups.
  • Liaise with internal research team to inform ratings predictions for key scheduling decisions both during the schedule creation process and during in-season “flex” period.
• Game Distribution
  • Lead weekly in-season meetings with network regionalization and programming teams to ensure best possible game assignment decisions for fans and Clubs and maximize viewership of Sunday afternoon windows.
  • Conduct robust weekly analysis of NFL game viewership/analytic trends across key media markets. Prepare weekly summary of game distribution recommendations for department to help ensure the “right games are getting into the right markets” in every window.
  • Conduct offseason research projects specifically focused on primetime ratings trends and game distribution in Sunday afternoon windows.
  • Assist in all scheduling decisions and supporting the department workflow from beginning to end of cycles.
• Other Broadcast Department Responsibilities
  • Serve as onsite or virtual League broadcast representative for regular season and postseason television broadcasts to liaise between NFL Game Operations game day staff, NFL Officiating, and network TV partners to coordinate break administration and ensure quality control regarding broadcast operations.
  • Provide key operational support for Broadcast department at League tentpole events (Super Bowl, Draft, Combine, etc.).
  • Support other Broadcast Department projects and initiatives, as needed.

Required Qualifications

• College degree in a field such as Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, or any other related field that provides a strong foundation in data analysis.
• Professional Certifications preferred.
• Core knowledge of football and the NFL.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel, as well as data mining and data visualization tools. 
• Proven ability to create and manage impactful analytics reporting, with 1 – 2 years of data modeling experience. 
• 5 years’ experience in scheduling logistics, wit