Case Study in Sports Analytics: Optimizing the NFL

football Analytics are transforming sports - right down to which teams play each other, and when. Before your favorite football team kicks off, every one of the season's 256 games is scheduled by powerful optimization algorithms.

I'd like to invite you to read a new FICO case study that shows how Optimal Planning Solutions develops the NFL game schedules, using the FICO™ Xpress Optimization Suite. While your business problems may be quite different from determining when the Saints will face off against the Colts, this case study shows how optimization can be used to solve common challenges:

  • Balancing conflicting objectives, in this case maximizing television ratings while accommodating the teams and their fans
  • Dealing with large numbers of variables and constraints -Optimal Planning has to consider 7,000 game options, while accounting for some 20,000 variables and 50,000 constraints
  • Selecting from among thousands of possible alternatives
You'll also see why Rick Stone, President of Optimal Planning Solutions, says "Xpress outperforms other optimization tools, including CPLEX, for our sports-scheduling challenges."

Read the case study

How the NFL optimizes its playing schedule,

to see not only how sports applies optimization science, but how you can gain from the power and flexibility of the FICO Xpress Optimization Suite.

Sincerely,

Oliver Bastert
Product Manager - Optimization
FICO