Bortz Media Uses FICO Optimization Software to Create Season Schedules for Major Professional and College Leagues

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- FICO (NYSE:FICO), a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, today announced that Bortz Media & Sports Group is using FICO^® Xpress Optimization Suite to produce season schedules for professional, collegiate and recreational baseball, football, basketball, hockey and tennis leagues.

Sports scheduling is a complex business involving variables such as venue availability, fairness, league rules, sponsorships and advertising, TV schedules and fan attendance. Scheduling games for a single season can involve literally trillions of scheduling permutations with thousands of variables and constraints. A leader in media, sports and entertainment planning and advisory services, Bortz Media is using FICO Xpress Optimization Suite to mathematically model and find the best scheduling permutations, including accommodating stadium availability, minimizing the competitive impact of travel and days between games, selecting the best dates for games, and maximizing television viewership.

"We work with a variety of sports clients on a myriad of complex scheduling requirements and constraints that must be taken into account each season," said Arthur Steiker, managing director at Bortz Media. "FICO Xpress helps us not only meet each client's unique requirements but also speeds up the scheduling process, and ensure outstanding schedules for fans, teams, sponsors and broadcast partners."

"Major league sports schedules entail notoriously difficult mathematical problems," said Stuart Wells, chief technology officer at FICO. "This is the kind of challenge that FICO Xpress was built to handle. Bortz Media is a leader in the market, and the work it has done with its clients and our software is extremely impressive. Between Bortz's clients and other FICO clients, FICO's analytics are driving the decisions about who plays whom, when and where, for most of the major professional games played in the U.S."

Part of the FICO^® Decision Management Platform, FICO^® Xpress Optimization Suite is the premier mathematical optimization software for modeling and solving massively complex problems. It was the first optimization software with 64-bit ultra-large-scale optimization for solving massive problems, and version 7.5 makes it easier than ever to use distributed, cloud-based optimization services to crunch the numbers. FICO Xpress is also the optimization engine inside FICO solutions such as FICO^® Decision Optimizer and FICO^® Analytic Offer Manager.

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading analytics software company, helping businesses in 80+ countries make better decisions that drive higher levels of growth, profitability and customer satisfaction. The company's groundbreaking use of Big Data and mathematical algorithms to predict consumer behavior has transformed entire industries. FICO provides analytics software and tools used across multiple industries to manage risk, fight fraud, build more profitable customer relationships, optimize operations and meet strict government regulations. Many of our products reach industry-wide adoption — such as the FICO^® Score, the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the United States. FICO solutions leverage open-source standards and cloud computing to maximize flexibility, speed deployment and reduce costs. The company also helps millions of people manage their personal credit health. FICO: Make every decision count^™. Learn more at www.fico.com.

FICO and "Make every decision count" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation in the United States and in other countries.

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