BOSTON, MA — March 25 2021 — New England Free Jacks and Princeton Consultants today announced a strategic partnership to safely prepare for the Boston based Major League Rugby team’s season opener on April 3. In order to seat as many ticket holders as possible, given Massachusetts current capacity restrictions at sports venues due to the pandemic, the Free Jacks have partnered with Princeton Consultants to create a mathematically optimized seating assignment for the team’s ticket holders.
Princeton Consultants’ custom optimization solution prioritizes safe seating that accounts for social distancing, the unique seating layout of Union Point Stadium, the varying group sizes of ticket holders, and other Free Jacks policies.
“We are thrilled to work with Princeton Consultants, a world leader in optimization, to help our team prepare a safe and fun match festival in just over a week’s time,” commented Free Jacks Director of Operations, Oliver Engelhart. “Our goal is to provide the best rugby and the best fan experience we can deliver. Mathematically providing safe stadium seating for a complex map of ticket holders and the changing regulatory environment has helped us prepare for an unforgettable inaugural home opener in Major League Rugby. And now we’ve got the best optimizers on our team.
“We’re blending math, analytics and business so sports and entertainment organizations can bring fans back until full capacity is permitted,” said Princeton Consultants Optimization Principal Irv Lustig. “The safe seating problem is ripe for optimization, and our firm is prepared to work quickly with any teams or venues that currently need help.”
A key to the Free Jacks and Princeton Consultants partnership is adaptability: as regulations, policies and priorities change in the future, they can “re-optimize” to generate a new safe seating layout for Union Point Stadium.
Princeton Consultants works with Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing innovators through applied optimization, which is enhanced business decision making, powered by special software that evaluates billions of choices and makes explicit recommendations for action. Optimization helps improve decisions such as assignment, scheduling, routing and pricing, about key assets such as people, machines, vehicles, finances, and facilities.
The Free Jacks began their 2021 Major League Rugby campaign on March 20 in Los Angeles. The New England-based professional rugby team will play its home opener at Union Point Stadium in Weymouth, Mass., on April 3 against the Utah Warriors.
About Princeton Consultants: Princeton Consultants, www.princetonoptimization.com, helps businesses and organizations integrate AI, optimization, simulation and new technologies to improve performance. Founded in 1981 with offices in Princeton, NJ and New York City, Princeton Consultants has completed more than 1,600 projects.
About New England Free Jacks: The Free Jacks are an aspiring and innovative live events, media, and consumer products organization. The core brand in the portfolio is The New England Free Jacks, the humble hard-working free-spirited professional rugby team competing in the emergent and exhilarating Major League Rugby (MLR), the premier North American professional rugby competition. For more information, please visit www.FreeJacks.com
Major League Rugby: Major League Rugby (MLR) is a professional rugby league, launched in April 2018. It is an initiative of the American rugby community, in partnership with private investors, who believe that American rugby can thrive at the highest levels—as a commercial enterprise; as an influential player on the international scene; and as a participation sport at the youth and senior level. MLR is the pinnacle of American rugby, and provides a rallying point for local communities, a focal point for American rugby fans, and an aspirational destination for young athletes. For more information, please visit https://www.majorleague.rugby/.
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