Who plays when and where, and why does it matter?

Who plays when and where, and why does it matter?

Sports timetabling is about determining a suitable date and venue for each match that is to be played according to a given competition format. At first sight, this is a purely operational matter, taking into account things like stadium availability, minimizing travel distance, or even police capacity for the less well-behaved sports. Yet, the timetable may also have an effect on general fairness, the attractiveness of the tournament, and even its outcome.

This talk gives an overview of scheduling problems in sports, and approaches to tackle them. We discuss the carry-over effect, which deals with the impact of one's previous opponent on one's next game. We explain efforts to schedule a competition in an attractive way, making sure that the decisive round comes as late as possible in the season. Finally, not all sport timetables are equally fair for the contestants. We elaborate on the trade-off between overall fairness and an equitable distribution of unfairness over the teams in terms of rest days. 

Several applications will be covered, including the professional Belgium soccer leagues, for which we compute the official schedule since 2006.

The talk was given by Dries Goossens from Ghent University