Automate and optimize sports league scheduling
Every league knows who plays whom. Deciding when each game is played, so that every team gets a fair run of home and away games, travel stays short, and rivalry games draw a full house, is where the season is won or lost. Let's solve that.
One solve places every game of the season
Timefold assigns every game to a round as one optimization problem. One game per team per round, no streaks of four or more home or away games, and no instant rematches are enforced as hard constraints, so every schedule is fair before it is published. Within those rules, the model minimizes travel along each team's route and puts marquee games on weekend and holiday rounds.
Where Timefold goes beyond manual season schedules
Four things decide whether a season schedule works. Timefold bakes them into the model.
Fair by construction
Home and away streaks and instant rematches are hard rules, checked for every team across the whole season.
Travel along the real route
Distance is counted the way teams actually travel, including straight trips between consecutive away venues.
Marquee games where the crowds are
Rivalries and other marquee games go to weekend and holiday rounds whenever the rules allow.
Every trade-off explained
Each remaining violation names the teams, games, and rounds, so the league office can see why.
A season schedule has to work for every team, every week
Teams, venues, broadcasters, and fans all depend on the season schedule. Every round ties into the next, so a single change can ripple through the whole season.
Depends on the rounds around it
Moving one game changes the streaks and travel of both teams and everyone they play next.
Need to stay balanced
Long runs of home or away games feel unfair to teams and fans.
Adds up across a season
Poorly ordered away trips mean more distance, cost, and fatigue.
Deserve the best dates
Rivalries and marquee matchups draw the largest crowds on weekends and holidays.
Constraints the model expresses today
One game per team per round
A team never plays two games in the same round, at home or away.
No long home or away streaks
No team plays four or more consecutive rounds at home, or four or more on the road.
No instant rematches
The return game between two teams is never played in the round right after their first meeting.
Every game placed in a round
The model decides in which round each home and away game is played, for the whole season at once.
Shortest travel across the season
Travel is counted along each team's real route: from home to the opening game, between consecutive away venues, back home between away and home games, and home after the last one. The model keeps the total distance as low as possible.
Marquee games on weekends and holidays
Rivalries and other marquee games go to weekend or holiday rounds, where they draw the biggest crowds, and each one that misses carries a heavy penalty.
Every broken rule explained
When a schedule still breaks a rule, the score names the teams, the games, and the rounds involved.
When scheduling works, everything works.
Less waste. More control. Teams that trust the plan.