Glossary · approach
Tournament Scheduling
The problem of producing a sports league or tournament fixture — which team plays which team in which week, at which venue.
League FixtureTraveling Tournament Problem
Tournament scheduling is the problem of distributing all matches of a sports league or tournament across teams, weeks, and venues. Its classical variant is the round-robin structure (every team plays every other team the same number of times). Hard constraints: the mathematical round-robin property, no conflicts, home–away balance. Soft constraints: minimize travel distance, minimize consecutive home/away matches (breaks), spread derbies across the season, comply with broadcast contracts, keep international break weeks open. The classical formulation was defined by Easton, Nemhauser and Trick (2003) as the Traveling Tournament Problem (TTP); European football leagues, top professional American leagues, and international federations all use these methods.
Örnek
A 16-team double round-robin professional league (each team plays every other twice, 30 rounds total). 2 designated derby rounds, 2 international-break weeks empty, broadcaster wants 4 matches in specific slots. The optimum fixture problem: honor all of these while minimizing total travel distance and break count.