How the AFL fixture is built

[Music] the AFL scheduling problem is almost infinite in size we have really intense periods of actually building the fixture too many meetings and versions to count we do get a lot of feedback from fans to try to do it by hand would be essentially [Music] impossible I'm Josh bowler and I'm the head of broadcast operations and scheduling at the AFL and I'm responsible for creating the fixture each year we're here in AFL Studios because we're about to record a short video to analyze and summarize the fixture for the general public this has been a process that's taken a couple of months to complete and so it's a massive relief to get it in the hands of the fans the countdown to season 2024 is well and truly on the fixture is here and the man responsible for delivering it is AFL head of broadcast operations and scheduling Josh Bower Josh welcome to you thanks Nat thanks for having me my role is to build a fixture that maximizes interest in our game and so whether that's people going to games in person in in the crowd or watching it on TV we want to maximize interest in our sport it's a lot of time on the phone and it's a lot of analyzing of of information and details so it's a great role and process where I get to work with a bunch of people across the industry my name is Laura Kane I'm the executive general manager of football at the AFL we factor in a number of requests from clubs and every time we make one change it may be just by one single day or one single uh time slot everything else needs to be reassessed and looked at to make sure that it's Equitable for all the way AFL is evolved in time is that it's become a sport that talks to its audience and builds its audience a key part of that is the fixure because you you can start to through the use of Technology build out what the people want to [Music] see the AFL is made up of 18 teams each team will play 23 games 11 home games 11 away games and one game at gather round which is an additional round where all games are played in the same state the fixture seiz teams play each other once leaving an additional six games where they will play certain teams a second time these double matchups are governed by what we call the weighted rule once the finals conclude in the season each team's finishing position will determine who they play in their double matchups The Following season for that reason no versions of the fixture can be built until the day after the grand final the final ladder is divided into thirds the top six middle six and bottom six based on finishing position each team will play two to three double matches up games against teams in the same grouping and one to two games against teams in the alternate two groupings these games are added to each team's schedule and can happen in any order all the way up to the early 2000s we were doing the fixture manually U and it wasn't until a chance encounter on a bus in in the US that we actually met uh Rick my name is Stone I'm the founder of optimal planning Solutions and we assist the AFL with the creation of their fixtures each season we actually met Simon Gore who was in charge of fixturing at the AFL at uh Super Bowl in 2007 the software that we use is a mathematical algorithm based software custom built for scheduling um and it's used globally among some of the biggest sporting leagues in the world a lot of leagues in the past had been working with math professors or software professors at local universities the AFL uh scheduling problem as a mathematical problem is almost infinite in size to try to do it by hand uh would be essentially impossible whereas our software can look at every one of the trillions and trillions of different combinations and find the one that best meets the afl's priorities the way the software works it's essentially a millions of different methods mathematical equations there's equations built in there for Home and Away patterns there's equations built in for preferential television broadcasts opponent spacing travel imagine a world where any team can play on any given day at any venue against any opponent what the software will do is basically run every single possible variation of that scenario and come up with the best version if you think about just a single team playing on a single round there are probably 350 different combinations of possible opponents stadiums and television broadcasting slots for that team on a given week but then we start to Overlay different variables into the software so for example on Anzac Day each year Collingwood and essendon play against each other at the MCG that means all the other teams in that round can't play against those two teams and it will also impact when they play the week after where they play the week before and then you've automatically got less variations of the fixture that the software can build even when you're trying to schedule a single team over a 24 or 25 round fixture the number of combinations is around 350 to the power of 25 that's something with probably 60 or 70 zeros behind it and that's just for a single team so there's a number of different things we factor into the fixture build everything from from from travel so where teams travel to and how many times they travel each Club plays 11 home and and 11 away games and a certain amount of games at a venue days break between games a club can't play off a 4-day break the quality of matches on our big time slots across the year so Anzac Day and King's birthday that will remain the same matchup year in year out we want each Club to ideally have a maximum of two home games every 3 weeks and two away games every 3 weeks to make sure their home games are spread across the season that can't always happen but we'll try to guard against that as much as possible the normal fixturing process for the AFL is usually a window of around 4 weeks so with melbour 19 hours ahead of Vancouver where Rick is it creates a genuinely 24-hour workflow for us where we need to keep the the fixture and the versions rolling over a ongoing period to to make sure we hit our deadlines it works really well that the time zones are actually a little spaced out because then we can both work efficiently do our own Parts when the other one is resting my average day would look like getting up basically as early as I can because what I want to do is get the next version of the fixture running as early as possible so uh it can get to Rick before he goes to bed and we can continue the process within the first week or so we start to see fixtures that are at least workable if not you know the best possible fixtures Josh can analyze the various schedules and then come back to me my following morning and give me some new rules and new things to try to make the fixtures better I wake up a little bit nervously sometimes waiting to to see what's in my inbox um and hoping that it's a version that solved a number of the problems from the last version we're regularly checking in with with our executive team particularly Laura Kane the egm of football just to give a lens from um what a foot football Department's looking at the key things we look for in a fixture at high level are is competitive balance how that plays out is by making sure we adhere really strictly to the weighted rule to give every chance to every club and fans walk into a ground or flick on the TV and think that their team can win the final 3 weeks or so it's fine-tuning those fixtures making improvements and looking at all kinds of different candidates the Ware will produce millions of versions of the fixture but most of them probably aren't viable and so I will closely review and um analyze probably 40 to 50 versions before we get the version that is the perfect version and and the final one It generally will go down right to the last minute so we'll be signing off final start times within a day of the the fixture release and then it's all systems go uh to get it in the hands of the public we like to think the AFL fixture is really fair the difficulty is defining what fairness is we always say that if you ask a fan a player a coach and maybe a venue manager from the same Club what are you looking for in the fixture they're going to come back with completely different ideas in terms of what makes a great fixture for their club we do get a lot of feedback from fans it might sound a bit strange but it's actually a great part of the job because it shows people really care about our game and you're under No Illusion of what the public is thinking about any any given matter so you're getting live feedback as it happens but it's it's just great to see so many people passionate about football as far as I know I think I've got the greatest job in the world if you would have told me 25 years ago that I could be working on these incredibly fascinating uh math problems while traveling around the world and attending some of the greatest sporting events in the world I don't think I would have believed you it's definitely a sense of relief for me and a lot of people at the AFL and it's just mainly a exciting moment to get it in the hands of the fans so they can look forward to the big season ahead