Thread: Football schedule algorithm

Hey guys,

I've got this old football game for my computer that I'm trying to create a season for. I've got custom leagues and teams, but the game's auto-scheduler is extremely buggy as it has teams playing each other 3 times and some other teams have up to 12 home games and whatnot.

I've figured out by hand what each teams' opponents are, and where they play them (home/away), but when I try to create a schedule I wind up getting stuck near the end of the process. I had the bright idea to program this, but quickly realised that if I knew the algorithm to program, I could've done it by hand.

There has to be a better way than an exhaustive algorithm that backs up every time it gets stuck. I've tried searching online, but found nothing relevant. Does anyone have any ideas?

I already have a set up for which teams should play what other teams and where (including duplicate divisional opponents) based on how each team did the previous season I played. So assigning opponents is not an issue.

The problem is arranging the games into a 17 week schedule (16 games + 1 bye) such that every game fits without conflict.

Okay, let me map this out in detail. I have one league of 40 teams (2 conferences, 4 divisions each and 5 teams per division). Each team has a list of opponents (8 division, 4 conference, 4 non-conference) and a bye week that I've determined should be based on past performance.

So basically, I have 40 lists of 17 and I want to re-organize them somehow so that they match.

Sort of, but they have to be sorted such that on the same line that Team 1 plays Team 2, Team 2 has to play Team 1.