Graham Kendall: Sports Scheduling Research

Sport has worldwide appeal, with supporters (obviously) having a significant interest, whether they attend the event live, watch it on television, listen to it on the radio or simply follow it on the internet or through the newspapers.

Sport also has an effect on the lives of those who may not follow events on the field. People who live near the stadiums will be affected, television schedules are planned around (and can disrupt) sporting events (the Football World Cup and the Olympic Games being prime examples), entire towns can feel the effect (both good and bad) of supporters when they visit for a particular event and, of course, marketing and brand promotion can have an impact on family budgets.

Events such as the Olympics Games, the Football World Cup, as well as the major golf and tennis tournaments generate huge worldwide television audiences and many sports are multi-million dollar industries, which rely on ever increasing support and marketing to increase (or even maintain) their financial stability.

A key requirement of sporting events is the ability to generate high quality schedules that optimise many different factors, including being seen to be fair to all participants (both the sports clubs and the fans).

Generating a fair set of fixtures is an important aspect, which is the area of sports scheduling I am most interested in. Producing the fixture list is just one element and there are many other (equally important) scheduling problems, such as assigning officials (referees, umpires etc.), which also must be addressed.

My interest has, so far, largely concentrated on the English football league (my 2008 JORS paper explains the problem that has to be addressed each year).

Our 2010 annotated bibliography of sports scheduling provides a good starting point for those new to the area.

Publications

You can see all my sports publications here.