Calculating the perfect fixture

Calculating the perfect AFL season fixture is no easy task, according to a leading international numbers guru. Picture: Wayne Ludbey Source: Herald Sun

GRAB a pen and a piece of paper and start trying to nut out if the AFL fixture is as good as it could possibly be.

You'll soon discover it's an impossible task. The maths is so complex it would take billions of years - and even that's a guesstimate by an international numbers guru.

Footy's countless number of agreements, contracts, broadcast deals and player welfare rules make producing the footy fixture a logistical nightmare - mathematically the hardest in world sport.

At the heart of the dilemma is AFL economics - maximising the TV ratings and attendances.

But this needs to be balanced against fairness, six and seven-day breaks for the combatants and sharing the riches among all the clubs.

According to one club figure, the difference between a Friday night fixture and a Sunday twilight match for Collingwood could be $500,000.

For North Melbourne, it could be $200,000.

Big numbers and a lot to compute.

That's where Rick Stone and his Canadian-based software firm Optimal Planning Solutions come to the rescue.

Since 2006, Optimal has assisted the AFL in balancing the endless number of fixture factors.

"Suffice to say, it is an impossibly large number of possible fixture lists that need to be evaluated by the AFL," Stone says.

"Our software, in conjunction with a commercial mathematical solver and state-of-the-art computers, which have between 24 and 80 cores each, allows the AFL to efficiently evaluate the many different possibilities in a much more finite time period."

In layman's terms, that means Optimal's computers are fast - a top personal laptop would have about four cores.

"The AFL, with the use of our software, has built a scoring system that will give penalties for undesirable things," Stone says.

"So you might have situations where a club has back-to-back long travels, or multiple road games in a row ... or fixtures on specific TV networks that aren't as appealing as others."

The end result is the best possible result - because there's simply no such thing as a perfect draw in the AFL.

"You can kind of equate it to trying to find a star in a solar system or a grain of sand on the beach. It really is a mind-boggling number," Stone says.

Stone now knows a lot about Australian football - he has been to two Grand Finals - and is well aware of the politics behind every AFL fixture.

"In general terms, with the leagues that we've been dealing with, if you've got a salary cap in the league, the teams should be pretty even regardless," he said.

"And the fact we do the top eight, bottom 10 rule should make it a little bit fairer for clubs that were at the bottom of the ladder (the previous season).

"Every year is a new year. My personal opinion is that you've got a salary cap in the league, so everyone should be on the same footing going into each season."
 

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