Integer programming models for round robin tournaments

Generally speaking in sports competition a number of teams play against each other over a period of time according to a certain scheme. The round robin scheme is very popular in many team sports like soccer and basketball. In this paper we study several basic variants of round robin tournaments. Additionally, we examine real world issues that have to be considered when constructing a sports league schedule. We consider constraints imposed by third parties such as security aspects and legal requirements. Moreover, we analyse constraints aiming at attractive and fair sports league schedules. Throughout this paper integer programming models are the means to formally define what the particular problem under consideration is all about. Moreover, the standard solver Cplex is used in order to compute optimal solutions for small- to medium-size instances. Computational results indicate which particular constraint to relax in order to come up with acceptable schedules in reasonable time.