Using quantitative techniques to improve athletic schedules

Abstract Team pairings during an athletic season impact the revenues, costs, and exposure of teams in college and professional leagues. The schedules of teams can also influence which one wins a conference or league championship. Factors such as the strength of opponents, travel times and distances, and television exposure are important in constructing desirable athletic schedules, but are often ignored by schedule-makers. Integer programming techniques are applied to scheduling college football games in the Southeastern Conference. The result is a set of schedules which, when compared to the current set, yields a more narrow range in schedule difficulty among the 10 teams, lower total distance for teams to travel during the season, and potentially more televised games.