Need help with making a schedule?

Question

I have an 18 team fantasy football league. The problem is....I want each team to play every team once during the season but make in 14 weeks. That means I will have 3 weeks with doubleheaders in them during the middle of the season. How is the best way to figure this out?

Answer 1

Start by making the doubleheader schedules for the three weeks in question, marking off all the matchups you account for in your "required" matchups. The easiest way to do this is list all the matchups for each team, in this fashion.

Team A V Team B
Team A V Team C
TEam A V Team D....and so on. Then go back and do

Team B V Team C
Team B V Team D
Team B V Team E....and so on. Then go back and do

Team C V Team D
Team C V Team E....and so on.

What would work out best for you is to create 18 weeks' worth of schedules, and just overlap 3 weeks' worth. That would be far less hassle than trying to work out double matchups in one week.

I used to do something similar, I would create leagues to the old Run N Gun arcade game. This system works. Where it starts getting tricky is when you get down to the final weeks, and what you start doing is scanning your list for matchups you haven't scheduled yet, while also ensuring that they are all "unique" games. You wind up having to go back and swapping some games on some weeks to make it all work. Here's an example:

Week 1, you have 2 games left to schedule between teams A, B, C, and D.

You still have an A V D matchup unused, but B V C is.

So you have to go to the week where B V C is being played, and see if you can pull out any other teams and swap games around until you get the right combination "open".

For what you are planning, plan on taking several uninterrupted hours to do this, and SAVE YOUR WORK, so you don't have to go through the process all over again if you choose to do so next year.

Answer 2

do your double-headers in the 1st 2 weeks and the 3rd one in week 11 of the season if you have to have double headers. It's no fair to someone who is particulary hurt by a bye week and drops two games in one week instead of just one.

Weeks 1, 2, & 11 don't have byes - or do 11,12,13, but try to avoud bye weeks.

Your other option is to set up 6 divisions of 3 teams each, make 2 "conferences" like the NFL

Everyone plays:
their own division opponets 2x each (4 games total)
each of the other teams in their conference 1x (6 games total)
one division from the other conference 1x (3 games total)

this totals 13 games, and you can start your playoffs in week 14

Each division winner makes the playoffs (6 teams)
The next best team in each conference gets a WC berth (2 teams(
That's 8 playoff teams total

No bye weeks.

week 14: 1 v 4, 2 v 3 in each conference
week 15: conference championship games
week 16: super bowl

Week 17 is bad for title games, because so many star players sit out, it's like pre-season and you have Jim Sorgi playing for you in the final.