Dynamically Scheduling NFL Games to Reduce Strength of Schedule Variability
Department, Center, or Institute
Mathematics
Secondary Department, Center, or Institute
Economics
Presentation Format
Poster
Presentation Type
On-campus research
Description
The NFL schedules games where some matchups are based on the previous year’s results. Since team composition changes from year to year, this scheduling policy sometimes benefits teams unfairly, allowing some an easier path to the playoffs than others. Thus, strength of schedules vary between teams and arguments have to be made why some teams make the playoffs and others do not. We propose methods to produce an NFL schedule that combines some of its traditional elements with dynamically-scheduled games aimed at optimizing different objectives, such as reducing the variability of teams’ strengths of schedules or minimizing the number of pairwise comparisons needed to differentiate team quality.
Session Number
4
Start Date and Time
4-9-2019 3:00 PM
Location
PAC Gym
Recommended Citation
Cromer, Andrew and Fravel, Jamie, "Dynamically Scheduling NFL Games to Reduce Strength of Schedule Variability" (2019). Furman Engaged!. 382.
https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furmanengaged/2019/all/382
Dynamically Scheduling NFL Games to Reduce Strength of Schedule Variability
PAC Gym
The NFL schedules games where some matchups are based on the previous year’s results. Since team composition changes from year to year, this scheduling policy sometimes benefits teams unfairly, allowing some an easier path to the playoffs than others. Thus, strength of schedules vary between teams and arguments have to be made why some teams make the playoffs and others do not. We propose methods to produce an NFL schedule that combines some of its traditional elements with dynamically-scheduled games aimed at optimizing different objectives, such as reducing the variability of teams’ strengths of schedules or minimizing the number of pairwise comparisons needed to differentiate team quality.