Since 2005, Chile's professional soccer league has used a game-scheduling system that is based on an integer linear programming model. The Chilean league managers considered several operational, economic, and sporting criteria for the final tournaments' scheduling. Thus, they created a highly constrained problem that had been, in practice, unsolvable using their previous methodology. This led to the adoption of a model that used some techniques that were new in soccer-league sports scheduling. The schedules they generated provided the teams with benefits such as lower costs, higher incomes, and fairer seasons. In addition, the tournaments were more attractive to sports fans. The success of the new scheduling system has completely fulfilled the expectations of the Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (ANFP), the organization for Chilean professional soccer.Key words: Chilean soccer league; integer programming; sports scheduling; recreation/sports; OR/MS implementation; scheduling. History: This paper was refereed.
Soccer is "the passion of multitudes" worldwide. The World Cup 2006, which was held in Germany, amply demonstrated this phenomenon. Beyond the purely sporting and emotional aspects of the game, managing soccer increasingly requires the application of scientific criteria. In Chile, soccer has faced competition from the international leagues, other televised sports, and different forms of entertainment such as shopping malls, cinema, video games, and the Internet. Organizers of professional sports in many countries are facing similar situations.This competition has caused a reduction in Chileans' interest in soccer and a resulting decline in the revenue the sport generates. To reverse this decline and reduce costs, professional league officials are facing the challenge of having to increase the attractiveness of the league season. The planning of league game schedules is critical to achieving this objective. Considering the many aspects of developing a game calendar that is simultaneously fair to the teams, economically beneficial, and attractive to sports fans, the task of scheduling each regular-season matchup would be nearly impossible if attempted manually.Beginning with the first tournament of 2005, the Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (ANFP), the organizing body for Chilean soccer, employed the services of the Centro de Gestión de Operaciones (CGO), a unit of the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Chile, to assist in the planning of the main league's game schedule. We integrated sporting, operational, and economic criteria within an integer programming model to develop a schedule that meets the ANFP criteria and makes the season more interesting to soccer fans.Our work falls within the area known as sports scheduling. In this paper, we present the criteria we used to define an efficient season schedule. We address sporting fairness or equity, the introduction of operational and economic considerations into the scheduling process, and how the model and its implementa...
