Optimal approach to game scheduling of multiple round-robin tournament: Korea professional baseball league in focus

Abstract

This study evaluates the quality of the current schedule of a professional baseball league based on the total travel distance of teams, match fairness, and attendance fairness. Alternatives that prioritize the minimization of the total travel distance and satisfy other factors are presented. Moreover, minimization results are compared with the current schedule of the Korea Baseball Organization League, whose requirements differ in certain aspects from those of other baseball leagues and sports. Although numerous studies have examined the sports scheduling problem, this study develops a new integer programming model for baseball leagues, proposes a new problem-specific heuristic, and applies this to the Korea Baseball Organization League, which is the focus of this study. Using quantitative methodologies to analyze the source of match generation and adjustment problems, our research demonstrates that there is ample room for improvement in baseball game scheduling in terms of enhancing the aforementioned factors.