Wright, Mike and Johnston, Mark (2010) Scheduling Super Rugby. In: Annual Conference of the Operations Research Society of New Zealand, 2010-12-07 - 2010-12-10.
Abstract
We develop scheduling models of Super Rugby, the existing Super 14 (2006–2010) and the proposed Super 15 (from 2011), and the revised national provincial ITM Cup competition (from 2011). Developing schedules for these competitions involves a large number of competition design decisions and scheduling compromises between team welfare, travel, television, and revenue management. We show that Super 15 addresses some of the complications that arose in scheduling Super 14. The 2011 ITM cup features a very tight scheduling window due to the Rugby World Cup, with 10 matches per team over a 7 week period. The schedules developed show that it is possible to accommodate most of the (assumed) preferences of teams and organisers.