IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/navres/v50y2003i7p683-701.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Realignment in the National Football League: Did they do it right?

Author

Listed:
  • John E. Mitchell

Abstract

The National Football League (NFL) in the United States expanded to 32 teams in 2002 with the addition of a team in Houston. At that point, the league was realigned into eight divisions, each containing four teams. We describe a branch‐and‐cut algorithm for minimizing the sum of intradivisional travel distances. We consider first the case where any team can be assigned to any division. We also consider imposing restrictions, such as aligning the AFC (American Football Conference) and the NFC (National Football Conference) separately or maintaining traditional rivalries. We show that the alignment chosen by the NFL does not minimize the sum of intradivisional travel distances, but that it is close to optimal for an alignment that aligns the NFC and AFC separately and imposes some additional restrictions. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 50: 683–701, 2003.

Suggested Citation

  • John E. Mitchell, 2003. "Realignment in the National Football League: Did they do it right?," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(7), pages 683-701, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:50:y:2003:i:7:p:683-701
    DOI: 10.1002/nav.10084
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/nav.10084
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/nav.10084?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. FERREIRA, Carlos E. & MARTIN, Alexander & de SOUZA, Cid C. & WEISMANTEL, Robert, 1998. "The node capacitated graph partitioning problem: A computational study," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1335, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. James C. Bean & John R. Birge, 1980. "Reducing Travelling Costs and Player Fatigue in the National Basketball Association," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 98-102, June.
    3. FERREIRA, C. E. & MARTIN, A. & de SOUZA, C. C. & WEISMANTEL, R., 1996. "Formulations and valid inequalities for the node capacitated graph partitioning problem," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1236, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    4. Saltzman, Robert M. & Bradford, Richard M., 1996. "Optimal realignments of the teams in the National Football League," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 469-475, September.
    5. Ilan Adler & Alan L. Erera & Dorit S. Hochbaum & Eli V. Olinick, 2002. "Baseball, Optimization, and the World Wide Web," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 12-22, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diego Recalde & Ramiro Torres & Polo Vaca, 2020. "An exact approach for the multi-constraint graph partitioning problem," EURO Journal on Computational Optimization, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 8(3), pages 289-308, October.
    2. Fuda Ma & Jin-Kao Hao, 2017. "A multiple search operator heuristic for the max-k-cut problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 248(1), pages 365-403, January.
    3. Vilmar Jefté Rodrigues de Sousa & Miguel F. Anjos & Sébastien Le Digabel, 2019. "Improving the linear relaxation of maximum k-cut with semidefinite-based constraints," EURO Journal on Computational Optimization, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(2), pages 123-151, June.
    4. Li, Miao & Davari, Morteza & Goossens, Dries, 2023. "Multi-league sports scheduling with different leagues sizes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(1), pages 313-327.
    5. Bissan Ghaddar & Miguel Anjos & Frauke Liers, 2011. "A branch-and-cut algorithm based on semidefinite programming for the minimum k-partition problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 155-174, August.
    6. Diego Recalde & Daniel Severín & Ramiro Torres & Polo Vaca, 2018. "An exact approach for the balanced k-way partitioning problem with weight constraints and its application to sports team realignment," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 916-936, October.
    7. Vilmar Jefté Rodrigues de Sousa & Miguel F. Anjos & Sébastien Le Digabel, 2018. "Computational study of valid inequalities for the maximum k-cut problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 265(1), pages 5-27, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael M. Sørensen, 2004. "b-Tree Facets for the Simple Graph Partitioning Polytope," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 151-170, June.
    2. Anuj Mehrotra & Joseph Shantz & Michael A. Trick, 2005. "Determining newspaper marketing zones using contiguous clustering," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 82-92, February.
    3. Diego Recalde & Daniel Severín & Ramiro Torres & Polo Vaca, 2018. "An exact approach for the balanced k-way partitioning problem with weight constraints and its application to sports team realignment," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 916-936, October.
    4. Albareda-Sambola, Maria & Marín, Alfredo & Rodríguez-Chía, Antonio M., 2019. "Reformulated acyclic partitioning for rail-rail containers transshipment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(1), pages 153-165.
    5. Raack Christian & Raymond Annie & Schlechte Thomas & Werner Axel, 2014. "Standings in sports competitions using integer programming," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 131-137, June.
    6. Guillermo Durán, 2021. "Sports scheduling and other topics in sports analytics: a survey with special reference to Latin America," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 29(1), pages 125-155, April.
    7. de Meijer, Frank, 2023. "Integrality and cutting planes in semidefinite programming approaches for combinatorial optimization," Other publications TiSEM b1f1088c-95fe-4b8a-9e15-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Renata Sotirov, 2018. "Graph bisection revisited," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 265(1), pages 143-154, June.
    9. Bartsch, Thomas & Kröger, Stefan, 1996. "Ein Entscheidungs-Unterstützungs-System zur Erstellung von Spielplänen für die Fußballbundesliga," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 427, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    10. W. David Pisinger & Anders Bo Rasmussen & Rune Sandvik, 2007. "Solution of Large Quadratic Knapsack Problems Through Aggressive Reduction," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 280-290, May.
    11. George L. Nemhauser & Michael A. Trick, 1998. "Scheduling A Major College Basketball Conference," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 46(1), pages 1-8, February.
    12. Alireza Tajbakhsh & Kourosh Eshghi & Azam Shamsi, 2012. "A hybrid PSO-SA algorithm for the travelling tournament problem," European Journal of Industrial Engineering, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(1), pages 2-25.
    13. Mancini Simona & Isabello Andrea, 2014. "Fair referee assignment for the Italian soccer serieA," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 153-160, June.
    14. Matthew J. Drake & Serhan Duran & Paul M. Griffin & Julie L. Swann, 2008. "Optimal timing of switches between product sales for sports and entertainment tickets," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 59-75, February.
    15. Saltzman, Robert M. & Bradford, Richard M., 1996. "Optimal realignments of the teams in the National Football League," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 469-475, September.
    16. M B Wright, 2009. "50 years of OR in sport," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 161-168, May.
    17. Guillermo Durán & Mario Guajardo & Jaime Miranda & Denis Sauré & Sebastián Souyris & Andres Weintraub & Rodrigo Wolf, 2007. "Scheduling the Chilean Soccer League by Integer Programming," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 37(6), pages 539-552, December.
    18. G Kendall, 2008. "Scheduling English football fixtures over holiday periods," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(6), pages 743-755, June.
    19. David Van Bulck & Dries Goossens, 2022. "Optimizing rest times and differences in games played: an iterative two-phase approach," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 261-271, June.
    20. A Ghoniem & H D Sherali, 2010. "Models and algorithms for the scheduling of a doubles tennis training tournament," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(5), pages 723-731, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:50:y:2003:i:7:p:683-701. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6750 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.