How the fixture is built

Step 1

Opponents · who plays twice

Every club plays every other club once. Step 1 picks the six opponents each club plays a second time.

What it decides: For each club, which six of its seventeen opponents it meets twice. That is 54 double-upA pair of clubs that meet twice in the season. Each club has six.Read more in the glossary pairs across the competition.
What it must respect: The weighted ruleThe AFL's way of sharing out double-ups by ladder position, so strong clubs mostly play strong clubs twice.Read more in the glossary: clubs are split into three groups of six by last season's ladder, and double-ups are shared out by group.
The four derbies are always double-ups.
Last season's Grand Final pair (Fremantle and Brisbane Lions for 2027) always meet twice.
Any pairs the season settings ban (none for 2027).
What it aims for: A fair draw. It prefers no more than three double-ups from a club’s own ladder group, although four are allowed.
An everyday analogy: Like seeding a tournament. Top sides mostly meet each other again, bottom sides mostly meet each other again, and local rivals get a return match.

The ladder used for the groups is the completed 2026 ladder reordered by finals results, so the premier is first. The 18 September release tried two strengths of the fair-draw preferenceAn aim the model balances against other aims within the must-follow rules. Release notes also call it a soft rule or objective.Read more in the glossary and kept the stronger one.

Rules this step follows (8)

What it aims for, in detail

Keep each club's draw fair

Step 2

Rounds · which round

Step 2 puts each of the 207 games into one of 24 rounds, and places the byeA round in which a club does not play.Read more in the glossary and the fixed occasions.

What it decides: The round of every game, and the bye round of every club (one each, in Rounds 12 to 16).
What it must respect: Fixed occasions stay in their rounds. Anzac Day, Anzac Eve, Port Adelaide’s tribute and Fremantle’s tribute are in Round 6. Gather RoundThe round in which every game is played in one host city. Every club appears once.Read more in the glossary is in Round 4. King’s Birthday and King’s Birthday Eve are in Round 13.
A pair's two games are at least six rounds apart, and the second is never before Round 13.
A pair that meets only once is never left to the final round.
Bye rounds keep at least seven games, and no club plays twice in a round.
What it aims for: Spread byes evenly through the bye windowThe stretch of rounds in which byes fall: Rounds 12 to 16 in the 2027 model.Read more in the glossary. Keep bye rounds as full as the rules allow. Space return games further apart than the minimum.
An everyday analogy: Like filling a wall calendar with the big birthdays and public holidays pinned first, then fitting everything else around them.

Rounds are placed before dates, so this step knows the order of games but not the exact days. Early versions kept every return game at least twelve rounds after the first, twice the minimum.

Rules this step follows (17)

What it aims for, in detail

Step 3

Dates · which day

Step 3 dates each game and follows the players’ rest rules. It also chooses which games get Thursday and Friday nights.

What it decides: The calendar date of every game, and therefore which games are dated Thursday and Friday.
What it must respect: Follow the players’ rest rules. These cover the six-day minimum, limited five-day breaks, extra rest nearby, the opponent’s break, and travel around short breakA five-day gap between games. Each club may have at most three a season.Read more in the glossary.
Each club has at most seven Thursdays, eight Fridays and thirteen combined. It has no more than three Thursdays in any third of the season.
Every club plays at least six Saturdays and between three and twelve Sundays. Each club’s weekday counts stay within its recent range.
No two big Victorian games on the same day, because both would need the MCGMelbourne Cricket Ground.Read more in the glossary.
What it aims for: prime timeThursday and Friday nights, the biggest television slots.Read more in the glossary for the most appealing games, with the weakest round lifted first so the season does not fade.
An everyday analogy: Like a coach spacing training sessions. Leave time for recovery and put the headline session where the most people can attend.

Grounds are not chosen yet, so this step cannot know whether a break involves a flight. It applies the travel-sensitive rest rules as if every possible interstate tripA game played outside the club's home state. Gather Round and games the club hosts interstate do not count.Read more in the glossary will happen, which is the safe reading. The per-club prime-time caps were added after an earlier version gave Adelaide 21 or 22 Thursday nightThe week's first game. The 2027 model has 24 of them, plus one Wednesday night on the 17 March calendar.Read more in the glossary.

Rules this step follows (16)

What it aims for, in detail

Step 4

Home ground and venue · who hosts, and where

Step 4 picks the home club for each game and the ground it is played at.

What it decides: Which club is the home side in every game, and which ground hosts it. Every club ends with eleven home games, eleven away games and one Gather Round game.
What it must respect: Ground limits: at least 45 games at the MCG and 40 at Docklands. Every club visits the MCG. Victorian home-ground splits stay close to recent seasons.
Honour the fixed ground counts. These cover Hawthorn in Launceston, Gold Coast in Darwin, Melbourne in Alice Springs and the Bulldogs in Ballarat. They also cover Richmond in Hobart, the Giants in Canberra, North Melbourne in Western Australia and Geelong’s ten Kardinia Park games.
Perth clubs never travel in consecutive rounds; nobody travels three rounds running. Every club visits Western Australia and plays at least five games in Victoria.
Big Victorian games use the MCG. Darwin games are at night; unlit groundA ground without floodlights good enough for television. Day games only.Read more in the glossary host day games. Follow the per-day ground limits and avoid known bookings.
What it aims for: Travel shared fairly between clubs, and no long runs of home or away games.
An everyday analogy: Like sharing the family’s holiday houses. Honour existing bookings, avoid repeated long drives, and put the biggest gatherings in the biggest house.

Most of what decides a ground is a contract, not a preference. The first preview gave Geelong no Kardinia Park games at all; the ten-game rule fixed that on 14 September. venue availabilityWhether a ground is free on a date. We know some booked dates; no ground has confirmed any free date.Read more in the glossary is still unknown: a ground is treated as free unless it is captured as booked.

Rules this step follows (29)

What it aims for, in detail

Step 5

TV slot · which slot

Step 5 gives each game a slot bandA weekday and a time band, such as “Friday night” or “Saturday twilight”. Day, twilight and night are the recorded bands.Read more in the glossary: a weekday plus day, twilightThe late-afternoon time band, between the day and night games.Read more in the glossary or night. It models which games go live on free-to-airTelevision anyone can watch without a subscription.Read more in the glossary TV.

What it decides: Each game’s slot band and modelled TV coverage. This includes national free-to-air games, pay-TV-only games and state coverage of local clubs.
What it must respect: At least 81 games go to free-to-air TV, with at least three live games per round on average. Early Thursdays and marquee gameA major occasion fixed in advance, such as Anzac Day, Dreamtime or King’s Birthday.Read more in the glossary use free-to-air. Every game is live on pay TV.
The pay-TV-only Saturday windowThe early-season period when Saturday games are pay-TV only, with different end rounds in different states.Read more in the glossary and the rounds from which each state's local games return to live free TV.
same-state clubsTwo clubs from one state: the Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Queensland pairs.Read more in the glossary never in overlapping slots; one game per ground per day; night games only in Darwin.
What it aims for: First, maximise the model’s free-to-air audience prediction. Then, seek the highest combined match appealA policy ranking how attractive games are, using recent prime-time games, ladder form and manually chosen popularity groups.Read more in the glossary while allowing only a small, declared reduction in that prediction.
An everyday analogy: Like filling a TV schedule. Honour the contract’s limits, then place popular shows where more people can watch.

The predictions use model units, not measured viewer counts, and are not published here. Games without predictions, most often South Australian and Western Australian games, keep a reference slotA slot a game keeps when the viewing model has no basis for predicting its alternatives.Read more in the glossary. They do not enter the slot search. Their predictions are unknown, never zero. A slot band is not a kickoff timeAn assumed start time for a slot, marked modelled. It appears below the slot band and is not an AFL-announced time.Read more in the glossary. Later versions also record assumed start times, shown separately and marked modelled. Early versions found slots that followed the rules without preferring particular games for particular slots.

Rules this step follows (10)

What it aims for, in detail

Choose TV slots in two passes

After the five steps · Human edits

A human tweak, then a re-run

A generated fixture is a starting point. A person can pin a game’s date or ground, give a reason, and ask the model to rebuild around it.

Step 1: OpponentsOpponentsWho plays twice
Step 2: RoundsRoundsWhich round
Step 3: DatesDatesWhich day
Step 4: Home ground and venueVenueWho hosts, and where
Step 5: TV slotTV slotWhich slot

Afterwards: A human tweak, then a re-run. pin a game → re-run → new version → see what changed

Pinning a game sends the model back to the first step the pin affects; every step after it is rebuilt.

pin a game
The operator pins a field of a game to a value, with a reason and a source.
re-run
The model re-runs every step from the first one the lock affects, with the lock added as a must-follow ruleA rule the fixture must obey. Release notes call it a hard rule or hard constraint.Read more in the glossary.
new version
The result has its own fingerprintA unique code computed from a version's contents. Change one byte and the fingerprint changes.Read more in the glossary and names the earlier version it came from. The earlier version stays unchanged.
see what changed
A recorded comparison of child and parent: moved, added, removed, unchanged, with each affected club's breaks and trips.

What it decides: A new version with the pinned details as requested. The model rebuilds from the first affected step onwards.
What it must respect: Every lock: a locked field may not move.
Every rule the parent obeyed. A lock that makes a rule impossible is reported, not quietly dropped.
The earlier version stays unchanged. The new version has its own fingerprint and names the version it came from.
What it aims for: The same preferences as the steps it re-runs, with the locks added. Unchanged games stay the same because of the rules, not because the model skips them.
An everyday analogy: Like telling a travel agent, “We must fly on the 13th.” They prepare a new itinerary and list any connections that changed.

An editor writes a lock packThe short list of locks an operator writes for one edit.Read more in the glossary: requests to pin match details, such as a date or ground. Each request has a reason and source. After checking for conflicts, the model rebuilds from the first affected step, using the same rules plus the locks. This creates a new version. A recorded comparison lists requested changes, moved games, affected clubs, changes to rest breaks and changes to rule results. It does not explain why the program chose unrequested moves, so the site does not guess.

Why you can trust a step

Proving each step

Steps 1 to 4 must prove no better answer exists within their rules before publication. A step that reaches its time limitHow long each stage may run. The 30 September release allowed ten minutes per stage.Read more in the glossary might give a different answer next time. Repeatable results let others check the work. Step 5 records its result and how close it came to proof.

Each step depends on the one before it. We set dates before choosing grounds. Rest rules therefore assume every possible interstate trip happens. “proven bestNo better answer exists for this step, given the earlier decisions. Release notes call this “optimal”.Read more in the glossary” means best for that step, given the earlier decisions. It never means the best possible season overall.

Separate checkers read the finished fixture and test its rules. The current version, B012 Wednesday opening, carries 81 rules in force. Explore the rules or read what the model aims for.

How this compares with the AFL's process

The AFL has shown its season grids, break checks and rule lists. A computer program helps search for its fixture. This model follows the same broad flow, in five steps. It is an unofficial reconstruction, not the league's own system. Read how the AFL builds it in the journey, or step through a walkthrough of the model.