How a fixture is built

Eighteen clubs, 207 matches, 24 rounds, many grounds and hundreds of rules make a single search too difficult. An early design review rejected that approach.

We build the fixture in five steps. Each makes one set of decisions and records its result. The next step treats those decisions as fixed. That order shapes the choices available later.

Step 1: who plays whom twice

Every club plays all seventeen opponents once. Six extra meetings, called double-ups, bring each club to 23 games. Step 1 picks those six opponents.

The weighted rule divides last season’s ladder into thirds and limits double-ups from each group. Last season’s Grand Final pair must meet twice. So must the Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Queensland derby pairs.

The groups use the completed previous season’s ladder, reordered after finals. For 2027, that is the 2026 ladder.

Step 2: which round

Step 2 places all 207 games in 24 rounds. Each club gets one bye between Rounds 12 and 16. This step also places Gather Round and fixed occasions such as the Anzac games.

Return games must be at least six rounds apart, with none before Round 13. A pair’s only meeting cannot be in the final round.

Step 3: which day

Step 3 dates each game within its round. It follows the players’ rest rules: the six-day minimum, limited five-day breaks and the recovery conditions around them.

Grounds are not chosen yet. The date step therefore applies travel-sensitive rest rules as if every possible interstate trip happens. This is a cautious assumption.

This step also chooses Thursday and Friday games, following each club’s limits and spreading them through the season.

Step 4: who hosts, and where

Step 4 picks the home club and ground. It follows ground contracts and limits on Victorian clubs’ home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Docklands.

Perth clubs never travel interstate in consecutive rounds. No other club travels interstate three rounds running.

Fixed ground deals cover Darwin, Alice Springs, Canberra, Tasmania and regional Western Australia. A separate rule keeps big Victorian match-ups at the MCG, with stated exceptions.

Step 5: which slot

Step 5 chooses each game’s TV band: a weekday plus day, twilight or night. It also models which games go live on national free-to-air TV.

It follows pay-TV-only Saturday windows, state return rounds for live free-to-air coverage, and daily ground limits.

The slot band comes first on the site. Later versions also record assumed start times, marked modelled. These are not AFL-announced kickoff times.

Proving each step

Steps 1 to 4 must prove no better answer exists within their rules before publication. A step that reaches its time limit might return 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 release records the steps’ results.

Separate programs then read the finished fixture and check its rules. These recorded results are the verdicts on the rules pages.

What the order means

Dates come before grounds, so rest checks make cautious travel assumptions. Later steps cannot freely revisit earlier decisions.

“Proven best” means best for that step, given the earlier decisions and remaining choices. It never means the best possible season overall.