Glossary · 111 terms
Plain-English meanings for every term on this site.
A version's overall status. "Incomplete" means at least one rule rests on an assumption or unknown rather than a sourced 2027 fact.
Every 2027 release so far is incomplete and says so. "Rejected" means at least one checked rule is not met; both 2025 demonstration versions are rejected.
Australian Capital Territory.
Manuka Oval in Canberra is in the Australian Capital Territory.
Australian Eastern Daylight Time, used in Victoria during daylight saving.
Times labelled AEDT use the eastern daylight-saving clock. This site marks assumed kickoff times as modelled.
Australian Eastern Standard Time, used in Victoria outside daylight saving.
Times labelled AEST use the eastern standard clock. This site marks assumed kickoff times as modelled.
Australian Football League.
This project explores an unofficial, modelled AFL fixture. It is not affiliated with the league or any club.
Published by the AFL. Nothing on this site is announced unless it says so.
We plan to check the AFL’s 2027 fixture with the same checkers used on ours. Differences from our assumptions will be reported fairly.
The round containing Anzac Day. In the 2027 model it is Round 6.
It carries Anzac Day (Collingwood v Essendon), Anzac Eve (Melbourne v Richmond), Port Adelaide's tribute game and Fremantle's Len Hall Tribute.
A policy ranking how attractive games are, using recent prime-time games, ladder form and manually chosen popularity groups.
Appeal is a policy chosen by the project owner, not a measurement. The scores are not published on this site. It decides which games get prime time, with visible consequences the releases disclose.
A model fitted to published TV ratings that predicts viewing for free-to-air slot choices. Its numbers are not published here.
Its predictions are in model units, not viewers anyone measured. Where it has no basis for a game the audience is unknown, never zero, and the game is pinned to a reference slot.
Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Richmond, Geelong, Hawthorn and Melbourne.
A game between two of them is played at the MCG, never Docklands, with narrow exceptions. Every season from 2023 to 2026 fits this pattern.
A date on which a ground is captured as booked for something else.
The model avoids every captured blackout. Blackouts are the only availability facts it has.
The number of days between a club's two consecutive games.
The players' agreement requires at least six days, with a limited number of five-day breaks. The diff report shows how an edit changed each affected club's breaks.
Red means a 5-day break, amber 6 days, and green 7 days or more.
The number stays in every cell, so colour is never the only clue. White cells are byes.
How much shorter or longer a club's break is than its opponent's, in days.
It is the club's own break minus its opponent's. A negative number means the club has less rest going in.
The 2025 to 2031 television rights agreement. Its promises are the BC-numbered rules.
It sets free-to-air minimums, pay-TV-only Saturday windows, live-return rounds for local state games, and free-to-air coverage of marquee games.
A round in which a club does not play.
In the 2027 model every club has one bye, somewhere in Rounds 12 to 16. Seasons with an Opening Round give some clubs two.
The stretch of rounds in which byes fall: Rounds 12 to 16 in the 2027 model.
Spreading byes across several rounds keeps at least seven games on every weekend.
One of two modelled 2027 start dates: Wednesday opening (17 March) or Thursday opening (18 March).
The AFL has not announced when 2027 starts, so both are published. They differ only in Round 1. Release notes call a calendar a "treatment".
The players’ collective bargaining agreement for 2023 to 2027. It sets the rest rules labelled CBA on this site.
The agreement sets the six-day minimum, the cap of three five-day breaks, and the conditions around each short break.
A separate program that tests a rule using the finished fixture, without relying on the program that built it.
Release notes call it an independent validator. Until a rule has a checker it is shown as switched off.
A version made from a parent by an operator edit. The parent stays unchanged.
The new version names the earlier one it came from. A recorded comparison shows what changed game by game.
How many times each club plays at each ground in a season.
A quick check that a club's home games are spread across its grounds the way you would expect.
A limit the model must follow, such as a minimum rest break or a maximum number of Thursday games.
On fan pages, we say “rule”. A must-follow rule sets a firm limit; a preference guides choices within those limits.
A downloadable table you can open in a spreadsheet app.
CSV stands for comma-separated values. Each row holds one record and commas separate its fields.
The number of days between a club's games.
Counted from one game to that club's next one. After a bye the gap is longer, usually 13 to 17 days.
A game shown on free-to-air after it has finished, rather than live.
Outside Victoria every local club's game is on free TV, live or delayed. Each club has a yearly limit on delayed games that the AFL has not published for 2027, so it is reported, not enforced.
A local rivalry game between the Adelaide, Perth, Sydney or Queensland clubs.
Derbies are always double-ups, so each is played twice a season, once at each club's home game.
The recorded comparison of two versions, game by game: moved, added, removed, unchanged.
A diff lists changes and their effects on clubs’ breaks and trips. It cannot explain why the program chose an unrequested move. The site displays the recorded comparison without calculating it again. Prototype comparisons are labelled separately.
Opponents a club plays twice in a season.
Each club plays 24 games against 17 rivals, so seven opponents come up twice. The list is ordered by last year's ladder.
A pair of clubs that meet twice in the season. Each club has six.
A club plays 17 opponents once and six of them twice, for 23 games. Which six is decided in Step 1 under the weighted rule, with the derbies and the Grand Final rematch always included.
The recorded background of a version: where it came from, its rule results and the fingerprints of its files.
The evidence page shows what the release recorded. It never recomputes a verdict, a diff or a score.
Frequently asked questions.
The FAQ page answers common questions about the modelled fixture, its times, versions and limits.
A unique code computed from a version's contents. Change one byte and the fingerprint changes.
Technically a content hash. It is how the site proves a version has not been quietly changed since it was published.
The full list of a season's games: who plays whom, in which round, on which date, at which ground, in which slot.
On this site a fixture is always a modelled one unless it is marked as the AFL's. The AFL's own 2027 fixture will be published on its own timetable.
Games whose dates or TV slots the AFL leaves open until later in the season.
The model fixes every date. It does not model the AFL’s mid-season decisions about later games.
Television anyone can watch without a subscription.
The deal guarantees free-to-air at least 81 games a season, three live games a round on average, early Thursday nights and the marquee games.
The round in which every game is played in one host city. Every club appears once.
Adelaide hosted through 2026 and the model keeps Adelaide for 2027 as an assumption. A Gather Round game is extra to a club's eleven home and eleven away games and gives no home-ground advantage.
Last season's Grand Final pair, who always meet twice. For 2027: Fremantle and Brisbane Lions.
The AFL has said it always puts the rematch in as a double-up. The pair is read from the captured 2026 result.
Home-and-away: the regular season before finals.
The 2027 model covers the home-and-away season only. Finals are not modelled.
Blue marks a home game and red marks an away game.
Used on the season wall. These colours only show home or away. They are separate from the break colours.
A game where the club is the listed home side. Usually at its own ground; sometimes sold to another venue.
In the 2027 model every club has eleven ordinary home games, eleven ordinary away games and one Gather Round game. The listed home side is what counts; a listed-away game at a club's own ground is not a home game.
A calendar file you can download or subscribe to in a calendar app.
These files use the .ics extension. Match titles lead with the slot band; any assumed start time is labelled modelled.
A game played outside the club's home state. Gather Round and games the club hosts interstate do not count.
The Perth clubs never travel in consecutive rounds, and no other club travels more than two rounds in a row. A bye ends a run.
An assumed start time for a slot, marked modelled. It appears below the slot band and is not an AFL-announced time.
Later versions assume a typical start time for each slot, such as 7:30 pm on Friday night. It appears below the slot band, marked modelled, with more detail on the match page. Calendar entries lead with the slot band and explain the assumed time. Where no clock time is recorded, we show only the band.
The three groups of six the weighted rule makes from last season's ladder.
For 2027 the ladder is the completed 2026 ladder reordered by finals results, so the premier is first.
The chain of parents a version came from.
A generated version links to the previous release’s headline. An alternative links to the headline it varies. An operator edit links to the fixture edited.
An operator's instruction that one field of one game must take one value. A must-follow rule when the fixture is rebuilt.
Also called a directive. Each lock names a game, a field, a value, a reason and a source. A lock pack is the list of locks for one edit.
The short list of locks an operator writes for one edit.
Before anything runs, the pack is checked for conflicts against the fixture it will be applied to.
A major occasion fixed in advance, such as Anzac Day, Dreamtime or King’s Birthday.
These games include Anzac Day, Anzac Eve, Dreamtime, Good Friday, Easter Monday, King’s Birthday and King’s Birthday Eve. Their round, ground and usually date are fixed before the model builds the fixture. They are also guaranteed live free-to-air coverage.
Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The Melbourne ground used for many Victorian games and major occasions. The glossary explains the abbreviation; club and match pages retain its familiar name.
Produced by our model, not announced by the AFL.
Every fixture, date, ground and slot on this site is modelled unless it says otherwise. Modelled never means announced, and the two are never mixed in one sentence.
A value we chose because the AFL has not published the 2027 fact, or because a convention is only visible in past fixtures.
Always labelled. Examples: the season start date, the Saturday pay-TV windows carried forward from 2025, the Gather Round host. Replaced by the AFL's value when one is published.
A rule the fixture must obey. Release notes call it a hard rule or hard constraint.
The fixture-building program must obey it. A separate checker tests the finished fixture afterwards. Almost every rule here is must-follow.
A checked rule was broken. The only red on the page.
Every "not met" is shown with the rule's plain-English meaning and the version it occurred in.
We chose not to include it.
Examples: finals, crowds, kilometres travelled, the floating fixture.
The field exists and is empty. Never replaced with a guess.
“Unknown” means we looked and could not find out. “Not modelled” means we chose to leave something out. Zero means we counted and found none. The site keeps these meanings separate.
New South Wales.
In this model, Sydney and Greater Western Sydney are the New South Wales clubs.
Northern Territory.
Darwin and Alice Springs host modelled games in the Northern Territory.
What the model aims to improve while following the must-follow rules. On fan pages, we usually say “preference”.
One aim can compete with another, such as shorter travel and shorter home or away streaks. The model balances them within the rules.
A short extra round before Round 1, played by some clubs only. The 2027 model has none.
Recent seasons opened with a partial round in New South Wales and Queensland. None has been announced for 2027, so the three Opening Round rules do not apply.
A new version made by locking a game's date or ground with a stated reason and rebuilding the fixture around the lock.
This creates a new version with its own fingerprint, a link to the earlier version, and a recorded comparison. The earlier version stays unchanged. The only recorded example demonstrates a 2025 edit.
A program that searches for the best arrangement within a set of rules.
The glossary also calls this a solver. The fixture model searches in five steps; each step treats earlier decisions as fixed.
Subscription television and its streaming service. Every home-and-away game is available live there.
During the early-season Saturday windows, Saturday games are pay-television only except the marquee games.
A game the audience model cannot score, so it keeps a reference slot and is not optimised.
Pinned games are capped at one in five of the season and listed by name in the release. Most are South Australian and Western Australian games.
An aim the model balances against other aims within the must-follow rules. Release notes also call it a soft rule or objective.
Breaking a preference is not a failure. Examples: at most three double-ups from a club's own ladder third; prime time to the most appealing games.
How much an aim counts when the model balances it against other aims.
Release notes may call this a weight. Where a release does not record the strength, the site says it is not recorded.
Thursday and Friday nights, the biggest television slots.
The model gives prime time to the most appealing games under per-club caps and spreads. Saturday night is the next tier.
No better answer exists for this step, given the earlier decisions. Release notes call this “optimal”.
It never means the best possible season overall. Steps 1 to 4 must be proven best or the release refuses to ship; Step 5 reports how close it got.
Queensland.
Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast are the Queensland clubs in this model.
Rebuild every step from the first affected one onwards, with the requested locks added.
Not an edit in place. Unchanged games are unchanged because the rules held them, not because they were skipped. This is why a game no lock named can still move.
A comparison with recent AFL fixtures, checking each club’s weekdays, slots, home grounds and longest run without a home game.
Values far outside a club's history are flagged severe, and a release cannot ship with a severe flag that has no stated reason. The current release is clear.
A slot a game keeps when the viewing model has no basis for predicting its alternatives.
The game stays out of the slot search. Its missing prediction is unknown, never zero.
A published set of one or more versions with a release note. Nine were published between 13 and 30 September 2026.
Each release notes what changed and why. One version in each release is the headline; the others are variants or diagnostics.
A block of nine games (fewer in bye rounds) played over one weekend, usually Thursday to Sunday.
The 2027 model has 24 rounds and no Opening Round. Rounds 12 to 16 are bye rounds with seven or eight games.
A one-page list of a round's games, grouped by day.
Each line gives the home club, away club, ground and times, with byes listed at the bottom.
The set of rule settings a version was built with, recorded with the version.
The rules and settings used to build a version. The public evidence page can show them only if the release records them.
South Australia.
Adelaide and Port Adelaide are the South Australian clubs in this model.
Two clubs from one state: the Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Queensland pairs.
They are never in overlapping slots, so each club's game can be shown live in its home state. Release notes call them same-market pairs.
The early-season period when Saturday games are pay-TV only, with different end rounds in different states.
This applies nationally through Round 8, in Queensland and New South Wales through Round 10, and all season in Victoria. Release notes call it “Super Saturday exclusivity”. These reported 2025 settings are labelled assumptions for 2027.
A grid with one column per club and one row per round. Each cell shows that club's opponent.
Read down a column to follow one club's year. Each club keeps one colour throughout. Byes show as blank cells.
A random starting point for a fixture-building run. Different seeds can produce different fixtures with the same rules.
Neither seed's fixture is "better" unless a recorded comparison says so. On 18 September seed 43 produced no legal slot arrangement at Step 5 and was kept as a diagnostic.
A realism-report result far outside a club's 2023 to 2026 range. Needs a stated reason before release.
Example: Essendon's 15 Saturdays on the current release, explained by its low appeal ranking. Mild flags are disclosed but not blocking.
A five-day gap between games. Each club may have at most three a season.
Short breaks allow Thursday games after Saturday games. Conditions cover extra rest nearby, the opponent’s rest, and travel. A five-day break cannot follow travel to Perth.
A pair of clubs that meet only once in the season.
A single meeting is never scheduled in the final round, so that every pair has met before Round 24.
The normal minimum gap between a club's games under the players' agreement.
A Saturday game means the next game is no earlier than the following Friday, unless it is one of the club's short breaks.
A weekday and a time band, such as “Friday night” or “Saturday twilight”. Day, twilight and night are the recorded bands.
The slot band leads every game’s timing details. Any clock time appears underneath, in smaller text, marked modelled. The recorded bands are day, twilight and night. We say “Saturday day” rather than inventing an early game. Where no slot is recorded, we say so.
A home game played at another ground under a deal, such as Hawthorn in Launceston or Gold Coast in Darwin.
The count is fixed by contract. The 2027 model's sold games are listed under the sold-game rule; some follow published deals and others are modelled assumptions.
The program that searches for a fixture that follows the rules and best meets each step’s aims.
Each step runs a separate search. The program can prove no better answer exists within that step’s rules. It can also report a time limit or that no fixture satisfies the rules.
One of five steps that build the fixture: opponents, rounds, dates, home ground and venue, TV slot.
Each stage fixes one set of decisions before the next starts. Every game can tell you which stage decided each of its fields.
No checker could test this rule in this version. Not a verdict on the fixture.
The reason code says why: no checker yet, season data not sourced or verified, or deliberately left out. Early versions have many; the current release has none.
Tasmania.
Launceston and Hobart host modelled games in Tasmania.
A limit on ordinary home games a Victorian club may play at a named ground. Gather Round does not count.
Richmond, Melbourne and Collingwood are capped at Docklands; St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne at the MCG. The caps keep each club's home-ground split close to real life.
How many Thursday and Friday night games each club has.
Listed from most to fewest, so you can see at a glance whether the primetime load is shared fairly.
The week's first game. The 2027 model has 24 of them, plus one Wednesday night on the 17 March calendar.
A Thursday game after Saturday gives a five-day break. The players’ rest rules and the seven-Thursday limit both restrict Thursday nights.
How long each stage may run. The 30 September release allowed ten minutes per stage.
A stage that stops at its time limit without proving its answer is recorded as time-limited, and re-running it might give a different result.
A named setting applied to a run, such as the Wednesday-opening calendar. See calendar.
Used in release notes for a configuration applied to a whole run. On fan pages the word is "calendar".
Television.
Free-to-air TV needs no subscription. Pay TV requires a subscription and may include a streaming service.
The late-afternoon time band, between the day and night games.
A Saturday or Sunday twilight game sits between the afternoon game and the night game. Grounds without lights cannot host twilight games.
We looked and could not find out.
Example: whether any ground is free on any date, or the audience for a game the model cannot score.
A ground without floodlights good enough for television. Day games only.
Bunbury, Ballarat and Barossa Park are treated as unlit, based on captured lighting information. That is a modelling assumption.
No fixture satisfies every rule at this stage. Release notes say "infeasible".
An unsolvable run is kept as a diagnostic, never shown as a fixture. Turning the weighted rule and the Victorian venue caps both into must-follow rules made Step 4 unsolvable on 14 September.
A fixture generated alongside another in the same release, differing in one declared setting.
The 18 September release had four: two calendars at two weighted-rule strengths. The release names which was selected and on what comparison.
Victoria Cross, a military bravery award.
Port Adelaide’s Anzac tribute game honours Peter Badcoe VC.
Whether a ground is free on a date. We know some booked dates; no ground has confirmed any free date.
A ground is treated as available unless there is captured evidence it is booked. A pass means "no known conflict". If you know of a clash we have missed, flag it.
The minimum home games a club must play at a ground, or the minimum games a ground must host.
Richmond at least nine MCG home games; the MCG at least 45 games and Docklands at least 40 across the season.
An independent checker's result for one rule on one version: met, not met, switched off, or doesn't apply.
Verdicts are recorded facts and are never recomputed by the site. Only "not met" is a failure; "switched off" is a limit of the checking.
One published fixture, frozen the moment it is published and carrying a unique fingerprint.
Each version records its type, date and earlier version, if it has one. Types include generated fixtures, alternatives, operator edits and season replays. Published versions stay unchanged; any edit creates a new version. Release notes also call a version a “candidate”.
The short seven-character fingerprint used in version labels and web addresses.
The full fingerprint is always one tap away. Two versions with different handles are different documents.
Victoria.
Ground and travel tables use state abbreviations alongside club and ground names.
Western Australia.
Fremantle and West Coast are the Western Australian clubs in this model.
The AFL's way of sharing out double-ups by ladder position, so strong clubs mostly play strong clubs twice.
Last season’s ladder divides clubs into three groups of six. Normally, each club has two or three double-ups within its group and one or two in each other group. From 2026, up to four within its own group are allowed.