Five steps, one fixture.

What it decides

For each club, which six of its seventeen opponents it meets twice. That is 54 double-up (show definition)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 rule (show definition)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. Among the allowed choices it prefers that no club plays more than three sides from its own ladder group twice, even though four is allowed.

An everyday analogy

Like seeding a tournament: the top sides mostly play each other again, the bottom sides mostly play each other again, and the local rivals always get their return bout.

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 preference (show definition)preferenceSomething the solver tries to do and weighs against other preferences. Release notes call it a soft rule or objective.Read more in the glossary and kept the stronger one.

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 round: Anzac Day and Anzac Eve in Round 6, Gather Round (show definition)Gather RoundThe round in which every game is played in one host city. Every club appears once.Read more in the glossary in Round 4, King's Birthday and King's Birthday Eve in Round 13, and the Port Adelaide and Fremantle tribute games in the Anzac round (show definition)Anzac roundThe round containing Anzac Day. In the 2027 model it is Round 6.Read more in the glossary.
• 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

Tidy rounds: byes spread evenly across the bye window (show definition)bye windowThe stretch of rounds in which byes fall: Rounds 12 to 16 in the 2027 model.Read more in the glossary, bye rounds as full as the rules allow, and return games pushed 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.

What it decides

The calendar date of every game, and therefore which games are dated Thursday and Friday.

What it must respect

• The players' rest rules: six days between games, at most three five-day breaks a club, extra rest beside each short break (show definition)short breakA five-day gap between games. Each club may have at most three a season.Read more in the glossary, a fresh opponent, and no short break after a Perth trip.
• Per-club caps: at most seven Thursdays, eight Fridays, thirteen of the two combined, and no more than three Thursdays in any third of the season.
• Every club plays at least six Saturdays and between three and twelve Sundays, and each club's weekday counts stay inside its own recent range.
• No two big Victorian games on the same day, because both would need the MCG.

What it aims for

Prime time (show definition)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: everyone needs recovery days, nobody can do three hard days in a row, and the headline session goes where the most people can turn up.

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 trip (show definition)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 nights (show definition)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.

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

• Stadium contracts: at least 45 games at the MCG and 40 at Docklands; every club visits the MCG; the Victorian clubs' home-ground splits stay close to real life.
• Sold games (show definition)sold gameA home game a club plays at a second ground under a deal, such as Hawthorn in Launceston or Gold Coast in Darwin.Read more in the glossary: Hawthorn in Launceston, Gold Coast in Darwin, Melbourne in Alice Springs, the Bulldogs in Ballarat, Richmond in Hobart, the Giants in Canberra, North Melbourne in WA, Geelong's ten games at Kardinia Park.
• Travel: the Perth clubs never travel in consecutive rounds, nobody travels three rounds running, every club visits WA and plays five games in Victoria.
• Big Victorian games at the MCG; night games only in Darwin; day games only at unlit grounds (show definition)unlit groundA ground without floodlights good enough for television. Day games only.Read more in the glossary; one game per ground per day; no ground on a date it is known to be booked.

What it aims for

Travel shared fairly between clubs, and no long runs of home or away games.

An everyday analogy

Like allocating the family's holiday houses: some bookings are already paid for, nobody should drive three weekends in a row, and the biggest gatherings go to 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 availability (show definition)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.

What it decides

The slot band of every game, and a modelled free-to-air allocation: which games are on free TV nationally, which are pay-TV only, and in which states a local game is shown.

What it must respect

• The TV deal: at least 81 free-to-air games, three live free-to-air games a round on average, early Thursday nights and the marquee games (show definition)marquee gameA fixed occasion inked in before anything else: Anzac Day, Anzac Eve, Dreamtime, Good Friday, Easter Monday, King's Birthday and King's Birthday Eve.Read more in the glossary on free TV, every game live on pay TV.
• The pay-TV-only Saturday windows (show definition)Saturday windowThe early-season period when Saturday games are pay-TV only: through Round 8 nationally, Round 10 in Queensland and NSW, all season in Victoria.Read more in the glossary and the rounds from which each state's local games return to live free TV.
• Same-state clubs (show definition)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 the largest audience the audience model (show definition)audience modelA model fitted to published television ratings that predicts a free-to-air audience for each slot choice. Its numbers are not published here.Read more in the glossary predicts for free-to-air; then, giving up at most a small declared share of that audience, the most appealing games in the best slots.

An everyday analogy

Like a TV programmer filling a week's schedule: the contract says what must air and when, and within that you put the shows people most want to watch where most people are watching.

The audience predictions are in model units, not viewers anyone measured, and are not published on this site. Games the model cannot score (most often South Australian and Western Australian games) are pinned to a reference slot and never optimised; their audience is unknown, never zero. Slot bands are not kickoff times (show definition)kickoff timeSecond-level detail under the slot band: a typical start time we assumed for that slot, marked modelled. It is not a scheduled time.Read more in the glossary; no kickoff time is recorded for any game. Early versions carried slot bands as a legal arrangement only, with no preference about which game went where.

For Steps 1 to 4 the solver (show definition)solverThe program that searches for a fixture satisfying every rule and, among those, the best for the stage's objective.Read more in the glossary must prove that no better answer exists within that step's rules, or the release refuses to ship. A step that stopped because its clock ran out might give a different answer next time, and a fixture that cannot be reproduced cannot be audited. Step 5 reports its status and how close to proven it got. Every step's result is recorded in the release.

Every step depends on the one before it. Dates are set before grounds are chosen, so the rest rules that depend on travel are applied as if every possible interstate trip will happen. "Proven best (show definition)proven bestThe solver showed no better answer exists for that stage, given everything decided before it. Release notes say "optimal".Read more in the glossary" means best for that step, given everything already decided above it. It never means the best possible season overall.

After the solve, independent checkers read the finished fixture back and test it against every rule. The current version, B012 Wednesday opening, carries 81 rules in force. Explore the rules or read what the model aims for.

The AFL has shown publicly that its scheduler works through wall matrices, break checks and rule lists, using an optimiser to do the heavy lifting. 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.