How the AFL builds its fixture, and how ours compares

The AFL released its fixture-building video on 29 February 2024. It showed the screens and paper its fixture team uses. This chapter compares those tools with this site’s pages, including what our model adds and what it lacks.

The AFL’s material appears here only as a description of what the video showed. We make no claim about the AFL’s data, its software or its decisions beyond what the video shows. Nothing on this site is the AFL’s, and it uses no league or club marks.

The wall: who plays whom, round by round

What the video shows. A large screen with a column for each club and a row for each round. Each cell holds the opponent. Some cells are filled and some are outlined, which looks like a home and away split.

Our equivalent. The season grid. It has one row per club and one column per round. A home game is a filled cell, an away game is an outline, and a bye is hatched. Every cell links to its round.

What we add. Every cell carries a recorded sentence that says who, where and when. The grid can also mark the matches that changed from the parent version.

What we lack. The AFL’s wall is a working surface that people stand in front of and argue over. Ours is a view of a finished version.

The days-break matrix

What the video shows. A grid of club columns and round rows. Each cell shows days since the club’s last game. Red means five days, amber six, and green seven or more. A second grid beside it seems to show each club’s break against its opponent’s.

Our equivalent. The breaks page uses the same layout and the same bands. Beside it is a break discrepancy grid: a club’s break minus its opponent’s break into the same game.

What we add. The number is printed in every cell, so the colour is never the only signal. Every break is counted from recorded dates.

What we lack. Break checks use recorded dates, so they count days rather than hours. Later versions have assumed start times, not AFL-announced times.

Round sheets checked by hand

What the video shows. A printed sheet for one round. Games are grouped by day. Each line names a game, ground, network, eastern time and local time. Byes appear at the end. A scheduler goes down it with a pen.

Our equivalent. The round pages list each round’s games by day, with home and away, venue, slot band and byes.

What we add. Each game links to its own page and to the rules that were checked against it.

What we lack. Our timing starts with a slot band; later versions also show assumed start times, marked modelled. TV coverage appears only where the version records a proposal. It is not an announced allocation. Separate programs check each rule; no person has reviewed our sheets with a pen.

Club and venue counts

What the video shows. A table with club rows and ground columns. Each cell counts games. The Victorian venues are grouped first with their own total. A blank cell means no games.

Our equivalent. The venues page has the same club and ground arrangement. Victorian grounds come first, with a Victoria total, then interstate grounds. Empty counts are blank.

What we add. The counts come straight from the version’s matches, and every version can be viewed the same way.

What we lack. We treat a venue as available unless we have captured evidence that it is booked. The AFL works with the venues directly. Whether a venue is actually free on a given date is unknown to us.

Home and away cards

What the video shows. Physical club cards paired on a desk, blue for home and red for away.

Our equivalent. The home mix page shows how each club’s home games are spread across venues and opponents. The step that decides who hosts each match is the fourth of our five.

What we add. Every home and away decision is made under written rules that can be checked.

What we lack. Cards on a desk let a person try a pairing, look at it and undo it. Our nearest thing is an operator edit: lock a match, re-run the model and keep both versions. There is one recorded example so far.

The weighted rule and the ladder

What the video shows. An explainer of the weighted fixture. An animated ladder follows the early rounds through each week of finals. The top eight reorders at every finals stage.

Our equivalent. The double-ups page, and the “who they play twice” section on each club page. Each club’s repeat opponents are grouped by the thirds of the previous season’s final ladder, as it stood after the finals.

What we add. The ladder a version used is recorded with it. Each club’s repeat opponents can be read against their ladder third.

What we lack. The video explains the principle. It does not publish every condition the AFL weighs, so where our rule differs, ours is a modelled assumption and is labelled as one.

The program and its switchable rules

What the video shows. A program that searches for a fixture and shows its result as a club and round grid. A list of rules sits beside it. Each rule can be switched on or off and has a weight: how strongly it counts. Groups include fixed byes, TV, grounds and general limits.

Our equivalent. The rules page groups rules by topic. Each has a plain-English name and is a must-follow rule or a preference. Each version has recorded results.

What we add. Separate checkers record whether each rule was met, not met, switched off or does not apply. The model builds the fixture in five steps, each with its own rules.

What we lack. The public records do not say how strongly our preferences count, so the page shows no weights. Read each switched off explanation: it may mean a checker was unavailable or the run left the rule out.

Printed reviews

What the video shows. Printouts of the season grid, a double match-ups sheet and other tables, marked up with ticks, circles and highlighter. Paper is where the decisions get reviewed.

Our equivalent. Review finished versions on screen. Versions stay unchanged; an edit creates a new one. The changes page compares games with the earlier version.

What we add. A permanent record of every version and every difference between them.

What we lack. The judgement in the margins. Our record says what moved. It never guesses why, unless a recorded instruction asked for the move.

Thursday and Friday counts

What the video shows. Count lines for Thursday and Friday nights, from eight down to zero. Each line lists clubs with that count. It shows how evenly the nights are shared, at a glance.

Our equivalent. The prime time page has the same count lines, built from each match’s recorded slot band, with a strip for each club below.

What we add. The same view for every version, so you can see how the nights moved between releases.

What we lack. The AFL decides its prime time with its broadcasters and clubs. Ours comes from a declared appeal score and a labelled 2025 broadcast assumption. It is a model of the decision, not the decision itself.

The short version

Both processes review opponents, breaks, grounds, home and away, ladder groups, rules and prime-time nights. The AFL works directly with grounds, broadcasters and clubs, and people judge its drafts by eye. We have written rules, saved versions and recorded checks. We explain where our information stops.