Why Back To Backs Are A Scheduling Constraint

Consecutive-night games are unpopular with teams, coaches and broadcasters. They survive because the schedule cannot be built without them.

Arenas are shared buildings with prior commitments

Most venues host multiple tenants plus concerts and other events, and those bookings are often made further ahead than the sports schedule. A team's home dates are constrained by what remains.

Blocked dates cluster, particularly around holidays and event seasons, so a team may face a stretch with very few available home nights. The games have to go somewhere.

Schedulers work backwards from these unavailable dates rather than choosing freely, which is why a team's difficult stretches often coincide with events unrelated to sport.

Travel geography forces games together

A road trip covering distant cities is far more efficient if games are played on close dates, because the alternative is flying home between them or idling in a hotel for days.

Playing two nearby cities on consecutive nights is often less taxing than spreading them out, since the second journey is short. Not all consecutive games carry the same fatigue cost.

Schedulers therefore distinguish between types, and the ones they try hardest to eliminate involve long flights and time zone changes between the two games.

The season window is fixed at both ends

The regular season must finish early enough for a long postseason to complete before summer commitments, and cannot start earlier without shortening the offseason. The container is close to fixed.

A large number of games in a bounded number of weeks produces an average interval that leaves little slack. Reducing consecutive nights requires either fewer games or a longer window.

Every proposal to reduce them therefore reopens the season length question, which is a labour and revenue matter rather than a scheduling one.

Broadcast windows pull games onto the same nights

National broadcasts want marquee teams in particular slots, which fixes some games and forces others around them. A team appearing frequently on national television has less scheduling flexibility.

This concentrates the awkward dates on precisely the teams the league most wants to showcase, which is why resting decisions cluster around high-profile fixtures.

Software has reduced the count without removing it

Modern scheduling uses optimisation to minimise consecutive games, long trips and unfair rest disparities simultaneously. The totals have fallen substantially as a result.

What optimisation cannot do is create dates that do not exist. The remaining consecutive games are the residue of constraints that no arrangement can satisfy at once.