The MSTW Schedule Builder builds ‘balanced’ round robin schedules for leagues and tournaments for up to six teams. NOTE: This plugin REQUIRES the MSTW LEAGUE MANAGER PLUGIN (version 2.5 for higher) to handle the creation of leagues, seasons, and teams.

Depending on the size of the league or tournament, the number of permutations and combinations of teams, time slots, dates, and locations can be huge. The simple (old) method of always having a single team always playing in the same time slot or position is not always the way to go. It can, and does, create problems with players, coaches, and fans because it can be inherently unfair. The issue is the quality of the first position time slot. If the time, location, and/or quality of the facility is desirable, then the team that’s always scheduled there will be advantaged, and the other teams will not share equal playing time at the desirable facility. If another time and location is less desirable (i.e., inconvenient time, long distance, poor quality of facility, etc.), then a team that is always scheduled to play there will be disadvantaged.

These issues and the inherent inequity are minimized by balanced schedules. Round robin scheduling includes a date, time, location, home and visitor teams, and game ID for each game. A quality schedule should distribute and balance the dates/days, times, locations, home and visiting teams of its games as equitably as possible.

Future releases will handle larger leagues and tournaments, eventually up to 32 teams, double round robin (home-and-home) schedules, and field assignments for tournaments played on multiple fields at one facility.