Round robin on multiple courts
Most tournament days are limited by courts, not by teams. Work out how many time slots your round robin needs and you know when it ends, and whether one more court is worth booking.
Duration calculator
The rule of thumb
A round has n/2 games, rounded down. Courts can play that many games at once, so a round takes games per round ÷ courts slots, rounded up. Multiply by the number of rounds and the slot length. Remember that a slot is the playing time plus warm-up and changeover. Five minutes between games is tight; ten is more realistic for most court sports.
Courts that sit idle
Seven teams have 3 games per round. Two courts need 2 slots per round, and in the second slot one court is empty, so you use only 75% of your court time. Three courts finish in half the slots. Checking this before you book a hall often saves an hour. The calculator above tells you when fewer courts would finish at the same time, and how many courts it takes to save a slot per round.
Fair court rotation
Courts are rarely equal: one has the good lights, one is next to the door, one is the show court. The generator assigns courts slot by slot and puts each team on the court it has used least so far. Over a full round robin every team plays on every court about the same number of times. The "Fairness check" tab shows the count per team.
Early and late slots
When a round needs two or more slots, some teams start the round and others finish it. If the same teams always played last, they would wait longest and finish latest. The generator tracks how often each team has had a late slot and moves those teams earlier in the next round.
One day or a weekly league
- One-day event: leave "Rounds per date" at 0 and give a start time. All rounds run back to back.
- Weekly league: set the first date, the number of rounds per evening and 7 days between dates. Times restart at the start time each evening.
- Two-day event: set rounds per date to half the rounds and 1 day between dates.
Lunch breaks or a gap between rounds are easiest to add by using a slightly longer slot length, or by noting the break on the printout.
Try your own numbers in the round robin generator. For several divisions sharing the same courts, the Pro pack fits all divisions into one timetable without double-booking a court.