It started on a bus in Detroit. Several AFL executives on an NFL Super Bowl junket were sitting next to the Canadian software guru Rick Stone. For years, the AFL fixture had been done by hand, and then on a spreadsheet. With two new franchises coming, and with billions of broadcast dollars at stake, they needed a more sophisticated model.
“I was doing manufacturing scheduling at the time and it’s not a big leap from that to sports leagues scheduling and optimisation,” Stone told AFL.com.au last year. “The software is very similar for all the leagues. But the rules and the priorities are very different for every league.”
