How a round robin schedule works

Updated 2026-10-08

A round robin is the simplest fair league format: every team plays every other team. Here is how it works and how to build one.

How many games?

With N teams, a single round robin has N × (N − 1) ÷ 2 games in total, and each team plays N − 1 games. Six teams means 15 games in total and 5 per team. A double round robin, where teams meet twice with home and away swapped, doubles that.

Rounds

With an even number of teams, you can split the schedule into N − 1 rounds, where every team plays once per round. The classic way to do this is the circle method: fix one team, rotate the rest around it and pair up across.

An odd number of teams

Add a dummy team called "bye." Whoever is paired with the bye sits out that round. Each team gets one bye per cycle.

Home and away

Alternate where you can so no team plays at the same field every time. It will not be perfect, but it should be roughly even.

Check the schedule

• No team plays twice in the same slot.
• No venue is double-booked.
• Rounds avoid holidays and known conflicts.

Build one in a minute

Use our free round robin schedule generator. It builds a full league schedule or one team's games, and downloads a CSV you can import into Rinkmate. For leagues, see how to run a rec league and league management software.