Through key research papers from Palgrave's Journal of Operational Research, this book showcases how Operational Research can be applied to sports in a variety of ways, including: timetabling fixtures; scheduling officials; forecasting outcomes; optimizing tactics and strategy; analyzing the effects of rules and laws; planning issues, and performance measurement. The introductory chapter provides a broad overview with an examination of how this area has developed over time, and a look at its wide ranging applications to sports including football, tennis and cricket etc.

1. Introduction2. The Optimal Aiming Line3. Planning Urban Recreational Facilities With Integer Goal Programming4. Using Hypergames To Model Difficult Social Issues: An Approach To The Case Of Soccer Hooliganism.5. Optimal Strategies For The Game Of Darts6. Dynamic Programming In One-Day Cricket - Optimal Scoring Rates7. Scheduling English Cricket Umpires8. Computer Forecasting Of Australian Rules Football For A Daily Newspaper9. Timetabling County Cricket Fixtures Using A Form Of Tabu Search10. A Fair Method For Resetting The Target In Interrupted One-Day Cricket Matches11. Measuring The Performance Of Nations At The Summer Olympics Using Data Envelopment Analysis12. The Professional Foul In Football - Tactics And Deterrents13. A Mathematical Analysis Of Badminton Scoring Systems14. A Branch-And-Price Algorithm For Scheduling Sport Leagues15. Optimal Challenges In Tennis