May Meetup - Optimising Fantasy Football with Google OR-Tools

We are delighted to welcome you to our next meetup in May!

If you would like to volunteer as a speaker please reach out to us at lds@jumpingrivers.com.

Schedule

18:00--18:45h: Refreshments (Food served on first come first served basis)

18:45--18:50h: Welcome

18:50--20:00: Owen Lacey

What's the "best" Fantasy Football team? With all of the rules around budget and team selections, how can we maximise our chance of getting ahead of the game?

Using Google OR-Tools, Owen will demonstrate how to use constraint programming and optimisation techniques to select a Fantasy Football team that maximises expected performance within key constraints like budget, formations, and transfer rules.

This is a practical, code-driven session ideal for data scientists, engineers, and problem-solvers of all kinds who want to see how optimisation can be applied in a fun, real-world scenario. You’ll learn:

• The basics of constraint programming and how it differs from traditional algorithms
• How to model Fantasy Football team selection as an optimisation problem
• How Google OR-Tools can be used to explore, evaluate, and select optimal lineups

Whether you’re chasing fantasy glory or just looking for a fresh use case for OR-Tools, this talk will show how the right constraints can lead to the best decisions.

News and Announcements

Have a news item or announcement you'd like to make about upcoming data events or job opportunities in Leeds? Comment below or contact us directly (lds@jumpingrivers.com) and we'll do our best to circulate this information during the session.

Please contact the organisers if you would like to volunteer as a speaker for future events.