| Probability of Beating | ||||||
| Team | Rating | Great | Good | Average | Bad | Pathetic |
| Great | 20 | 50 | 75 | 90 | 97 | 100 |
| Good | 10 | 25 | 50 | 75 | 90 | 97 |
| Average | 0 | 10 | 25 | 50 | 75 | 90 |
| Bad | -10 | 3 | 10 | 25 | 50 | 75 |
| Pathetic | -20 | 0 | 3 | 10 | 25 | 50 |
So for example, a "good" team has a 75% chance of beating an "average" team.
Example: Consider the following schedule
The schedule strength calculation might go as follows:
| Opponent | Rating | Games | Points |
| Great | 20 | 2 | 40 |
| Good | 10 | 3 | 30 |
| Average | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Bad | -10 | 2 | -20 |
| Pathetic | -20 | 1 | -20 |
| Schedule | 3 | 10 | 30 |
The average schedule strength is simply the total rating of the opponents (30) divided by the number of games (10). Hence this team has a schedule rating of 3.
Consider the following schedules:
It is easy to see that the average opponent rating is the same (30/4 = 7.5) for both schedules A and B. But the following table shows that in fact a schedule should be measured relative to which team it belongs to.
| Expected Wins Against | ||
| Team A's Schedule | Team B's Schedule | |
| Great | 3.15 | 2.75 |
| Good | 2.25 | 1.97 |
| Average | 1.25 | 1.35 |
| Bad | 0.55 | 0.91 |
| Pathetic | 0.19 | 0.53 |
The expected wins values were calculated by adding the % values from the table at the top of this page. For example if a "great" team played Schedule A, it would be expected to win (.75 + .75 + .75 + .9 = 3.15) games.
Now the interesting observation is that a "great" or "good" team would be expected to win more games if it were to play Schedule A, while an "average" or below team would be expected to win more against Schedule B! So which schedule is "harder" ? It appears that this question can only be answered relative to the team that actually has to play that schedule.
From a "great" team's perspective, it does not gain much advantage from playing a "pathetic" team instead of an "average" team. However there is a significant difference between playing a "good" or "great" team.
Of course the situation is reversed from the perspective of a "bad" team. It would prefer Schedule B since at least it should beat the "pathetic" team.
| An above average team should prefer to play a less distributed schedule, while a below average team should prefer to play a more distributed schedule. |
A more "distributed" schedule would be something like (Great, Pathetic) while a less "distributed" schedule would be (Average, Average).
where n is then number of games played.
In words this means that if the team in question had played X in every game, then the expected wins would be exactly the same as for the actual schedule played.
As a consequence of this definition of schedule strength, a team's schedule is judged primarily by the "peers" that appear on its schedule. A good team has a hard schedule if it must play other good teams, while a bad team has a hard schedule if it does not play any other bad teams.