That was a good watch, wish there were more takes on it but I suppose thats what you get for a short film.
Combinatorics is not my game and I'm sure their job wasn't easy, owing mostly to the myriad of special circumstances. I don't like the wife's poo-pooing of better technology. One would think it'd have to be inevitable but both kind of speak to how much can or can't be done. At least the computer can't be argued at as such. If you blame the machine (fairly or not) you appear to be a fool. The real issue is that a change in one thing cascades into others... and then you have to find a new solution.
Up until the 3 division set-up, IIRC, there were a few "standard" set ups...
12 team league, 2 divisions of 6
18x5 + 12*6 =162
14... 2 of 7
13x6+12*7=162
---
Once you get lopsided it becomes much harder. You loose any available and reliable symmetry. I'm going to guess the wife had the superstructure down for the starting state of a schedule solution. Complexity reduces the number of allowable solutions. 3 divisions, inter-league play, etc.
The NBA/NHL thing is somewhat different in the sense that very few baseball stadiums are used as multi-purpose facilities and often have priority except some sundays in august and september (NFL). Theirs is a whole different challenge.
Minor baseball also likely doesn't have any sacred cows that the majors have. Having one circuit of 12 or so teams makes life easier... the actual complexity probably looks more like n^2 versus order n.
