Pitch tournament designs and other BIBDs—existence results for the case ν = 8n

A pitch tournament is a resolvable or near resolvable(ν,8,7) BIBD that satisfies certain criteria in addition to theusual condition that ν ≡ 0 or 1 (mod 8). Here we establish that for the case ν = 8 n the necessary condition forpitch tournaments is sufficient for all n  > 1615, with at most 187 smaller exceptions. This complements our earlier study of the ν = 8 n  + 1 case, where we established sufficiency for all n  > 224, with at most 28 smaller exceptions. The four missing cases for (ν,8,7) BIBDs are provided, namely ν∈{48,56,96,448}, thereby establishing that the necessary existence conditions are sufficient without exception. Some constructions for resolvable designs are also provided, reducing the existence question for (ν,8,7) RBIBDs to 21 possible exceptions. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 9: 334–356, 2001