This paper presents a comprehensive survey on the literature considering round robin tournaments. The terminology used within the area has been modified over time and today it is highly inconsistent. By presenting a coherent explanation of the various notions we hope that this paper will help to obtain a unified terminology. Furthermore, we outline the contributions presented during the last 30 years. The papers are divided into two categories (papers focusing on break minimization and papers focusing on distance minimization) and within each category we discuss the development which has taken place. Finally, we conclude the paper by discussing directions for future research within the area.