How to setup a Tournament

NOTE: Before you can setup a tournament, you will need to have created both a user account and a club.

Creating A Tournament

1.  Log in to your player account.

2.  Once logged in, click on the Tourneys tab.

3.  Next click the green button: Create a NEW Tourney.

4.  Choose your desired Club from the drop-down menu.

5.  Choose your listed country.

6.  Click the Next button.

Basic Info

Under the Basic Info section of your tournament, you will first notice the Fee Plan section.  The Setup fee is the only amount that is charged to your tournament and is due within the first 3 days of tournament setup.  The Per Reg fee amount is charged to the players.  Players will be charged a $5 service fee per event, up to a maximum of $10.  This fee amount is in addition to what you are charging for registration or event fees, and will be collected by you into whatever checkout option you choose.  Once the tournament is over, you are invoiced to send us the collected service fees from the players.  In this way, the only cost the tournament actually pays is the $25.00 setup cost.

The Advertise Only section is ONLY if you are wanting to show your tournament listed on our site, but not planning to run the tournament using our software.  The cost for this is a $500 one time fee.  

The player text option is an optional additional cost to communicate with players.  You are able to text players one by one, or by group.  It is NOT possible to text everyone in the tournament at once.  If you are planning to use a speaker or other communication on your tournament day to get players to the correct courts, you may not want to use the text feature.

Email notifications are free and built into the software.  We have a number of automated email preferences, including when a player registers, pays, and makes changes to their registration.  Turning this function off will stop all email communication from taking place.

The Waiting List Service helps you manage your events by moving fully registered/paid teams off the waitlist and into the main draw as long as there is room in the event.  Turn this option off if you want to manually control this.

Be sure your correct Time zone is in place for the location of the tournament.  

Show to Public Date is the date the tournament will show on the main listing for all players to view.  This can be turned on and off or changed at any time.

Title is the name of your tournament.  The short URL allows you to create a tournament specific link for your tournament that is not a bunch of numbers.  A shortened version of your tournament name works well.

Website allows you to enter a website URL that will place a button on the main tournament listing for your Web site. 

If you want the tournament private so only specific players can sign up, use the toggle to turn it on and create a code.  The code will be required for players to register for the tournament.

Max Reg. for Entire Tourney is only needed if you have a player cutoff number.  If you want to allow players to sign up and manage event maximums in the actual events, leave this blank (recommended).

Referee and Volunteer signup options will collect players names into a report if you would like to ask players if they want to volunteer or referee.  The report can be printed once tournament registration closes.

Hide registered players hides those who are registered so players cannot see who has signed up.  This is not commonly used as most players want to see who is listed in the tournament.

Starting times (once registration is closed) can be determined in multiple ways.  It is recommended to leave this on daily planner while setting up your tournament.  Once registration closes, you can make changes to this section.

Show Event Draws is how far out you want players to be able to see the actual draw of an event, instead of just the players names involved in the event.

Online Registration is how people sign up for the tournament.  Unless you are doing an advertise only tournament, leave this on.  Registration dates are when the registration opens and closes.

Age Limit Deadline is the date by which your age for the tournament is determined.  An example of the date below would mean that the software is pulling your age by the very last day of the year.  If you want the players correct age listed that the will be during your tournament, change this date to the last date of your event.

Max Events Per Registration is as it sounds, the maximum number of events a player can sign up for.  You can limit this here or in the next step of setup.

Emergency Contact Required will force players to have this information in their profile.  If they don't, they will receive an error message when registering letting them know they MUST enter this information before they can complete registration.

Disable Partner Manual Add will keep player from being able to add a player name in that doesn't have a pickleballbrackets.com account. 

Player Full Address Required is as it sounds.  A player MUST have all address information in their profile, or they will be unable to complete registration.

Max Event Registrations section at the top allows you to limit the number of events players can play per day.

Restrictions on Registering in Multiple Events allows you to take this further and allow/deny players from playing in multiple events with the same format (Gender Doubles/Mixed Doubles/Singles/Skinny Singles) in the same tournament.  This section will be useful if you are splitting event formats over multiple days.

Contact info will be who is in charge/owns the tournament.  Contact 1 should be your listed Primary Manager.  Contact 2 can be added if you have a co-director or main point of contact.

Billing Emails section is the email address the invoice will be sent to at the end of the tournament.  To pay the invoice, the person who receives this email MUST have a pickleballbrackets.com account and be listed on the Managers tab for the tournament.

Contact Form Emails allow you to send different emails to different people on your team.  If you have one person in charge of registrations, and another in charge of Refunds, put their respective emails into these sections and any player that selects that option using our software will be directed to the appropriate person.  If all of this section is left blank, all emails will go to the Contact #1 listed above.

When the player uses the "Contact Tourny" button on your tournament listing, they will be able to email you directly using the software.  You can choose if you want that email to show no personal information.  If you want to show the player your contact information, you need to enter it in the Contact Form Display Info section.

Players registering or making changes to their registration will receive automatic tournament emails.  If you would like to receive a copy of that email, enter your email address in the CC Emails fields below.

The Goals section will show on your Tournament Dashboard and is just a information piece that can help you by creating a graph to let you know how your progress towards your goal is going.

Digital Scorecard section is used during the running of your tournament while using the "Court Desk" feature.  If you are assigning matches to courts using the feature, you have the ability to hide all or some of that information if you choose.  

If you have enabled Google or Facebook tracking, you may enter that information here to receive detailed statistics about traffic to your registration website. Refer to Google or Facebook for setup information for either of those features

For tournaments that are planning to have way more tournament registration that availability, we offer a Lottery service.  

If you will allow any of the following on site, please toggle to yes.  This information shows at the bottom of your main tournament listing.

The last options in setup are your text boxes that will show on your main tournament listing.  Enter any information you wish to share with the players registering for your tournament.  This information will show directly below the logo on the main tournament listing.

Once Completed, select the "Save & Proceed Next" option

Registration Cost

The Use Out of State Cost and Use Lottery Cost offer you the ability to add additional registration fee options to players based on how you have your tournament set up.  If a player is coming from a different state, you can choose to enter a different dollar amount in that location under registration.  The same for Lottery Cost if you are planning to charge players a fee to sign up for the lottery.

Junior and Senior Discounts sections allow you to input a Discount in the system for Junior or Senior Players.  This discount is ONLY valid if the players in these categories play on Junior events or only Senior events (50+).  If a Junior signs up for an adult event, or a Senior signs up for a under 50 event, the Discounts will go away and the player will be charged the full registration fee.

You have the ability to enter multiple different Registration costs at once if you want, or just 1 Registration cost.  You can enter this information if during setup, and then set the "Date Cost Starts" section to automatically start the new cost and end the old cost.  Only 1 of the Registrations can be active at once.  Once a Registration field starts, it cannot be deleted, you would just need to create a new field.

Events Included in Cost is how many events you want included in the amount.  You can choose to include all of your events in the fee you list here, or just 1, or none, completely up to you.  If you are wanting to add additional cost for events, we will add those fees directly into the events we set up later.

Once Completed, select the "Save & Proceed Next" option

Checkout Options

We partner with Stripe for online payment.  If you have added your Stripe email address and information under the "Checkout Options" in your Club, you will be able to select "Activate" here to turn on the payments.

If you want to have players pay online but don't have a Stripe or PayPal account of your own, you can choose to use our Stripe account.  This option does include an additional $2.00 per player fee that you will be charged at the end of the tournament.  If you want to use this option, just fill in the information in this section and hit activate and your done.

If you don't want to require players to pay during registration, you can elect to turn on Onsite Payment.  This will allow players to sign up without making payment.  You can have this and a PayPal/Stripe option turned on at the same time, allowing for players to choose to pay online or wait until the day of.

IMPORTANT: Once a player registers, you as the Tournament Owner WILL be charged the amount of the service fees, whether the player actually pays/plays or not.  

Pay Later works the same way as Onsite Payment except the players have a deadline to arrange payment.  This can be however you want.  Keep in mind if payment is received by Cash/Check and not online through the software, you will need to manually record their payment for the player to show as paid.

If you have another platform that you already use for payment accepting, you can enter the URL here to have players automatically transferred to that location to make payment.  Using this function will NOT record payments in the system, you will need to manually record their payments.

Custom allows you to inform players using a text box to instruct them on how to make payment.

At least 1 payment option MUST be turned on for your tournament to complete and be open for registration.

Once Completed, select the "Save & Proceed Next" option

Logo & Files

You have the ability to upload a Logo to use on the main page of your tournament.  If your Logo doesn't meet the specifications, it will not load.  If your Logo is too large, you will need to resize it to make it fit.  Pickleballbrackets.com does not offer a Logo resizing option, so you will need to go through a different site for this if needed.

Below the Logo you will find an area to enter a Flyer and Waiver.  To add, just click on the "File" button to drag/drop the Flyer or Waiver into the appropriate area.  Flyer's/Waivers MUST be a pdf file and meet the Max size requirement to load.

Once the Flyer is loaded, a button will show on your main tournament listing to download the Flyer.  Once the Waiver is loaded, a checkbox will appear during the players registration completion before being able to make payment.  Players MUST agree to the waiver before being allowed to make payment.

Once Completed, select the "Save & Proceed Next" option

Discount Codes

Discount codes can be added into your tournament in this section.  To create a discount code, just Title the code, enter the discount amount, and save.  You can enter limitations to the code, such as how many you issue or dates in which it is active.

Once you have created your code, you just need to send the code to those players you wish to use it.  After registering for events but before making payments, players will find a "discount code" section to add the code before progressing to the payment page.

Once Completed, select the "Save & Proceed Next" option

Sponsors

Sponsors logo's and information can be added to your tournament.  Similar to your Tournament Logo, Sponsor Logo's also have a size requirement.

You can select the Level of the Tournament sponsor to determine where the logo and information appears on your tournament listing.  ALL logos and information provided here will be located at the bottom of your main tournament listing and all emails sent using our "Messages" emailing system.

If the sponsor has a website, be sure to include the URL in the sponsor section and a Title.  This will allow the player to access the website directly from your emails or tournament page.

Once Completed, select the "Save & Proceed Next" option

The Feature section can by bypassed as it is not currently available.

Venues