How to Organize a Pickleball Tournament

A tournament is a different animal from a weekly round robin: there's registration, divisions, seeding, entry fees, and a bracket that has to hold up under real people who paid to be there. This guide walks through organizing a pickleball tournament in Pikel — setting up the event and its divisions, collecting entry fees, opening registration, seeding fairly, and running check-in and court dispatch on the day.

Step 1 — Create the tournament

Open the Create tab and choose Tournament — "Singles or doubles, ending in a bracket." Setup is three short steps: Event, Divisions and Review.

On Event, name the tournament, pick the club and the start and end times, and choose a venue (it's required). Set the number of Courts and, if you charge one, the Entry fee (see Step 3). More options holds the registration deadline, the DUPR requirement and visibility.

Step 2 — Add a division for each level

Pikel starts you with one division, Main draw, already set to Pools → bracket. Edit it, remove it, or tap Add division for each skill level you want to run — 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, mixed, whatever your event needs. Each division picks its own format:

• Pools → bracket (the default) — teams play a round-robin pool where everyone in the pool meets, then the qualifiers advance to a playoff bracket. The fairest way to run a full day: everyone gets guaranteed games before anyone goes home. You set the Number of pools and how many Advance per pool.
• Single elimination — a straight knockout. Best for a fast event with a large field and limited time.
• Double elimination — one loss drops a team to the losers' bracket instead of sending it home.
• MLP — teams field a lineup and play a set of games that add up to one team result (a team tie). Best when you want team-versus-team drama instead of individual placements.

Each division also sets singles or doubles, an optional skill range and a cap on teams, and keeps its own registration, draw and standings, so divisions run independently under one tournament banner.

Check the Review step and tap Create. The tournament starts as a draft that players can't register for yet.

Step 3 — Set entry fees (optional)

The entry fee is one amount for the whole tournament, set on the Event step. Then choose How players pay:

• Online — players pay by card through Stripe when they register, and the payment is tracked against their entry. To take card payments you first connect a payout account: the Connect payouts card in the run console walks you through Stripe. Who pays the fee? decides whether players cover the card fee or you do.
• Manual — you collect the fee yourself (cash, Venmo, at check-in). Players register in the app without paying and tick I'll pay the organizer at check-in; Pikel shows them the amount due.

Step 4 — Open registration

On iPhone, tap Publish tournament on the draft and confirm Open registration; on Android, the draft's button reads Open registration. Then share it: Share join link gives you a link, a QR code and a short join code.

Anyone registering picks a division and, for doubles, a partner. You can also add entrants yourself from a division's Players tab — Add pair enters two people as a team, and Add individual adds one person (type a name that isn't on Pikel to add them as a guest).

Step 5 — Seed the pools

Before the first pool game, open the division's ⋯ menu and choose Set up pools. Move teams between pools so that skill is spread evenly and the strongest teams don't collide early. Getting this right up front is what keeps a bracket from feeling rigged — read How to Seed a Bracket for the full approach, including seeding a knockout division.

Step 6 — Check players in and dispatch courts

On tournament day, open the tournament's Run console (the row under Organizer on the Info tab, or Open run console at the bottom once play is live) and go to Check-in desk. Tick players in as they arrive; you can search, filter by division, and close check-in for a division.

Then open Court dispatch. On its Setup tab, set Play to Auto and Pikel sends the next ready match to the next open court, keeping every court busy without you tracking it by hand. Want manual control? Set Play to Manual, tap a waiting match on the Live tab, tap Send to court and pick the court. Paused holds everything.

Step 7 — Run the bracket to a champion

When the pools are done, open the division's Playoff tab and tap Generate playoff bracket, then choose how many teams qualify from each pool. Pikel ranks the qualifiers from every pool together by record and seeds them across the draw — it does not happen on its own, so you can settle a withdrawal or a disputed score first.

From there players enter scores courtside: each player's Your match card shows their court, their opponents and an Enter score button, and the bracket fills in front of everyone's eyes. When the final match lands, you've got a clean, shareable result — no clipboard, no disputes over who was supposed to be on Court 3.

Pro tip

Run pools first whenever you have the time. A straight knockout sends half your field home after one game — Pools → bracket guarantees everyone a few matches before the knockout round, which is the difference between players coming back next year and not.