How to Run a Basketball Tournament on Tipoff

Sign up as an organizer (it's free), then hit New on your dashboard to open Create a tournament. Fill in:

• Tournament name and an optional description and photo. The photo shows on your public page and when the link is shared.
• Sport — anything from 1v1 to 5v5. 3v3 is the default.
• Location — start typing the venue or city and pick it from the list. This is how players find you when they search nearby.
• Start date, an optional End date for multi-day events, and an optional Registration deadline.
• Roster min and Roster max — how many players each team can carry (3 and 5 by default).

Then set up your Divisions. Every tournament starts with one (“Open”), and you can add up to 12 — for example, 14U, 17U, and Adult. Each division gets its own:

• Format — single elimination, double elimination, round robin, or pool play. For pool play, choose the Number of pools and how many teams Advance per pool. (Not sure? Read which format to use.)
• Max teams — once the division fills, new teams join a waitlist automatically.
• Courts — how many courts this division plays on.
• Entry fee — the form shows exactly what you receive and what teams pay. At the default $60.00, you receive $60.00 and the team pays $64.02. Set it to $0 for a free event.

Click Create tournament. That's it — your event is live immediately with its own public page, and we'll email you your share link.

Charging an entry fee? Before teams can pay, connect where the money goes. Open Payouts and click Set up payouts. You'll connect a debit card or bank account through Stripe in about two minutes.

You'll see “Your account is set up to receive payouts” when it's done. Until then, your dashboard shows a reminder, because teams can't pay you yet.

Your tournament's manage page opens on the Teams tab. Copy your registration link from the Invite teams card with the Share button.

Post it in group chats and on Instagram, text it to captains you know, and put it on your flyer. Anyone can also find your event by searching Tipoff by name or location. Your public page (the Public page → button) has its own share button, so players can pass it along too.

When a captain opens your link, they:

1. Pick a Division (if you have more than one). Each one shows how many spots are left.
2. Enter a Team name, an optional team color, and their name. New users create their account right on that form.
3. Pay the entry fee by card, or confirm a free entry. A team is confirmed — and placed in the bracket — once it's paid.
4. Share their own team invite link with teammates. Each player joins with one tap and gets a player profile that tracks their record and tournament history.

You get an email every time a team registers and every time a team pays. Your Teams tab shows each team as Paid or Unpaid. Use Refund if a team drops out, and Promoteto move a waitlisted team in. When you're full, click Close registration.

Go to the Bracket tab (it's called Pools for pool play divisions). If you want to rank teams, enter seeds — 1 is your top team — and click Save seeds. Leave them blank and teams are seeded in the order they registered.

Then set the First game time and Minutes / game. For multi-day events, also set the Last game of day. Now click Generate bracket & schedule. Tipoff builds the bracket and gives every game a time and a court in one step.

On the Schedule tab you can move any game to a different court or time. Auto-schedule re-runs the timing if things change.

Open schedule sheet →gives you a clean, printable schedule. Tape it to the gym door or send it to every team. Players also get a “game day tomorrow” reminder email automatically.

When a game ends, open Enter Results, pick the winner, add the score if you have it, and hit Save result. The bracket advances right away, and the public page updates live for every player and parent watching.

Running several courts? Hand out your Scorekeepers link from the Teams tab. Volunteers sign in and can enter results for any game, but they can't change anything else about your tournament.

For pool play, once every pool game has a result, click Generate playoff bracket. Top finishers are seeded across pools, so pool winners meet runners-up from other pools in the first round. More on that in how pool play works.

When the final is scored, Tipoff records the champion and runner-up. Every player gets a wrap-up email, and the result goes on their profile.

Your entry fees are already in your payout account. Card payments usually settle in about two days. After that, use Pay out to my card, or Instant payout if you need it now.