How To Set Up A Pickleball Tournament

There are myriad questions and details you volition need to work out earlier you ready out to organize and run a successful pickleball tournament. Beneath are a series of questions and guidelines that volition lead you to showtime creating a solid plan for your tournament.

Work your way through each one.

Then y'all will have a huge head start on launching a fantastic tournament!

It takes a lot of piece of work to get a tournament off the footing, let solitary executed successfully and then that anybody has a great time. Some project management skills are definitely beneficial as you work through this process.

1. What type of pickleball tournament do you lot want to run? Why are yous doing this?

Ane of the most powerful ways to kick off great tournament planning is to go clear on exactly why y'all are running a tournament.

Is it a friendly local gathering of people yous mostly know? Is it more serious?

Exercise you want to limit it to a pocket-sized number or really blow it out to large tournament?

Are you aiming to enhance coin for a clemency, interruption fifty-fifty or trying to make a profit?

Your decisions will flow from your formulation of what you want. And it'south and so much easier if you start making decisions from a place of clarity.

2. Who will assist you run information technology?

Your tournament director or commissioner (probably yous if you're reading this commodity!) volition bear the brunt of a lot of the work and delegation.

Yous won't be able to do information technology alone.

Y'all'll need at least a few volunteers and perchance a volunteer coordinator to help with a whole host of tasks such every bit set up, breakdown, postal service scores, human tables.

Again your needs will expand with the size and complexity of the consequence, just you might want to write up a proto-org chart placing people at the head of various "departments". People might exist listed in multiple roles which is fine.

One time you have a crude idea of the size of the event, yous tin can start to get a good sense of how many people you'll demand for each type of office. Regardless, as with planning and executing any event or projection, you should have clear roles and responsibilities across the lath for everyone involved.

And make certain each "department head" knows what they are responsible for and brand sure they accept ownership of ensuring they accept their sphere organized and staffed correctly.

You'll need people for the registration table, scorekeeping, scheduling, announcing, player wrangling, food tables, fix and clean up, refereeing and other work throughout the day.

3. Central Dates: When Volition Your Tournament Take Place? What are the registration deadlines?

The engagement is the beginning thing anybody will inquire nearly, so it's key to nail it down early in the process.

Double check that the engagement of the tournament doesn't have any major conflicts such every bit other nearby pickleball tournaments or big events in the area of the tournament that could be disruptive or decrease attendance.

Work backwards from the tournament. Will you set an early on bird registration deadline with some benefit like a cheaper registration fee? When is the last registration deadline?

Make sure your deadlines give yous plenty of time to go everything in place, organized and ordered. Remember you'll need lead time to become things set, and then time to promote and become the word out, so time to allow people to programme for whatsoever travel and accommodations that they might need to actually nourish the tournament.

And finally you lot and your tournament team will need to become all the last details in place, so I would recommend having the final registration be at to the lowest degree a few days – possibly a week or and so — before the tournament.

Before you lot finalize the date, y'all may need to skip to #4 below first because your venue may dictate which dates will work.

4. The Venue: Decide on a venue for your pickleball tournament

Volition information technology be indoors or outdoors? (For the time being, you might desire to focus on planning an outdoor tournament to avoid pandemic problems.)

How many players are yous expecting? How many courts volition you need?

Patently if information technology's outdoors you take a chance having to deal with the elements on game day. So you'll need a contingency plan if the tournament is rained out – will you lot change the engagement? cancel information technology birthday? event refunds?

What is the layout of the venue and does it have enough room for or can they provide enough:

Parking – if the venue doesn't have enough parking straight available is there a lot or field nearby that yous could rent out?
Bathrooms and locker rooms
Registration table
Rest expanse
Hydration, refreshments and food
Shade
Lights
Wi-fi
Electrical outlets
Sound system
First aid
Cooling stations
Room for any tables and vendors that need to gear up
Nearby hotels
Permanent or portable nets (Preferable that they be permanent)

Visit the venue to imagine where you'll gear up tables and various stands and how people will menses through the outcome from registration to playing to breaks.

If the venue is on lath with the program, get them to provide you with some possible dates.

Be certain information technology'southward clear what the venue volition take care of and what you will have care of, don't assume anything .

Wait back at what yous decided on question ane: Does the venue's vibe lucifer the ane you lot want to create for the tournament? Is it a pristine, high class identify or more casual?

If the venue doesn't have quite plenty courts, is there room to set up temporary courts with tape and a portable pickleball net?

Keep in mind that the venue will need to be close enough to players to make it worth their time to travel to it. If you're setting i upwards in the center of nowhere and non near a pickleball hotspot, you'll need to temper your expectations in terms of the size of the tournament.

And finally — crucially — how much will the venue cost?!

five. What should players bring to your pickleball tournament?

Encourage people to bring paddle, water, towel, shoes appropriate for outdoor or indoor pickleball play, and sun tan lotion if you lot're outside.

Information technology'southward key to pre-program and communicate early and ofttimes with your players, volunteers, vendors and anyone working on the tournament. Everyone should be clear nigh who should be where, by when and how things will run.

6. What volition the schedule wait like?

You can budget nearly an 60 minutes per match. Start there.

Effigy in time for breaks and bringing everyone together at the stop for awarding prizes to the winners.

Then factor in setup time and tear downward fourth dimension. This will exist largely driven past the venue yous are working with.

7. What will the format and type of tournament be?

Want to run the tournament as a round robin, single elimination or double emptying, or pool play?

If you have fewer than 4 teams in a bracket, that suggests a double round robin. If y'all take a bracket with viii or ten teams or more, you might want to split up the subclass into smaller sets of teams.

Will games be played to 15 for 1 game per match-upwards or best two out of three to 11 points?

8. How are yous going to handle bracket assignments?

Y'all'll demand to effigy out the mix of:

Mens, womens, and mixed
Singles and doubles.
Age brackets
Role player ratings

Obviously if y'all start combining these categories you could end up with dozens and dozens of brackets, so you'll accept to decide the all-time manner to split upward the brackets based on the size and type of tournament y'all are running — remember questions number one!

9. Will You Use Tournament Software or Manage Registration and Game-Day Manually on paper or a spreadsheet?

This comes down to personal preference and your ease of using whatsoever given software. Regardless, y'all'll need some system to manage and track registration, brackets, game outcomes, and actor fees.

A computer isn't absolutely necessary by any ways but it tin sure make your life easier and aid the day go more smoothly!

Also: what exactly do yous need the software for? Just planning or on game mean solar day every bit well? If you'll be relying on software on game twenty-four hour period, you'll need ability sources to go along your devices charged and prepare to go.

If y'all're printing stuff out be sure you lot have a printer and computer available and with a power source.

Here are some software options to consider (these are recommendations just some of the options out there):

Pickleballtournaments.com – If information technology's a USAPA sanctioned tournament yous'll need to use this software. You can encounter the software fees here.
Playinga
Global Pickleball Network

Don't forget to have all players sign a waiver of liability before the tournament begins.

Here's a tool for making printable brackets.

10. How Many Referees Will you lot need to run a Pickleball Tournament?

Referees are required if it's a USAPA sanctioned upshot. You need to accept a referee for every medal match in a USAPA Sanctioned tournament.

Every bit an additional benefit, they tin can lend legitimacy to your tournament and aid keep the games flowing smoothly.

11. Will the Tournament be a USAPA promotional tournament, officially USAPA sanctioned or unaffiliated?

Plain if yous run a tournament that is unaffiliated you can make up whatsoever rules you desire!

With a promotional tournament you practise have to follow some guidelines from the USAPA and will become their support, but players do not earn points that apply towards their USAPA rating.

If information technology is sanctioned you'll have less elbowroom in the fashion y'all run the tournament, — peculiarly because this will limit who players to only USAPA members — but players get the benefit of impacting their USAPA Tournament Player Rating with their participation.

Cheque out the complete set up of rules provided past the USAPA.

In addition to paying the USAPA sanction fee, yous practice need to use pickleballtournaments.com software. The main affair you'll demand to do on game day will be to take a referee for every medal lucifer and you lot'll demand to create different brackets for players based on their USAPA Tournament Player Rating Number.

And of class the pickleballs you provide will need to be USAPA approved and the paddles players play with will need to exist USAPA approved besides.

One terminal benefit is that you can get a free list on the USAPA tournament calendar if you are sanctioned.

12. Price to play: How Much Will Y'all Charge? What is your refund policy?

Odds are you'll probably cease upwardly charging anywhere betwixt $15 and $25.

Once y'all've worked out all of your costs, built in a bit of a buffer for whatever profit and contingencies you might encounter, you will have a crude sense of how much you lot'll need to charge. I'd recommend figuring out a few different scenarios: from bad to great – vary the number of attendees, a few unlike cost points and assumptions.

And don't forget yous can offset some of the costs by getting local and national sponsors.

You need a refund policy. Lay it out in terms of deadlines and amount to exist refunded at each stage.

thirteen. Go the Word out: Advertising, Social Media, Flyers, Website, E-mail – oh my!

Here'due south where some creativity can go a long way.

Inventory your options and pick the all-time routes to go downwards to get the discussion out. Hither are some ideas:

Get help from the venue – post flyer physically, see if they have whatever newsletters or e-mail lists that they can mention the tournament also
Post flyers throughout the area – gyms, other pickleball venues, really anywhere with good foot traffic will do good you and it doesn't price much.
Add your tournament to tournament directories such as the USAPA site and PIckleballTournaments.com
Post to local pickleball groups on Facebook
Add together pickleball related hash tags to twitter posts nearly the tournament
Don't forget to email people you lot know directly – ask them to spread the word too!
Create a facebook page and event
Pay for advertising! Facebook and Twitter are great for this because you tin can target specific groups and geographic locations to make sure you're getting in front of the right people.

14. What Ball Will You Apply?

This is a tough question to reply. In addition to being appropriate for indoor or outdoor, the best pickleball ball for your tournament should be the advisable color for the court you are playing on (i.e. it shouldn't match the colors of the surroundings or the walls if you're inside).

Players care nigh which ball you will use, they might even avoid tournaments that use balls they don't similar!

It should exist a USAPA approved pickleball if you are running a USAPA sanctioned event.

fifteen. Will you try to get sponsors?

Sponsors tin can help with advert, venue, merch costs, raising funds and profitability.

Remember sponsors don't need to simply provide money – they tin can provide in-kind donations such as merch, food, goodie handbag swag, water, balls or services for you or your players.

16. Will you provide water or nutrient?

What nutrient and water options are there at the venue? If there isn't a venue option information technology's important to have at least some option for food and water. You could accept the issue catered out of the funds for the tournament or bring in a vendor like a couple of food trucks who tin handle all of the logistics for yous.

At the very least — in my opinion — yous should provide some water and hearty snacks for players for free or inexpensive.

17. Practice you lot want professional assistance?

Information technology'southward okay to feel overwhelmed if this is your first fourth dimension organizing a pickleball tournament, and if you exercise, or if you want to run a tournament bigger than you lot alone can handle, why not call in some professionals?

Here are some folks who run pickleball tournaments for a living: Pickleball Is Great.

18. Will there exist awards and prizes or paid or gratis merch?

Buy trophies, plaques and/or medals for first, 2nd and tertiary place in each event.. This is an piece of cake i to forget well-nigh but also an easy ane to take care of early on in the process. You'll likely need to special order these if you want to customize them, but at that place are myriad options for something here. Get creative!

One difficulty here is that you'll need to know the number and types of brackets you'll be running in order to social club the right amount and blazon of awards.

Some options you lot could give to winners: custom gear, goodie numberless, dress, shirts, paddles, balls. Get some of your sponsors on that merch to subsidize it!

Pickleball fundamental offers some tournament supplies you might want to consider.

One note on awards – if you're going to run the tournament again in the future, don't forget to capture the award winners via video and pictures. It's a great tool to become the discussion out about the tournament – which will make it a bit easier to get people interested in the futurity.

19. How else can you get in a groovy pickleball tournament consequence?

Have the teams option fun names.

Add other activities and attractions before, subsequently and during the consequence for players, friends and family.

Brand sure everyone can see the results posted somewhere either in person or online.

Get creative and take a great fourth dimension!

Most the Writer