Overview: A Tournament or Playoff competition can be created by "cloning" or copying an existing season or competition, or by creating one from scratch.
Cloning an existing competition is most common and effective, as it allows you to automatically copy over all teams, associated divisions and eligible players.
There are currently 2 ways to execute a Playoff/Tournament within SportNinja.
1) Simple - Run playoffs just like the regular season, but using Placeholder Teams for TBD game slots.
2) Enhanced Tournament Functionality (Configuration Options by Division for: a Single or Double-knockout Brackets, Player Eligibility, Approval Advancements, etc - outlined below). This tournament type must be cloned, cannot currently be created from scratch.
*Note: The Enhanced tournament functionality may require support if you are using it for the first time, please contact support with any questions - support@sportninja.com
ENHANCED VERSION
Steps: (Quick Summary)
- Clone an existing Competition (eg. regular season) This is required. It is not currently possible to generate an Enhanced playoffs from scratch. NOTE: If you are planning to combine any Divisions in the playoff Competition, you must make these changes to the Competition that is being cloned (in the Set-up tab) prior to cloning.
- Tournament Type & Game Slots tab with your Tournament schedule by Division to generate brackets and placeholder game schedules.
- Sync Teams: Re-Seed Teams, Edit Teams inclusion, Bring over Eligible Players, as needed.
- Start Tournament: by hitting the "Start Tournament" button on the Game Slots tab to lock in the Division Settings.
- Approve team advancements: via the Game Slots tab (web-only) by hitting the "Approve" button. As games are played, League Admins must review and Approve each game advancement into the next round.
[OPTION TO RESET] - if changes are required, at any point prior to hitting the Start Tournament button, you can reset the Division and start from scratch by hitting the "Reset" button. It will remove any game slots, schedules and teams you have sync'd.
Visual Steps: (Detailed Steps)
1) Clone Competition: From the Competitions tab, click the three dots menu and select "Clone Competition"
Update the Competition details and select the "Playoff Competition?" box
2) Select Tournament Type & populate the Game Slots tab: Each Division must be configured independently. First select a Division, choose the Tournament Type and hit the "update type" button.
Next, populate the Date, Time, Venue, Surface for each game and click the "Save Changes" button.
This will be used to establish an initial playoff schedule with Placeholders, include a placeholder tournament bracket for this Division.
After hitting the "Save Changes" button, your Placeholder Schedule and Playoff brackets will be populated in their respective tabs. Both will be publicly available on Web and Mobile.
Tip: you can hit the Copy button on any row to copy-down the Venue and Facility values.
----- REPEAT this process (Step 2) for Each Division ---------
This is what your Placeholder schedule and Playoff Bracket will look like:
At this point, your schedule does not include any Team names or Rosters.
3) Sync Teams: bring in Teams and eligible Players from the associated Season/Competition by hitting the "Sync Teams" button.
Edit Team Inclusion: by unselecting any teams that will not be participating in this Division's playoffs.
Edit the Seeding Order: by dragging and dropping Teams into the correct order.
Suspensions: select this box to bring over any suspensions from the prior Competition.
Minimum Player GP: Enter the minimum games a player must have attended in the prior Competition to be eligible for Playoffs.
NOTE: It is only possible bring over Rosters (and their eligible players) once. However, after performing this sync you can make manual edits to the Team Rosters as needed.
After Syncing Teams you will see Team names populated on the Schedule and Playoff tabs and Teams will include their Rosters for the tournament, available for editing as needed.
Schedule tab - Example:
Playoffs tab - Example:
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[OPTION TO RESET] - if changes are required, at any point prior to starting, you can reset the Division and start from scratch by hitting the "Reset" button. It will remove any Game slots, schedules and teams you have sync'd.
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*** You are now ready to begin the Tournament! ***
4) Start Tournament: Hit the "Start Tournament" Button prior to scoring games. This locks in the Division settings. You will still have the ability to edit Game Schedules and Rosters as needed.
5) Approve Team Advancements via the Game Slots tab (web-only): As games are played, League Admins are currently required to review any finalized games and "Approve" each game (by clicking the "Approve" button in the Game Slots tab) in order to advance teams. After you hit approve, schedules and playoff brackets will reflect the advancements.