Tournament Setup in 5 Minutes

Follow these steps to go from sign-up to running your first tournament.

Step 1: Create your account

Sign up at dash.staty.io/sign-up . During onboarding you’ll create or join an organization, the account that owns your tournaments, teams, and API keys. The create wizard builds your first tournament for you and, in its Who’s playing? step, lets you paste your teams under each division and pick the tournament date; Staty then drafts a round-robin schedule for that date as real games (see Step 4).

Step 2: Create a Tournament

The wizard already created your first tournament; use this step for the next one. Go to the Admin dashboard at dash.staty.io and open Competitions in the sidebar (under League Management). In the Tournaments section:

Click “Add Tournament”
In the create dialog, type a name (e.g. “Spring Cup 2026”) and review the contests (e.g. Mens/Womens) and divisions pre-filled from your sport’s template; rename, add, or remove them freely
Leave Include registration checked to create its signup in the same step (see Step 6), then click Create

The tournament appears in the Competitions tree with its contests and divisions (you can still add more inline later). It becomes the container for your bracket, teams, and games; advanced options live in the row’s ⋯ → Settings menu.

Step 3: Set Your Bracket Size

Open a division’s page from its row in Competitions and select the playoff bracket size: 2, 4, or 8 teams. The bracket is auto-generated and updates automatically as results are entered.

You can run multiple tournaments under one organization, each with its own bracket and registration.

Step 4: Add your teams and publish the bracket schedule

If you pasted your teams in the wizard, they are already in their divisions with a drafted round-robin schedule on the tournament date, and the games just need times. Otherwise, open a division’s page from Competitions (or Add teams on the first Get Started card) and add your teams there. Then build the schedule: Create Game on the division page adds a single game, Auto-Populate generates pool play or the bracket from the division format, and the Schedule tab (sidebar, under League Management) opens the tournament’s day calendar for assigning times. Games without a time show “Time TBD” on your public site; the Get Started card offers Set game times until they have one. Everything you create here shows up on your public site right away.

Your public site is live at https://<your-org>.statyapps.io with the schedule and bracket on it. If you pasted teams in the wizard, its finish screen hands you the schedule link (“The [Org] schedule is up”) with Text it to your captains, Copy link, and Email me this link; otherwise it hands you your site link with an Add your teams button. The Share your site card on Get Started does the same later: it copies the schedule link once games exist (the site link before that) and checks off on your first copy, share, or email.

Step 6: Open Registration (optional)

Teams you added yourself are already in; registration is for teams that still need to sign up (and pay, if you set a fee) on their own. It is created with your tournament by default (the create dialog’s Include registration checkbox) and starts open and fee-less, and the “Open registration immediately” toggle controls whether it goes live right away: Basic Registration keeps the defaults, Custom Registration takes you straight to its edit page. If you skipped it, click the registration icon on the tournament’s row in Competitions. On the registration’s edit page you can configure:

Open / Close dates: control the registration window
Team size: minimum and maximum players per team
Max teams: cap enrollment at your bracket size automatically
Custom fields: collect extra info from captains
Waiver: attach a digital liability waiver (optional)

To collect payment: link a Payment Product to your registration before publishing. See the Setup Payments guide to set up payments first.

Click Publish: your registration link is ready to share with teams. It also sits on the Open registration and set a fee card of Get Started, where a fee needs a payout account with charges enabled; free registrations work without one.

Step 7: Manage the Bracket

Once registration closes and teams are confirmed:

Go to Bracket in your tournament dashboard
Seed teams: drag to reorder or let Staty auto-seed
Enter game results as they’re played; the bracket advances automatically

The bracket is also displayed to players and fans on your public site’s Standings tab, including before games are scheduled, with “Seed 1” and “Winner of …” placeholders that fill in as games are generated and results come in.

What’s Next?

Accept Payments: set up payments and start collecting registration fees
Developer API: build custom tournament sites or integrate with your own tools