Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America and it landed in every K-12 PE class in the last three years. Which means every AD and rec director is now running pickleball tournaments too. Here's the operations playbook.
Format choices
- Round robin — best for 6-8 team field, every team plays every team
- Pool play into bracket — best for 10+ teams, rewards top pool finishers
- Dupr-rated bracket — for more advanced events with seeded players
Court logistics
A standard gym converts to 4 pickleball courts. Schedule matches to 11-point rally scoring, win by 2, with a 20-minute cap. The scheduler should automatically stagger match starts so you're never waiting for one long match.
Fees, merch, and check-in
Collect entry fees at registration, sell a t-shirt upsell during checkout, and check in players via QR code on arrival.
Run your K-12 season on the Sports Tier
SignUpGo's Sports Tier ($59/mo) is purpose-built for K-12 athletic directors, tournament organizers, and league coordinators. You get unlimited tournaments, 5 user seats, 1,000 messaging credits for game-day alerts, pool play & bracket automation, captain score entry, team & player registration, entry fees, and merch sales — all in one dashboard.
- Unlimited brackets and pool play across multiple courts or fields
- SMS game notifications the moment a schedule shifts
- Captain score submission with secure one-time tokens
- Custom branding so parents see your school or league, not ours
Ready to stop wrangling spreadsheets? Start with the Sports Tier or compare all plans. You can also try the tournament builder in under two minutes.