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Single Elimination Brackets

Single elimination is the default tournament format in SportsPress Pro. A team or player that loses a match is immediately eliminated. The bracket progresses round by round until one competitor remains.

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Single Elimination Brackets

Single elimination is the default tournament format in SportsPress Pro. A team or player that loses a match is immediately eliminated. The bracket progresses round by round until one competitor remains.
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Setting the Format

When creating or editing a tournament, open the Details meta box in the sidebar and set Format to Single Elimination. Only the Bracket meta box appears in the main content area when this format is active. The Winner Bracket, Loser Bracket, and Final Bracket meta boxes are hidden for single elimination tournaments.
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Configuring the Number of Rounds

In the Details meta box, use the Teams selector to set how many rounds the bracket contains. The number of rounds determines the maximum number of starting teams:
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Teams setting

Rounds stored

Starting team slots

3–4 teams

2

4

5–8 teams

3

8

9–16 teams

4

16

17–32 teams

5

32

33–64 teams

6

64

The maximum is 6 rounds / 64 teams. This limit is set by the sp_tournament_rounds_limit filter, which defaults to 6 in class-sp-tournament-meta-boxes.php. Developers can raise this limit with a filter hook if needed.
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The Bracket Editor

The Bracket meta box displays the bracket as a table. Each column is a round; each row-group within a column is a match slot.
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Round Labels

The header row of the bracket table contains an editable text field for each round. Type a custom label such as "Quarter-finals," "Semi-finals," or "Final." If a field is left blank, SportsPress defaults to "Round 1," "Round 2," and so on.
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Assigning Teams to the First Round

Only the first round shows team selector dropdowns. Select a team from the dropdown in each slot. The dropdown is pre-filtered by the League and Season assigned to the tournament in the Details meta box. If no league or season is assigned, all teams are shown.
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Teams in later rounds are determined automatically once match results are entered; their slots display as read-only text fields showing the winner of the previous match.
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Entering Match Data

Each match slot in the bracket editor contains:
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  • Date — a date-picker field. Enter the match date in YYYY-MM-DD format. Leaving this field blank marks the event as TBD.

  • Time — hour and minute fields in 24-hour format. If only a date is provided, time defaults to midnight.

  • Results — two small score fields (home score on the left, away score on the right), separated by a dash.

When you save the tournament (click Update or Publish), SportsPress automatically creates or updates sp_event posts for every match slot that has either a date or at least one team assigned.
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How Winners Advance

When you enter results for a match and save, SportsPress reads the event outcome to determine which team won. On the next page load, the winner's name automatically populates the corresponding slot in the next round. The winner is determined using the same outcome logic configured under SportsPress > Configure — the event outcome marked "Win" (or the highest-ranked outcome) decides the advancing team.
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If a match has no result yet, the next-round slot remains blank until results are entered.
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Hiding Match Slots

Click the eye icon (dashicons-hidden) on any match row to hide that event from the frontend display. This is useful for byes or placeholder slots that should not appear publicly. The hidden state is toggled in the admin and saved per-event.
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Saving Creates Events Automatically

Every time you save a tournament with a date (or team assignment) in a bracket slot, SportsPress creates an sp_event post for that match if one does not already exist. The event title is generated from the team names joined by the configured delimiter (default: "vs"). The event is automatically tagged with the tournament's assigned league and season and its format is set to "Tournament."
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To edit an event directly, click the pencil icon (dashicons-edit) visible in the admin bracket table next to the date field. This opens the event edit screen in a new tab.
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Frontend Display

The tournament page automatically renders the bracket below any post content. The display order on the page is:
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  1. Winner — shown at the top if a winner has been designated in the Details meta box.

  2. Bracket — the full bracket table.

  3. Groups — any linked league tables (if present).

What the Bracket Shows

Each event cell in the frontend bracket displays:
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  • The match score (or the vs delimiter if the match has not been played).

  • The event date (not shown for TBD matches).

  • Team logos if Display logos is enabled (see Settings below).

  • The venue name if Display venue is enabled.

  • A video camera icon if the event has a video URL, or a photo icon if a featured image is set.

  • A "Recap" or "Preview" link if the event post has content.

Team names in the bracket are highlighted on hover — hovering over a team name highlights all other occurrences of that team across the bracket. Clicking a team name navigates to the team page if Link teams is enabled.
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Bracket Layout Options

The Layout selected in the sidebar controls the visual orientation:
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  • Default (bracket) — rounds run left to right. Round 1 is the leftmost column; the final is the rightmost.

  • Center (center) — the final is in the center column; rounds fan outward symmetrically. When Center layout is used together with responsive tables enabled, mobile devices show the Default (left-to-right) layout and desktop devices show the Center layout.

The [tournament_bracket] Shortcode

Embed a bracket anywhere on your site using:
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[tournament_bracket id="123"]

Replace 123 with the tournament post ID. The ID is shown in the Shortcode meta box on the tournament edit screen.
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The shortcode respects the same defaults as the full template. You can override individual display options by passing additional attributes:
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Attribute

Default

Description

id

current post ID

Tournament post ID

show_logos

yes (from settings)

Show team logos in event cells

show_venue

no (from settings)

Show venue name in event cells

link_teams

from settings

Make team names clickable

link_events

yes (from settings)

Make event cells link to event pages

responsive

from settings

Show bracket layout as mobile/desktop switch

layout

bracket

bracket (left-to-right) or center

Example with overrides:
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[tournament_bracket id="123" show_logos="yes" show_venue="yes" layout="center"]

Display Settings

Global tournament display defaults are configured under SportsPress > Settings > Events, in the Tournaments section:
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  • Display logos (sportspress_tournament_show_logos) — default yes. Controls whether team logos appear in bracket event cells.

  • Display venue (sportspress_tournament_show_venue) — default no. Controls whether the venue name appears below the score.

  • Display winner (sportspress_tournament_show_winner) — default yes. Controls whether the designated winner panel appears above the bracket on the tournament page.

Limits

  • Maximum rounds: 6 (enforced by apply_filters( 'sp_tournament_rounds_limit', 6 ))

  • Maximum teams at 6 rounds: 64

Related Articles
Modules
Tournament Bracket
Creating a Tournament
Double Elimination Brackets
Group Stages
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