A tournament in SportsPress Pro can include group stages alongside a knockout bracket. Group stages use standard league tables that are linked to a tournament post. When linked tables exist, they appear in a Groups section on the tournament page below the bracket.
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Group stages are not a separate tournament format — they are league tables (the sp_table post type) that have been associated with a specific tournament by storing the tournament's post ID in the table's sp_tournament meta value. Any league table can be linked to a tournament this way.
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The tournament page automatically queries for all league tables that have sp_tournament set to the current tournament's ID and renders them together under a "Groups" heading.
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When you edit a tournament, a Groups meta box appears in the main content area below the bracket editor (or below the double elimination bracket sections). This meta box queries the database for any league tables already linked to this tournament and renders each one using the standard league table editor.
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At the bottom of the Groups meta box there is an Add New button. Clicking it opens the league table editor in a new admin panel pre-filled with the current tournament's ID, saving you the step of manually linking the table.
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Alternatively, you can link an existing league table to a tournament by editing the league table directly. The league table editor includes a Tournament selector (added by the Tournaments module) in the table details section. Select one or more tournaments there and save.
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The league table Tournament selector supports multiple selections. A single league table can appear in the Groups section of more than one tournament by selecting multiple tournament IDs.
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When a tournament page is rendered, the tournament-tables.php template runs after the winner panel and bracket. It queries for all tables linked to the tournament and renders them inside a .sp-tournament-tables container.
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If there is more than one linked table, they are displayed side by side: the first table is aligned left, the second is aligned right, the third is aligned left again, and so on, in alternating pairs.
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If only one table is linked, it is displayed full-width with no alignment class.
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Each table renders using the standard league-table.php template — the same template used everywhere else on the site.
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The "Groups" section heading is the translatable string "Groups" (__( 'Groups', 'sportspress' )), which can be customized under SportsPress > Settings > Text.
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The groups display is controlled by a WordPress option named sportspress_tournament_show_tables. If this option is set to 'no', the entire groups section is suppressed. The default value is 'yes'. This option is not exposed in the SportsPress settings UI; it can be set programmatically:
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The sp_group taxonomy referenced in the Tournaments module (add_event_taxonomy()) is defined as a method but is never attached to a WordPress hook in the constructor. The sp_group taxonomy is not registered anywhere in the codebase. There is no mechanism in the source code for tagging events or teams with a group taxonomy, and no UI for creating or managing groups as a taxonomy. Groups in SportsPress Pro are implemented exclusively as linked league tables, not as a taxonomy-based grouping system.
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