A tournament’s life-cycle: managing from inception to completion

There are a lot of things to take into consideration when organizing a sports tournament. From the beginning stages of planning, to the execution of the event, to the final stages of completion, tournament organizers must be prepared to manage the entire tournament life-cycle.

There are three main phases of any tournament, whether it be a tournament for soccer, hockey, tennis, football, baseball, basketball, or any other sport. Each phase has different components and requires various resources, but every phase is crucial to the success of the event. These three phases consist of:

  1. Planning
  2. Execution
  3. Completion

The Planning Phase

During the planning phase, tournament organizers must accomplish three main things. The first is identifying the resources needed to run the event (people power, financial costs, venues, promotional materials, sponsors, etc.). Carefully calculating what resources are needed in the initial planning stage will ensure tournament organizers are well prepared. This stage may even require a more formal analysis of costs and estimated profits. The analysis can help determine whether organizers should obtain sponsors for the tournament to lighten some of the costs.

Once resources have been calculated, tournament organizers can move on to the second step of the planning phase, the coordination and organization of the tournament. This step requires the majority of the work before the big day itself. The tournament organizers will need to confirm an adequate amount of volunteers (and potential sponsors), secure the venue(s) and facilities for both the tournament participants and the spectators, and will need to establish an easy way to collect registration fees for participating teams. Promoting the tournament via social media, posters throughout the community, online, and through other means should be a priority as well as effective promotion can boost participation in the event.

As soon as venues have been confirmed and teams or individuals have signed up for the tournament, organizers can complete the planning phase by conceptualizing the tournament’s structure. This involves establishing the type of tournament they want to organize (e.g. elimination, round robin, consolation, challenge, etc.) and creating the competition’s schedule. Once the schedule has been set, organizers will need to communicate the information to participants, fans, and sponsors. They can then gear up for the next phase of the tournament.

The Execution Phase

The execution phase is the result of all the hard work that happened during the planning phase. This is when the magic happens and the weeks, or even months, of planning culminate into the event. The work doesn’t end here though. This phase still requires tournament organizers to ensure that everything runs smoothly, the teams and spectators are taken care of, the schedule and planning is executed properly and in a timely fashion, and any other tournament management responsibilities are handled effectively.

Organizers will also need to have effective communication methods in place to keep participants and spectators up-to-date during the tournament. Scores and standings need to be recorded accurately, updated regularly, and shared with participating teams and their fans. This will help everyone keep up with the flow of the tournament while also ensuring competitors are aware of their upcoming match times and locations.

If the planning phase was thorough, the execution phase should just be a matter of keeping the tournament moving forward while managing any unforeseen issues that might arise. By having a plan, and back-up plans in case anything goes wrong, a tournament’s organizer can rest assured that the tournament itself will stay on track and proceed seamlessly from start to finish.

The Completion Phase

The final phase of a tournament’s life cycle is its completion. This phase generally occurs once the tournament is over, winners have been awarded, cleanup has occurred, and everyone’s gone home to bask in the glory of the tournament. A review of the tournament can be created by organizers to evaluate the planning, event, and overall process in order to identify potential improvements for future tournaments. Managing a tournament’s life-cycle Evidently, hard work goes into organizing and running a successful tournament. Often, it takes management teams a lot of time and effort to coordinate a tournament from beginning to end. Depending on the type of tournament, organization can be very complex and difficult, making it easy to get overwhelmed by all of the associated responsibilities.

Since the launch of Tournamatic, we have been on a mission to prove that having one clear, easy-to-use management platform helps a tournament go off without a hitch and ensures that the planning, execution, and completion phases are done efficiently and effectively, making the tournament organizer’s job much more simple and straight-forward.