Commissioner setup guide

Bracket Master — Commissioner Setup Guide

Seeded single-elimination bracket for any tournament — contest mode with round-by-round scoring, or publish-only for live winner-tapping. Any team count, regions, byes, and an optional 3rd-place game.

Bracket pool commissioners · 6 min read

Bracket Master is a seeded single-elimination tournament bracket you can run for any event — March Madness, a playoff, an office pool, even a made-up bracket for your favorite tacos. You can run it two ways: as a contest where people fill out predictions and score round by round, or as publish-only where you just run the tournament and tap winners live for people to watch.

It also runs a LEAGUE’S REAL POSTSEASON. Choose “A league’s playoffs” as the format and the whole bracket is built from the actual schedule in one press — for MLB that is the Wild Card round through the World Series, with the clubs that earned a bye already seated in the Division Series. There is nothing to size and nothing to seed. Every round is a SERIES, so it is won by the club that takes the series rather than whoever wins one game, and it advances the moment a team clinches instead of waiting for games that will never be played. Matchups that aren’t set yet read as the winner of the series that decides them and fill in their own teams and times as each round ends. The whole bracket locks when the first game starts, exactly like March Madness — until then players can change anything, including after they submit, and after first pitch nothing moves and nobody else can join. A pool can still be opened part-way through a postseason: the commissioner chooses which round it locks at when they create it, so an October pool locks at the Division Series rather than at a Wild Card game already played.

MARCH MADNESS has its own template. Choose “March Madness” in the create wizard and the shape is set for you: four regions of sixteen, real seeds, rounds named Round of 64, Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four and National Championship, scored 1 · 2 · 4 · 8 · 16 · 32 with an upset bonus worth the seed difference. On Selection Sunday, paste the field on the contest’s bracket screen, one team per line as Region, Seed, Team, and set when picks lock. A seed that appears twice in a region is an Opening Round game (the First Four; twelve games from 2027 when the field grows to 76), and its winner takes that line. Whether players pick the Opening Round is your choice when you create the pool: pick it too (1 point a game), or start at the Round of 64, in which case picks open once the Opening Round has been played. Tap each winner as the games finish; the tournament is not auto-scored.

This guide covers every setting: defining the field, scoring, how participants fill out and lock brackets, advancing winners each round, tiebreakers, entry fee and organizer cut, and finalizing.

Contest vs. publish-only

Pick the mode when you create the bracket — you can change it later on the Settings tab.

Contest — people fill it out: Participants predict every matchup before it locks and score round-by-round on a live leaderboard. Add an entry fee to make it a fundraiser.
Publish-only — just run the tournament: You publish the bracket and tap winners to advance as games finish; there are no entries or predictions to score, just a live bracket for viewers to follow.
Team entry fee (publish-only): Optional — charge the teams themselves to enter your tournament rather than charging predictors; payments are tracked per team on the Participants tab.

Defining the field

Set these when you create the bracket, then seed the actual teams on the Overview tab.

Format: Single elimination, double elimination, group stage → knockout, round robin, or “A league’s playoffs” — the real postseason bracket, built from the league’s own schedule.
Team count: Any number of teams. Non-power-of-2 fields (single elim) get automatic byes for the top seeds; double elimination needs a power-of-2 field (4, 8, 16, 32, 64).
Regions / groups: Split the field into up to 8 regions (single elim / group→knockout) or groups (group→knockout), each named separately — e.g. the four regions of a March Madness bracket.
Advance per group: For group stage → knockout only: how many teams from each group move on (1, 2, or 4). Groups × advance must be a power of 2.
3rd-place game: Optional consolation game between the two semifinal losers (single elimination only).
Seed the teams: On the Overview tab: type a team name into each seed slot, paste a ranked list (auto-placed by standard S-curve seeding across regions), or import a CSV of name/seed/region. Leave bottom seeds blank to create byes. A league’s-playoffs bracket has no seeding step at all — the field, the byes and every matchup come from the real schedule, so the panel isn’t shown.

Scoring & bonuses

Contest mode only — publish-only brackets don’t score anything.

Round points: Points per correct pick, one value per round from round 1 through the championship, editable on the Settings tab (default 1 · 2 · 4 · 8 · 16 · 32, doubling each round). A league’s-playoffs bracket starts at 2 · 4 · 8 · 16 instead, because it has four rounds rather than six and the final should be worth the most.
Upset bonus: Optional — reward correctly picking a lower seed to win, on top of the round’s base points. Not offered on a league’s-playoffs bracket: those clubs are seated from the league’s own bracket and carry no seed, so the bonus would have nothing to measure.
Series length bonus (playoffs): On a league’s-playoffs bracket, participants also call how many games each series goes — “Astros in 5”. Calling it right pays a bonus on top of the round points, but only when they also had the winning club, because that is one prediction and not two. The legal answers come from the series itself: a best-of-seven offers 4 through 7 and nothing else.
Tiebreaker: On an ordinary bracket, each participant predicts the combined total points scored in the championship game and the closest guess breaks ties. A league’s-playoffs bracket uses the series-length calls instead — whoever called the exact length of more series finishes ahead — because “total points in the final” is unanswerable in a sport that scores runs across a best-of-seven.

How participants fill out and lock brackets

Fill out & submit: From the join link, participants tap the team they think wins each game; picks advance automatically through the bracket, then they enter their championship tiebreaker guess and submit. On a league’s-playoffs bracket they tap the club that wins each SERIES and then, underneath, how many games it takes; there is no single tiebreaker box, because those calls are the tiebreaker.
Picks lock at: Set a lock date/time on the Settings tab (typically tip-off of game 1). After lock, brackets are read-only and points update live as games finish. A league’s-playoffs bracket sets this for you from the round you chose at creation — the whole tree locks when that round’s first game starts, and joining after that is refused.
Payment at join: If there’s an entry fee, participants pay you through the app’s in-app payment step when they join — you never route money through us or post payment handles in the rules.

Advancing winners each round

Tap winners by hand: On the Overview tab, tap the winning team of any game (optionally with a score) — the bracket, every participant’s predicted-picks view, and the standings update immediately.
Auto-score from resultsPro: For major events whose teams are linked to the games library, one click advances every match with a final score in the library and re-scores every entry; it also runs automatically each day. You can still override any result by hand.
Schedule: Set a start time and location on any match — shown to participants and viewers on the live bracket.
Group standings: For group stage → knockout and round robin formats, a standings table tracks wins as group games are decided, ahead of the knockout rounds.

Entry fee, pot & organizer cut

Bracket Master is free to run — an entry fee and prizes are entirely optional, only in contest mode.

Entry fee: What each contest entry pays at join. The prize pot is entries × fee, minus your organizer cut.
Organizer cutPro: What your program keeps before payouts — a percentage of the pool, a flat total, or a flat amount per entry. Set on the Settings tab; the pot is always shown net of it. Available on Pro Commissioner and Organization; the full pot pays out to winners on Free.
Prizes by place: Set a cash prize per finishing place on the Prizes & payouts card. Ties split the combined prizes for the places they occupy.

Round recaps & the Column

Brackets can write their own recaps. Turn the recap on under Communications and each time a round finishes — meaning every match in it has been decided — one is drafted for you and held so you can read it before the pool does.

What a recap covers: The round’s results and how the pool had called each one (a favourite going out is interesting; a favourite going out that nine of eleven brackets had advancing is the story), whose pick to win it all was eliminated, who gained points in the round, and the standings — including the most each bracket can still finish on, so a lead that cannot be caught is not described as a race.
The round is named for you: A real postseason round keeps its name (“AL Division Series”); any other bracket is named by shape — Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Final.
Held, then sent: You choose the hold window (6 hours to 3 days). It sends itself when the window ends, and you can send it early from the email you get or edit it like any Column post. Nothing is sent without you having had the chance to read it.
It never asks anyone to pick: A bracket locks at the first game of the tournament, so by the time a round is over nobody can change anything. The recap closes on where things stand, not on a deadline that has passed.
Write one yourself, in a voice: On the Column you can pick a contributor and have them write about the whole pool or about a single bracket. Before the pool locks nothing about anyone’s picks is used, even in aggregate.

Finalizing

Finalize & compute payouts: One tap (re)scores every entry from the final bracket, computes each winner’s payout from the standings and your prize table, and marks the contest settled.
Payout Assist: Once finalized, winners appear in Payout Assist with one-tap pay links so you can mark each payout sent.

FAQ

What’s the difference between contest and publish-only bracket modes?

Contest mode lets participants fill out predictions before the field locks and score round-by-round against everyone else. Publish-only skips predictions entirely — you just run the real tournament and tap winners live so viewers can follow along, with no entries or leaderboard.

Can I run a bracket with an odd number of teams or byes?

Yes — single elimination fields don’t need to be a power of 2; the top seeds automatically get byes into round 2. Double elimination requires a power-of-2 field (4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 teams).

How do I seed a big field quickly?

Paste a ranked list (best team first, one per line) and it auto-places every team by standard S-curve seeding across your regions, or import a CSV with name, seed, and region columns.

How does scoring and the tiebreaker work?

Each correct pick earns that round’s point value (points typically double each round), plus an optional upset bonus for correctly picking a lower seed. If the leaderboard ties, the closest guess on the championship-game total-points tiebreaker wins.

Do I have to manually tap every winner?

No — for teams linked to the games library, auto-score advances every decided match from final scores automatically (and runs daily on its own); you can still tap a result by hand any time, including as an override.

Is Bracket Master free, and how does the organizer cut work?

Yes, it’s free to run with no entry fee. If you add one, the pot is entries × fee minus your organizer cut — a percentage, flat total, or flat per-entry amount set on the Settings tab — and you pay winners through Payout Assist after finalizing.

Can the pool write its own round recaps?

Yes. Switch on the recap under Communications and every time a round finishes — once every match in it is decided — a recap is written for you: what happened, how the pool had called each matchup, whose pick to win it all went out, who gained ground, and the standings with each bracket’s maximum possible finish. It is held for you to read first (6 hours to 3 days, your choice) and sends itself if you do nothing. You can send it early, or edit it like any Column post. Because a bracket locks at the first game, a round recap never tells anyone to go and pick — there is nothing left to submit.

Can The Commish write about my bracket?

Yes. On the Column, pick a contributor and press “write it for me” and it will write about the pool as a whole, or about one person’s bracket. Nothing about anybody’s picks is written or shown before the pool locks, in aggregate or otherwise — with a small pool, “most people have X” would tell the last entrant what everyone did.

Ready to run yours?

Set it up in a few minutes — every option here is right there in the wizard.

Start a bracket pool