5 Ways to Increase the Quality of Your Tournament
Anyone can flip open their laptop and have a fully-fledged tournament at their disposal — but how do you make sure it runs smoothly from start to finish?
Going from filling up your tournament with players to crowning a champion isn’t always a straightforward task. Your tournament’s perception can change rapidly depending on the choices you make along the way — so how do you avoid the most common pitfalls?
No matter whether you are a seasoned league operator or just looking to host your first tournament, having an open mind on how to optimize your competition is always the first step to improvement. We have collected a few tips and tricks to help you become the best tournament organizer that you can be.
While the overarching focus of the article will be online competitions, most of these tips do apply in one way or another to a physical event — something we really hope we will be able to go back to soon.
1. Be consistent
When you set out to host your own tournament, in any game, you are going to have to manage actual people in one way or another. As the head administrator of your event, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have a fair ruleset — the cornerstone to any esports event. However, an often-underestimated feature of a ruleset is how easy it is for your players to understand.
Most organizers invest a lot of their preparation time covering all potential exploits and unsportsmanlike scenarios that can occur — and we don’t blame them. When scrambling to make sure the ruleset is ready for launch, sometimes you have to simply prioritize getting it in there at all.
As such, it is very important that you are clear and avoid any form of contradiction when communicating an update. No matter if it is via a Discord server message or email. It is always better to take some extra time to evaluate a situation to its fullest before making a call. Once the call is made, you have set a precedent for your other competitors to follow — be consistent.
2. Be a part of the community
No matter what decisions you make, your actions will leave an impression. If you invest the time and energy into helping players in a meaningful way — this will leave a lasting, positive impact. The better you have prepared your tournament (just like in tip number one), the less you should have to tell players what they need to do.
Being in the same competitive communities as the game you’re hosting the tournament in can also be a good idea. It is oftentimes here where current community concerns and rulings come up, something you can use for your tournament's advantage. The more information that you have soaked up and the more prepared you are for any and all questions, the more players will see you as a part of their own community.
Keep in mind that it is going that extra mile that ensures that participants come back for your next tournament.
3. Be decisive
As the head administrator of your tournament, you are for all intents and purposes the person who decides. Your role as a tournament operator is to use that power to make the fairest and most fun competition possible.
At times you will be faced with a situation where not everyone can leave a winner, you might have to disqualify a team for toxicity or decide that a team didn’t show up on time for their game. Either way, you must be decisive with your choice of action. Not everyone will be happy with every administrative decision you make, but in the end, you have to prioritize the smooth progression of the tournament.
If you happen to make a mistake, be sure to rectify it as soon as possible. Just be careful to not make too quick of a call and end up having to fix an even bigger mess.
4. Be proactive
When choosing a tournament format, there are two elements that will be at odds with one another — competitiveness and time. Formats like Swiss or Round Robin provide a larger number of matches for the participants to play against each other — making the end result a better indication of what player (or team) was the best. More matches mean more time spent though, making the commitment to play in your tournament larger.
Being proactive means that you take the time to find the appropriate balance between time spent and tournament complexity.
5. Be loud
The esports player base is enormous, but sometimes it can feel impossible to gain any traction for your tournament. Having the best formats with the best prizes is excellent — but won’t necessarily benefit many people if very few join your tournament. In esports, it’s tough to market “too much”, especially if it’s your very first tournament. Once you’ve built up a community around your tournaments this point will become a lot easier.
Finding relevant competitive communities to post in, and/or even just blasting it out on Twitter and Discord will help people see your competition. The only consideration to be made here is that you should never self-promote in a community where it is not welcome.
Embrace these 5 ways of thinking and you will feel more confident as a tournament organizer going forward. But keep in mind that these are only core tips and best practices on how to operate your competitions — in the end, being a successful tournament organizer is all about being able to adapt as your tournament progresses to give players the best possible experience.
