Create a Schedule

Use this guide when you are creating the first schedule for a league. The safest path is to set up teams and venues, choose Match Games or a competition phase, create games as Draft, review the schedule, then publish only what is ready.

What the schedule workspace checks

Before games can be created, the schedule workspace checks for the required setup.

• At least two teams.
• At least one organization venue.
• Organization management access.
• A confirmed official league timezone.

Every league includes a permanent Match Games bucket, so organizers can start without creating a competition phase. If the setup guide appears, use Open teams or Open venues. Use Manage phases when the league needs an official competition structure.

Step 1: Confirm the phase

The schedule workspace uses a Working phase. This phase is the context for smart defaults, generators, batch entry, and phase-level publishing.

Choose Match Games for an immediate, friendly, or undecided game that should not affect official standings yet. Choose a competition phase when the matchup already belongs to the league format. Most competitions start with a regular season, league stage, or group stage.

Need to create or reorder phases first? See Manage schedule phases.

Step 2: Open the scheduling hub

Click Schedule a game. The app opens the scheduling hub.

The scheduling hub shows methods based on the selected working phase:

• Single game: create one matchup.
• Bulk create: enter several manual game rows.
• Round robin: available for round-robin phases.
• Group stage: available for group-stage phases.
• Playoffs and Bracket: available for playoff-like phases.

If a method is missing, check the selected phase type.

Step 3: Create the first game as draft

For the first manual game, choose Single game. If the selected working phase is a round-robin, group-stage, or playoff-like phase, the app may recommend that generator first. Choose Single game only when you want to add one manual game instead of generating the phase.

Choose the home team, away team, venue, start time, duration, and visibility. Keep visibility as Draft until the schedule has been reviewed.

Venue overlap validation uses the organization venue, so a game can conflict with another league in the same organization when both reserve that venue at overlapping times.

Step 4: Add more games

Use Save & create another when the next game is different. Use Save & duplicate when the next game is similar.

If you already know several matchups, use Bulk create.

Assign Match Games to a competition phase

Scheduled or completed Match Games can be selected and assigned to an eligible round-robin, group-stage, custom, or matchup-games competition phase.

Use Assign to phase to preview eligibility, remaining projected game demand, and the standings impact. Group-stage assignment also requires a target group. Assigning a completed result requires explicit confirmation because it will begin affecting that phase's standings and statistics.

The game record, score, date, venue, visibility, and box score stay unchanged during assignment.

If you need generated schedules, use the generator guides instead of guessing manually: round robin, group stage, or playoff and placement.

Where playoff brackets fit

Playoff brackets do not appear during the first regular-season setup. In the real app, the Bracket method appears only when the selected Working phase is playoff-like, such as a series, playoff series, knockout, or classification phase.

If you select Bracket before playoff games exist, the app shows an empty bracket state.

Create playoff phases or generate playoff games before expecting a bracket path. When generated playoff games exist, the bracket can show quarterfinals, semifinals, finals, classification, TBD slots, winners, and series state.

Step 5: Review and publish later

After games exist, return to the schedule workspace and review schedule health, tabs, filters, and visibility before publishing.

Do not publish just because games were created. Publish only when players and supporters should see them.

See the full review workflow: Review and publish a schedule.

Related guides

• Manage schedule phases
• Use schedule generators
• Generate playoff, bracket and placement games
• Review and publish a schedule
• Record game results