32 Team Single Elimination Bracket

Thirty two is a power of two, so the bracket is perfectly balanced: no byes, five rounds, thirty one matches, and every team enters at the same point. The opening round alone is sixteen matches, which is what makes this size a scheduling exercise as much as a bracket.

Seeding is doing real work here. The standard arrangement puts seeds 1 and 2 in opposite halves, seeds 3 and 4 in the opposite quarters to them, and so on, so the strongest teams are spread as evenly as the draw allows.

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How the draw is structured

Entrants

Matches played

Rounds

Byes

Round by round

Round	Matches	Entrants left after it
Round 1	16	16
Round of 16	8	8
Quarter-Finals	4	4
Semi-Finals	2	2
Grand Final	1	1
3rd Place	1	1

Opening round by seed

Seeds are paired so the strongest and weakest meet first, which keeps the top seeds in opposite halves of the draw. This is the order the board is drawn in, top to bottom.

1 v 32

16 v 17

8 v 25

9 v 24

4 v 29

13 v 20

5 v 28

12 v 21

2 v 31

15 v 18

7 v 26

10 v 23

3 v 30

14 v 19

6 v 27

11 v 22

How long it takes

Rounds run one after another, because a round cannot start until the one feeding it has finished. Matches inside a round can all run at once, so the number of courts you have decides the day more than the number of entrants does.

Courts	10 min matches	20 min matches	30 min matches
1	5h 20m	10h 40m	16h
2	2h 50m	5h 40m	8h 30m
4	1h 40m	3h 20m	5h

Playing time only. Add changeovers, warm-ups and the gap between rounds.

Questions

How many matches are in a 32 team bracket?

Thirty one. Every match eliminates one team, so taking thirty two teams down to one champion takes thirty one matches across five rounds.

Can I run a 32 team bracket in one day?

Yes, with enough stations. The first round is sixteen matches; on four courts with twenty minute matches the whole draw is around three and a half hours of play.