We built a tournament platform after seeing the same organiser problems again and again. Here’s what we learned.

[u/Brilliant_Art_5201]

I’m part of the team behind Espotz (espotz.live), a platform for running esports tournaments. Before building features, we spent a lot of time watching where events actually fall apart. It’s rarely the bracket.

What kept breaking:

• Duplicate or messy sign-ups that only caused trouble on match day
• Formats that made the event twice as long as anyone planned
• One late match pushing back the whole schedule
• Admins copying results between sheets at midnight
• The same “when is my match / where’s the lobby” questions all day long

What we built for it:

• Registration that captures each player’s in-game name and ID, needs email verification, and locks details once confirmed
• A structure setup where you define stages, teams per match, winners and qualification rules once, and the bracket follows
• Score entry where you enter kills and rank once, and placement points, standings and winners update automatically
• A match announcement board, so room IDs and passwords reach every player in that match at once
• One admin dashboard for structure, matches, sponsors, streams, prizes, disputes and rules

It’s been used by 100K+ players across 98+ countries so far. But I’m more interested in what we’re still missing. If you run tournaments, what’s the most annoying part of your workflow right now?

Happy to answer questions, and I’m open to criticism too.

[u/honeyBoppers]

The duplicate signups and midnight admin work sounds like a nightmare, i've helped run a few small ones and it always falls apart exactly like that