In honor of March Madness, we compiled a list of WordPress bracket plugins for all your tournament needs. Check out these options and let us know what you think!
BracketPress
This plugin is great for creating multiple brackets, and even allows you to control your March Madness bracket yourself. You can choose custom scoring and update all the games as they’re played yourself, or opt for the Pro version that will automatically update teams and scores for you, and add-ons will distribute emails each time brackets are updated. However, the Pro version hasn’t been updated since 2013, and/or may not be available any longer.
While this plugin has lots of great options, it appears to only be built for March Madness and its 64 teams, as you can’t modify the settings for any other sport or personal tournament. It’s also non-responsive, so it may not fit most sites.
Overall, this well-styled solution has an easy-to-use backend and live bracket editing on the front end, allowing for quick and seamless changes on the fly – great for March Madness fans.
Brackets Ninja
Use this plugin to create custom tournaments with a specific number of teams or players, then place it on any post with a shortcode. It offers several different styling options, and even more if you upgrade to the Pro version. What’s more, this plugin is somewhat responsive, as long as you don’t mind scrolling inside an iFrame.
A couple things to keep in mind – you’re required to sign up for an account in order to use it, and it’s customized through an outside service instead of WordPress. Once you create it, you can no longer edit it, so just be sure you have a plan in place.
Challonge
Like Brackets Ninja, you can create custom tournaments with a specific number of teams or players. However, this plugin provides the most styling options than any of the others. What’s more, you can scale the size! Just know that this option also requires a signup and is mostly based on an outside service, so it’s not really your standard WordPress ‘plugin.’