Free Printable Bracket Templates

Which bracket template size do you need?

A single elimination bracket always has a power of two lines in the first round, so pick the template that is the same size as your field or the next one up. Every game knocks one team out, which makes the count easy: the number of games is the number of teams minus one.

• 4 team bracket: 3 games in 2 rounds, semifinals and a final. Good for a short playoff after a league.
• 8 team bracket: 7 games in 3 rounds. The most common size for a one-evening event.
• 16 team bracket: 15 games in 4 rounds, the classic full-day tournament.
• 32 team bracket: 31 games in 5 rounds. Plan on several courts or tables running at once.
• 64 team bracket: 63 games in 6 rounds. It prints two-sided, the top half from the left and the bottom half from the right, meeting in the final in the middle.

Between sizes, the extra spots become byes. Six teams on the 8 team template means two byes, 12 teams on the 16 team template means four, 24 on the 32 team template means eight. The top seeds get the byes, so the best teams are rewarded for their seeding and nobody plays an extra round by accident.

Double elimination bracket templates

In double elimination nobody is out until their second loss. The template has two parts: the winners bracket on top and the losers bracket below, where every first loss drops into a slot that is already printed for it. The two bracket winners meet in the grand final, and if the team from the losers side wins it, a second final decides it, because now both teams have lost once.

• 4 teams: 6 games, or 7 with the second final.
• 8 teams: 14 games, or 15. Every team plays at least twice.
• 16 teams: 30 games, or 31. Expect a long day, or plenty of courts.

On the blank template, every losers-bracket slot is labelled with the game it comes from, such as “Loser of 3”, so whoever fills it in by hand never has to work out where a team goes next.

How to fill in a bracket template

Seeding decides the first round. Rank the teams from best to worst, by last season’s finish, a rating or simply your best guess, and write seed 1 on the top line. The template already pairs the seeds the standard way: in an 8 team bracket that’s 1 v 8, 4 v 5, 3 v 6 and 2 v 7, so the two best teams can only meet in the final. If you have no ranking at all, draw names from a hat and write them in that order.

After each game, write the winner on the line the game feeds into, along with the score if you like. Small numbers above each game give the order of play, which helps when several courts run at once: call games in number order and the bracket never stalls waiting for a result.

Doing it online is quicker. Type the names in the builder above, in seed order, choose single or double elimination and create the bracket. The seeding and byes are placed for you, a tap on a game enters the score, and the winner moves on by itself. Press Print at any point for the same one-page layout with every name and result filled in.

Printing tips

Every template prints in landscape on a single US Letter or A4 page, scaled to fit, with a small QR code in the corner. Use the default margins and leave “fit to page” on. Up to 16 teams the names print at a comfortable reading size. For 32 and 64 teams the boxes get smaller, so if you want a wall chart, print at a copy shop on 11×17 or A3 paper, or show the bracket on a TV instead: TV mode makes it fill the screen and keeps it up to date as you score.

Printing in black and white works fine. Winners are marked in bold, and the lines between rounds are drawn in solid gray, so nothing depends on color.

A template that does the bracket math for you

Spreadsheet and word processor templates look fine until the numbers change. Nine teams instead of eight means redrawing the whole sheet, and a late withdrawal breaks the seeding. Here the bracket is rebuilt from your list in a second, byes land where the rules say they should, and a corrected score clears only the games that depended on it, after asking you first.

Other formats are a click away. A round robin tournament gives every team a game against every other team, with a standings table, and can feed a playoff bracket automatically. For sport-specific scoring, from cornhole to darts, see the presets on the sports page.