28 Team Single Elimination Bracket Generator

Create a 28 team single elimination bracket fast: easy-to-use, printable and shareable online!

  • Add your player and team names
    Ideal for 28 or any other number of participants.
  • Choose how to pair them for the round 1
    Either seeded, blind draw, or manual.
  • Follow scores and progress automatically
    Live score updates and automatic advancing to the next round.
  • Export and print results
    Print your 28 team bracket or export schedule to PDF/CSV.

Looking for other team sizes? Try our main single-elimination tournament generator — supports any number of teams, players, and formats.

Learn More

How to Run a 28 Team Single Elimination Tournament

You can easily create and manage tournament brackets with our bracket maker. Works on any device, automatically tracks scores, advances winners to the next round, and helps you run tournaments more efficiently and quickly.

28 team single elimination bracket
Sample 28 team single elimination bracket

Start now!

Generate 28 Team Bracket

How Does a 28 Team Single Elimination Tournament Work?

A knockout tournament involving 28 teams consists of five rounds and requires 27 total matches to determine a champion.

Bracket Size

The bracket is determined by increasing the number of teams to the nearest power of two. With 28 competitors, the bracket must be rounded up to 32.

Byes

To find the number of byes, subtract the actual number of teams from the total number of teams in the full bracket. With 28 teams filling a 32-spot bracket, the tournament will require 4 byes.

Rounds & Games

A 28 team single elimination tournament uses 5 rounds and includes 27 actual games:

  • Round of 32: 12 played games, along with 4 byes
  • Round of 16: 8 contests featuring the 16 teams that advance
  • Quarterfinals: 4 matchups among the remaining 8 teams
  • Semifinals: 2 games between the final 4 teams
  • Championship: 1 game to determine the winner

Seeding

Choose one of the 3 following options:

  • Seeded (most common): The strongest, highest-ranked players don’t face each other until the later rounds.
  • Blind draw (random): There is no seeding; participants are placed randomly into the opening round.
  • Manual seeding: Create matchups in your preferred custom order.

Compared to other Tournament Formats

A 28 team single elimination format provides a streamlined and time-efficient competition, needing fewer games and finishing more quickly than many alternative tournament structures with the same number of entrants.

Different types of 28 team tournaments compared.
FormatTotal gamesGames per teamRoundsFairnessNotes
Round Robin3782727Everyone plays everyoneBest for leagues
Single Elimination271–55Harsh cutoffBest for quick events
Double Elimination552–10~10More forgivingPopular in esports
Double Elimination with Consolation~40min 2~9 (5+4)Fairer, every team plays twiceYouth sports
Swiss System7055Balanced, flexibleChess, card games

Printable 28 Team Single Elimination Bracket

Looking for a paper version of your bracket or tournament schedule? Print both quickly and easily!

28 team single elimination bracket (printable PDF)
Example of printable 28 team single elimination bracket
Print 28 Team Bracket

Help Us Get Better!

We always listen to your feedback and we are constantly improving the platform based on the suggestions.

Get in Touch or See what's new