Esports tournament organizers and competitors alike are increasingly looking to start.gg for their competitive gaming needs, but what exactly is the platform, and how can you best make it work for you?
Esports and competitive gaming tournaments have only grown in popularity over the years, with some regularly raking in millions of views for their biggest matches. Popular competitive games cover a broad variety of interests one-on-one fighting games to strategic games that bring opposing teams together in battle. Not all tournaments are played out on such an epic scope, however. Platforms over the last few years in particular have taken advantage of increasing interest in smaller communities and made it so that anyone can host their own tournament just as efficiently and effectively as big tournament hosts.
This where start.gg comes in, as it enables tournament organizers to login and create tournaments quickly and easily. We’ll explore exactly how to do that, as well as some potential alternatives and similar site like start.gg for those who might want to peruse other options.
start.gg is a website where players can run tournaments, participate competitive gaming events, and watch both online and offline esports tournaments played across a variety of games.
Originally known as smash.gg, start.gg began primarily as a tournament organizing tool for Super Smash Bros. players. That target audience soon expanded considerably to include fans and players of a number of fighting games, including Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat. Established back in 2020, the site has since become one of the most widely used platforms for esports tournaments and events, still maintaining a focus on popular fighting games while expanding well beyond to such titles as Rocket League, Age of Empires, and more.
Image credit: start.gg
Users have several options with start.gg. They can create their own public or private tournaments on the platform for any number of games. Tournaments will of course require players to participate, making that another way to use start.gg as the platform can help to bring players together in one cohesive registration pool. Those who prefer to watch can keep track of standings, schedules, and viewing opportunities for all publicly-listed tournaments.
Beginning in 2025, start.gg is no longer free for all hosts who are interesting in running tournaments via the platform. Instead, users have to pay a platform fee equal to 6% of the revenue subtotal made from the tournament. start.gg justifies the price as a way to cover all of its operational expenses and a means to better ensure that the site can live independently and remain viable in the long term. Organizers can make money by charging venue and event fees for participants who want to compete in their tournaments.
Anyone can login to start.gg to create a tournament, provided they know where to begin and which steps to follow in the process.
Any player who wants to run their own tournaments needs to first create a login for start.gg. Fortunately, all prospective organizers will need is an email, a password, and their birth date. From there, they can go on to create their own competitions as they please.
Tournament creation starts on a dashboard page that is designed to guide users in publishing their page, running events, organizing registration, and corralling attendees. Users need to decide on the major parts of their tournament, including the title, dates, and provided contact information. They also have to decide on the event and venue fees to charge. Venue fees are the fees paid by a participant to attend, whereas event fees go towards any prize money being made available at the end of the tournament. Unlike event fees, venue fees are mandatory.
start.gg has a number of resources available to help and assist prospective tournament organizers get off the ground. Their help center explains everything from how to create a tournament to establishing tournament seeding and more.
For players looking to register for tournaments hosted by start.gg, the process is even easier, as the platform offers registration options directly on the website. Users will simply need to navigate to the tournament they’re interested in attending and choose one of the provided registration options directly on the page. Registration for these events will typically carry with it a registration fee, with the exact amount required to sign up for any given tournament depending on the fees set out by the event organizer.
start.gg isn’t the only esports tournament site out there, and interested parties should explore other, similar sites including Faceit and Challonge.
Faceit is a big website that is known for both hosting tournaments and providing a place for players to join private anti-cheat servers. Including both official and third-party tournaments, the site focuses heavily on CS2, Apex Legends, and other similar games. Currently, Faceit has specific resources for users to run CS2, Overwatch 2, and PUBG Mobile events. The slow rollout of games for third-party tournaments hints that more will be made available in the future.
Image credit: Faceit
Challonge offers many of the same features as start.gg: the ability to create tournaments for any number of games, significant help in creating tournaments, and more. However, Challonge suffers from a lack of stat-tracking, which can be a hurdle for larger event organizers. On the positive side, Challonge is free to get started. Those who want a more premium experience or are more veteran organizers can upgrade to the paid premier tier.
Faceit and Challonge are far from the only two alternatives to start.gg. Other prominent sites like start.gg include:
start.gg is a great place to create, participate in, and watch tournaments for many competitive games, but it’s far from the only one. Organizers and players alike will need to judge the merits of each such site to determine the best place for their events and event participation. Still, for those looking for a good starting point and particularly for those with an interest in fighting games, start.gg is often likely to stand out among the best available options.
21+ and present in VA. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
