Tournament Structure

The British Championships was the first British roller derby tournament to feature a fluid structure for progression and development, featuring promotion and relegation at the end of the year. In 2021 we rebranded to Five Nations Roller Derby, recognising the importance of explicitly including all teams across the UK and Ireland, and the exclusionary nature of our previous name and logo.

In all divisions, each team plays each other once. Winning teams get 3 points for a win and 0 points for a loss. These points are totaled up and teams are placed in their divisional table in order of points scored. In the event of multiple teams having the same tournament points, game points differential will be used to define the higher placement (game points differential = total game points scored – total game points conceded).

The make up of the tiers, including the number of divisions in each tier, change each year depending on the number of teams participating. Generally where a tier has multiple divisions, the top 2 teams will go to playoffs to find the overall winners of the tier and are promoted to the tier above (where applicable). The bottom 2 teams will be relegated to the tier below (depending on the structure the following year)

As a summary, here’s how the Tournaments will resolve themselves:

WFTDA-SIDE TOURNAMENT

TIER 1 – PREMIER (1 DIVISION)

  • Bottom two teams from each Division are relegated to Tier 2

TIER 2 – NATIONAL (2 DIVISIONS)

  • Top 2 teams from each division proceed to Playoffs (4 teams in total)
  • Top 2 finishers are promoted to Tier 1
  • Bottom 2 teams from each division are relegated to Tier 3 (4 teams in total)

TIER 3 – REGIONAL (4 DIVISIONS)

  • Top 2 teams from each division proceed to Playoffs (8 teams in total)
  • Top 4 finishers are promoted to Tier 2
  • Bottom 2 teams from each division are relegated to Tier 4 (8 teams in total)
  • In principle: relegation TBC based on future subscription

TIER 4 – LOCAL (4 DIVISIONS)

  • Top 2 teams from each division are promoted to Tier 3 (8 teams in total)
  • Relegation TBC based on future subscription

MRDA-SIDE TOURNAMENT

TIER 1 – PREMIER (1 DIVISION)

  • Bottom 2 teams are relegated to Tier 2 

TIER 2 – NATIONAL (1 DIVISION)

  • Top 2 Teams are promoted to Tier 1 
  • Bottom 2 finishers are relegated to Tier 3

TIER 3 – REGIONAL (1 DIVISION)

  • Top 2 Teams are promoted to Tier 2

(Playoff structure to be finalised as no divisions in MRDA in 2024)

JRDA COMPETITION

  • Top 2 teams from each division proceed to Playoffs (4 teams total)
  • No promotion or relegation.