How Crew On Court works.

Your crew

A crew is your group of friends who play together. One person is the owner — they invite the rest. Inside the crew, each member is placed in a wave from 1 (texted first) to 5 (texted last). Members in the same wave are equivalent — they all get the call at the same time, and the spots go to whoever replies first. Most crews start everyone at wave 3 and tune from there as they figure out who's usually around and who's a stretch.

Run your own crew

Anyone can start a crew — pick the sport, name it, and invite people. We'll suggest folks you've already played matches with, plus organizers of crews you're in, so you don't have to type a bunch of phone numbers. Great for your Tuesday morning group, your work doubles thread, your kid's tennis parents, or any group you already organize court time with.

Proposing a match

The crew owner (or a curator) proposes a match by picking a date, time, court, and how many spots are open. They can also pre-fill spots for people they've already confirmed offline.

When the match is proposed, the app texts everyone in wave 1 who's free at that time (based on whatever they've connected to their calendar) — all at once. First to say YES locks the spot. If wave 1 doesn't fill the match, we move to wave 2, and so on.

The text you'll get

Something like:

Maria is putting together padel for their Tuesday Crew — Sun Nov 3, 7:30 PM MDT (60 min) at Riverside Club. Playing so far: Maria, Bob. Yes? https://… First to reply wins, reply by 6:00 PM MDT. Reply STOP to opt out.

Times always show in the court's timezone with the abbreviation (MDT, CEST, JST, etc.) so you can convert to your local zone at a glance.

You can tap the link and answer on the web, or reply YES or NO directly. The deadline tightens as the match gets closer — early-week matches give you hours to respond, day-of matches give you minutes. If someone in your wave beats you to it, you'll see “someone beat you to it” — it just means the match filled fast. We'll let you know when there's another one.

What happens next

• If you say YES, you've got the spot. Once the match fills, everyone gets a confirmation text with the full roster. You can tap Add to your calendar right after saying YES (or any time from the match page on your dashboard) to drop the match onto your phone's calendar in one tap.
• If you say NO (or don't respond by the deadline), we move on to the next person in line. You won't get pinged again about that match — though the organizer can re-invite you manually from the match page if they want to give you another shot.
• If you said NO but changed your mind, you can flip back to YES from the match page — as long as there's still room. No one else gets a text about it.
• If you say YES and then need to back out, you can drop from the match detail page. We'll invite the next person automatically.

Leaving a crew

If you no longer want to be invited to matches from a crew, open the crew page and tap Leave this crew. You'll stop getting match invites from them right away (until they add you back), and the crew owner gets a heads-up text so they know to invite someone else. Your past match history stays intact — leaving doesn't erase anything.

Reminders before the match

By default, everyone who said YES gets a single reminder text 2 hours before the match starts — useful for quieting last-minute no-shows. Crew owners can change how far ahead the reminder goes (anywhere from 1 to 24 hours), or turn reminders off entirely, from the crew settings page.

When matches can't fill

Sometimes nobody's free. If a match still has open spots 90 minutes before start time, we'll text everyone who said YES so they know not to show up to a no-show — and the organizer will see a prompt to cancel the match so the slot at the club doesn't go to waste. (Matches need a full four; we don't try to play short.)

Connecting your calendar (optional)

Separately from the “Add to calendar” button above, you can also connect a Google calendar so we skip you when you're busy. We only read busy/free times — no event titles, no attendees, and we never write anything to your calendar. Skip the connection and you'll just get every invite (worst case: a NO from you).

Your private URL

When you sign up, we issue you a unique URL — that's your login. There's no password to remember. Bookmark it on your phone's home screen for one-tap access.

Lost the URL? No problem. Visit crewoncourt.com, verify your phone number again, and we'll send you back to the same dashboard with all your crews intact. (If you ever think your URL was shared, you can rotate it from the Me tab.)

Stopping the texts

Reply STOP to any message and you're done — no more texts. You can come back any time by replying START, toggling SMS on from the “Me” tab of your dashboard, or by joining a new crew and checking the consent box.

Privacy in one paragraph

Your phone number and crew activity stay private — only members of crews you joined see your name and response status. We don't sell, share, or use your data for marketing. See our Privacy Policy for the full story.