TopSeed is designed to keep youth sports safe, transparent, and compliant with privacy standards. TopSeed goes by birth year, not birthday. Until the calendar year a child turns 14, they do not have an independent playing account; instead, a parent or guardian manages their player profile and registrations. From the year they turn 14, teens can create and manage their own accounts.

Children under 13 and parent-managed players

TopSeed does not provide independent playing accounts for children under 13:

• Guardian profile required: A parent or legal guardian registers an account on TopSeed. Guardians can add a child from the Players section of their profile or directly inside the tournament registration sheet using Register someone else, then select the child as the active entrant. See Register a player on their behalf.
• Tournament draws and privacy: The child's name appears on tournament draws, brackets, and seeding lists. However, the child has no login credentials, password, or contact email stored on TopSeed.
• Registration ownership: The guardian's account owns all tournament registrations, submits payment, receives event updates, and communicates with tournament directors.

Rules for managed players

From the Players section of your profile, guardians can view and update their family players:

• One guardian per player: Each managed player profile is connected to exactly one parent or guardian account. Co-guardian or shared multi-account management is not supported.
• Editing player details: Guardians can update a managed child's first name, last name, and birth year whenever necessary.
• Removing a player profile: A managed player can be removed from your profile only if they have no tournament registration history and no active checkout sessions in progress. If the child has active or past entries, the profile must remain to preserve tournament draw archives. If a checkout is currently in progress, finish it or wait for it to expire before removing the profile.

What happens if an under-13 user signs up directly

During onboarding, every new user enters their birth year. It sets what the account can do; it never decides which draws they can enter. Once entered on a personal account, birth year is permanent and cannot be modified:

• If the birth year shows the person has not reached the calendar year they turn 14, the account is restricted to browsing mode.
• TopSeed displays the notice: "Users under 13 are restricted. Thanks for telling us. For now you can browse events, but not register or create them. A parent or guardian can add you as a player from their TopSeed account. Then they register you, and you play."
• The notice includes an Email my parent or guardian button. The young player can enter their parent or guardian's email address to send a single invitation email explaining how the adult can set up an account and add them as a player.
• Restricted accounts cannot register for draws, create events, or submit scores. The account can be deleted at any time from settings.

Teenagers

From the calendar year they turn 14, teens can create and manage their own TopSeed accounts:

• Teens enter their birth year during onboarding. Once submitted, birth year is immutable.
• Teens can choose their sports, set player ratings (such as UTR or DUPR), register for tournament divisions, find doubles partners, and enter match scores just like adult accounts.