How do game channels work?

Every matchup gets its own Discord channel each week. You set it up once in the Gameday Hub on the Game Channels tab, then each week you press one button to create the channels and one to delete them when the week is done. The bot posts each game's matchup card in its channel, keeps the week's sched

Updated 19 days ago

Short answer

Every matchup gets its own Discord channel each week. You set it up once in the Gameday Hub on the Game Channels tab, then each week you press one button to create the channels and one to delete them when the week is done. The bot posts each game's matchup card in its channel, keeps the week's schedule and scores in your schedule channel, and can chase up games that have not been played yet.

Where to find it

On the website: click Gameday in the sidebar, then the Game Channels tab at the top of the page.

On your phone: tap More → Manage Server to open your league (or, from your team page, tap the green League button in the lower right and pick Gameday). Then open the Dashboard Sections menu at the top and pick Game Channels — in a browser it is a dropdown instead.

Set it up once

On the Where the Weekly Channels Go card, fill in and press Save game channel settings:

  1. Game-channel category — each week's channels are made inside this category.
  2. Schedule channel — the week's schedule and scores stay here.
  3. Announcement channel — optional; where "the new week is live" is announced. Leave it blank and it uses the schedule channel.
  4. Admin role — members with this role can confirm a decided game.
  5. Notification period (hours) — how long before the bot pings an unscheduled game.

The same card also has extras you can come back for: a message of your own on every game channel post, what /reminder says, and Chase unplayed games every (hours) if you want the bot to nudge unplayed games automatically — leave that blank and it never chases on its own.

Once the settings are saved, the week buttons appear further down the page.

The three switches on that card

Each of the first three settings has its own switch sitting under it. All three are on unless you turn them off, and turning one off never clears the channel above it — switch it back on and everything is where you left it.

Make each week's game channels

Off, nothing can create new game channels — not the buttons on this page, not /game_channels create in Discord, not the commissioner checklist. You are told plainly why rather than being left wondering.

Clearing out and archiving are not affected, on purpose: a league that has switched this off still needs to tidy up the channels it already has.

Post the weekly schedule

Off, the schedule stops posting and stops updating as games finish. Games are still played, still graded and still recorded — there is just no schedule post keeping score in public.

Announce the new week

Off, no "the new week is live" announcement is posted anywhere — not even in your schedule channel.

That last part matters. Leaving the Announcement channel picker blank does not silence the announcement; blank just sends it to the schedule channel instead. This switch is the only real off.

Each week

  • Create This Week's Channels — type the week number (1–18) and press Create week. One channel per matchup.
  • Create a Playoff Round — its own buttons: Wildcard, Divisional, Conference, Super Bowl.
  • Chase Up and Clear Out — Ping unscheduled games nudges every game channel still waiting on a result, and Delete every game channel clears the week out. Deleting cannot be undone.

The same things work from Discord: /game_channels create week:<number>, /game_channels wildcard (and the other rounds), /game_channels notify and /game_channels clear. Only one /game_channels run happens at a time — if one is already going, the bot asks you to wait for it to finish.

One less thing to do by hand: advancing the week from the Commish Center also clears that week's game channels for you.

"It says I need to export the week"

When you create a week, the bot pulls that week's schedule from EA by itself. If it still cannot find the games, it says the week is not exported — that means the schedule for that week has never reached the bot. Two things fix it:

  1. Check the week number matches the week your league is actually on in Madden.
  2. Export the week — from the Madden Companion App (send all five parts), or with /export current in Discord. Then press Create week again.

If the export itself will not go through, see My export isn't working. If the whole dashboard shows an old week, see Why is my dashboard stuck on the wrong week?.

Common problems

  • The week buttons are missing. The page says why: save the settings at the top first — the create buttons only appear once the category and admin role are in place.
  • The command says game channels aren't set up yet. Same cause — fill in the Game Channels tab and save, then run it again.
  • A helper cannot see this tab. What a helper sees is controlled by the owner. Share it from Front Office on the League Access tab.

More in Game Day

How do I set up Game of the Week channel?How do I set up Player of the Week channel?How do I set up Playoffs channel?How do I set up Post-game stats channel?How do I set up Power Rankings channel?How do I set up Roster updates channel?

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