happy hermit: 'It could be a hybrid tournament. I.e., set up single section tournaments on BK for those that have a free tournament slot (all non-pawns, pawns not in any other tournaments) and group the other pawns in section(s) outside the brainking framework.'
This is still a lot of work, because the organisor of the tournament will have to check on the single section tournaments and all the individual pawn games. If  we grow bigger there will be several rounds afterwards. All individual games will have to be checked in those.

Plus it will be strange to have the pawns always playing against pawns in the first round. This will likely give uneven sections in numbers and skills.