Scoreboard is a live scoring app for racquet sports: badminton, padel, pickleball, squash, and tennis. Referee a match from your phone, go live on YouTube with the score on the broadcast, and let anyone watch with a six-character code or a QR scan. No account, no download.
- 5
- Sports: badminton, padel, pickleball, squash, tennis
- 6 chars
- Is all a spectator needs to join a live match
- 0
- Downloads or accounts needed to watch
Referee
One-tap calls
Let, stroke, no let, fault, appeal, and out are each one tap, with undo and redo always in reach. It works in portrait, or in landscape on a tripod.
Streaming
Live on YouTube
One switch streams the match to YouTube with the score painted on the broadcast. Live scores for spectators start automatically when you go live.
Spectators
Watch with a code
Anyone can follow a match with a six-character code or a QR scan from the referee's screen. No account and no download.
Clubs
Your club, notified
Clubs get teams, members, and roles for who scores, streams, or watches. Members get a push the moment their club goes live.
Inside the app
Sign in
Create an account or sign in with Apple, Google, or email. Google sign-in also connects YouTube for streaming, and you land back home with your plan and your sports.
Mom Test review
Following the Mom Test, I didn't pitch Scoreboard or ask whether people would use it. I asked about the last time they kept score or ran a night, what went wrong, and what they already do about it. These are the questions that shaped the app, and what I took from the answers.
“What's the hardest part about keeping score?”
Keeping score and watching the rally at the same time. A referee who looks down to write loses the point, and a referee who watches the point forgets who served from which side. By the end of a long game the score is a negotiation.
That's why the referee screen shows the score huge, draws the court with the server's box, and puts every call one tap away with undo right beside it.
“What's the best part of running a league?”
The nights when everyone sticks around after their match to watch the others. The worst part is everything that keeps that from happening: chasing results, fixing mistakes on the sheet, and answering "what's the score?" from people who can't see the court.
That's why a spectator only needs a six-character code, and why a club's members get a push the moment a match goes live.
“When did the score last get disputed, and how was it settled?”
Usually mid-game, over who was serving or whether a let was called. It got settled by whoever sounded most sure. Nobody had a record to point to.
That's why the call buttons match the decisions a referee actually makes, and the court diagram always shows who is serving from which box. The screen settles it instead of the loudest voice, and undo fixes a mistake without starting over.
“How do people who aren't at the court follow a match today?”
A text from a friend, a photo of the whiteboard, or a phone video with no score on it. Parents and teammates at home get the result hours later, if at all.
That's why going live on YouTube paints the score onto the broadcast, and live scores start automatically when the stream does.
“What have you already tried, and what did it cost you?”
Paper sheets, a flip scoreboard, group chats, and a couple of general scoring apps that didn't know the rules of their sport. The cost wasn't money, it was a volunteer's whole evening.
That's why the rules for all five sports are built in, and why paid plans are aimed at the club that already spends that evening, not at the casual player.
What counted as good data
Compliments about the idea didn't count. What counted was what people had already done: the paper sheets they'd printed, the chats they'd set up, the arguments they could describe in detail. Those showed a real problem that people were already spending time on, and that's what the features answer.
Referee
The referee view shows the score large, the court diagram with who is serving from which box, and one-tap calls for the decisions a referee actually makes: let, stroke, no let, fault, appeal, out. The same screen works in landscape when the phone is on a tripod.
Live for everyone
Parents, scouts, and fans watch from a link with no extra apps. Anyone at the club can also follow in the app by entering the event code or scanning the QR on the referee's screen, and live scores start the moment you do.
Events and clubs
A club is one home for its teams, events, and members, with roles for who can score, who can stream, and who just watches. Members get a notification when their club goes live, with who is playing and the sport.
Membership
Design
The mark is three slanted panels in teal, the kind you would flip on a court-side scoreboard. For the campaign I paired it with hand-painted squash players, because the app is serious about the score and the sport is still supposed to be fun.
