A scoreboard app is really five different apps.
A scoreboard app looks like the simplest thing on the list of app examples: two numbers, two plus buttons. Then someone opens it at a pickleball court and needs three numbers, or at a Little League field and needs a pitch count, or in a gym and needs a shot clock that resets on a change of possession. The score is the easy part. The sport's rules are the app.
This page is the spec underneath any scoreboard app: the scoring unit, the clock direction and the end-of-game rule for baseball, basketball, volleyball, pickleball and soccer, the counters each one adds on top, and the two things a phone has to do that a wall scoreboard never worried about: stay awake, and share the score.
See what each sport makes the app trackThe short version
Score, clock, and the rule that ends the game.
Every scoreboard app tracks two scores and a period. What separates a useful one from a novelty is whether it knows how its sport counts (runs, points, rallies, goals), what its clock does (nothing, counts up, counts down and stops) and what ends the game (a clock, a set, an inning, a two-point lead). Get those three right for one sport and the rest is buttons. Try to cover five sports with one screen and you get an app that can display any score and enforce nothing.
Sport by sport
Five sports, five different scoreboards.
The five sports people most often want a scoreboard app for disagree on all three basics. Two of them have no clock at all, one has a clock that only goes up, one has two clocks that stop and start, and one scores in a unit that depends on who served.
| Sport | Scoring unit | The clock | Periods | The game ends when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseball / softball | Runs | None, innings | Innings, nine in the adult game and fewer in youth leagues | Last scheduled inning, unless tied |
| Basketball | 1, 2 or 3 points | Counts down, stops on whistles, plus a shot clock | Quarters or halves, by rule set | Clock expires in the final period, overtime if tied |
| Volleyball | 1 point per rally | None, sets | Best of five sets | Three sets won; sets to 25, deciding set to 15, win by two |
| Pickleball | 1 point per rally, serving side only under standard scoring | None | Games to 11, usually best of three | 11 points with a two-point lead |
| Soccer | Goals | Counts up, never stops, referee adds time | Two halves | Referee ends the second half; extra time and penalties in knockouts |
No clock, one hidden counter
Baseball scoreboard app: innings, the count and pitch counts
A baseball scoreboard app has no clock to run, which makes it look easy and hides where the work is. The board shows runs per inning with hits and errors, the inning and its half, and the count: balls, strikes, outs. All of that resets on a rhythm the app has to know, the count on every batter and the outs on every half-inning, and the same screen serves a softball scoreboard app with the innings and run rule changed.
Youth baseball adds a number no wall scoreboard shows. Little League's pitch count regulation caps pitches per day by league age, 50 for ages 6 to 8, 75 for 9 to 10, 85 for 11 to 12 and 95 for 13 to 16, and sets the rest a pitcher needs afterwards by how many pitches were thrown: for league age 14 and under, none after 20 or fewer, one calendar day after 21 to 35, and up to four calendar days after 66 or more. A pitcher who reaches the limit may finish the batter. That is a per-pitcher counter with a rule attached, which is exactly the kind of thing a coach ends up tracking on paper when the app does not.
Two clocks and a bonus
Basketball scoreboard app: the game clock, the shot clock and the settings
A basketball scoreboard app has the most moving parts, because it runs two clocks. The game clock counts down and stops at every whistle. The shot clock counts down separately and resets when possession changes, sometimes to a shorter value than a fresh possession gets. Around them sit team fouls per period with a bonus once a team crosses the threshold, personal fouls because players foul out, timeouts remaining and the possession arrow.
None of those numbers are universal. Period length, shot clock length, the bonus threshold and the timeout allowance all differ between FIBA, NBA, college and high school rules, which is why a basketball scoreboard app needs them as per-league settings rather than constants baked into the screen. If your gym plays one rule set, pick it once. If you host a tournament that plays another, you need the setting.
Sets, serve and the side swap
Volleyball scoreboard app: sets, the serve indicator and the side swap
Volleyball scores every rally, whichever side served, and the side that wins the rally serves next, so the serve indicator is part of the score, not decoration. Under the FIVB Official Volleyball Rules 2025 to 2028 a set goes to 25 points with a minimum two-point lead, play continues past 24 all until someone leads by two, and the match goes to the team that wins three sets, with a deciding fifth set played to 15, again win by two. Each team may request two timeouts and six substitutions per set, and teams change courts after every set, plus once more in the deciding set when the leading team reaches 8 points.
So a volleyball scoreboard app needs sets won next to the points in the set, a serve indicator that flips on its own, timeout and substitution counters that reset every set, and a way to swap the sides of the display mid-set without losing anything.
Three numbers, not two
Pickleball scoreboard app: how the score is actually called
Pickleball is the sport where a generic scoreboard app is wrong on its face. Under the 2026 USA Pickleball Official Rulebook standard scoring awards a point only to the side that served and won the rally (Rule 4.A), and in doubles the score is called as three numbers: the serving team's score, the receiving team's score, then the server number, with every game starting at zero, zero, two (Rule 6.B.2). Games are normally played to 11 points, win by two, tournament formats add games to 15 or 21, and all of them are win by two. The same rulebook carries a provisional rally scoring option (Rule 14.A) in which either side can score and the call drops to two numbers.
Where the server stands is a rule as well: the right-hand court when the serving side's score is zero or even, the left when it is odd. So a pickleball scoreboard app needs a server number, a side-out, a switch between standard and rally scoring and, ideally, a hint about which court the server belongs on. Two big digits cover none of that.
The clock that only goes up
Soccer scoreboard app: a courtesy clock and added time
Soccer has the simplest numbers and the most awkward clock. Goals are counted one at a time, but the clock counts up from zero and does not stop for anything; the referee keeps the official time and adds time at the end of each half for substitutions, injuries and other stoppages. A soccer scoreboard app has to accept that it is a courtesy display: it shows the running clock and the added time as a plus figure, it starts the second half at 45:00 however long the first half ran, and it never ends a half on its own. Cards, substitutions and a separate penalty shoot-out tally round it out.
The screen and the taps
Pick a sport and see what the scorer has to tap.
The two big numbers are the same on every board. Everything around them is what the app is for. The panel below is a layout, not a product: it shows the readouts each sport puts next to the score, and the list is the tap target every one of them needs.
Try it
What your scoreboard app has to show
Pick the sport you keep score for. The panel is what the screen shows, the list is what the scorer has to be able to tap.
Serving
6
Receiving
4
Server
2
Game to
11
Games won
1 / 0
Server side
Right
Scoring
Standard
Scoring unit
1 point per rally won by the serving side under standard scoring, or by either side under the provisional rally scoring rule.
The clock
None.
The game ends
First to 11 with a two-point lead. Tournament formats also use games to 15 or 21, and matches are usually best of three.
Counters beyond the score
- The server number, 1 or 2, in doubles
- Which side of the court the server belongs on: right when the serving side's score is even, left when it is odd
- Side-outs, so the app knows whose turn it is to serve
- Games won in the match
The phone problem
Keep the screen awake, or the scoreboard is useless.
A scoreboard app is used with almost no touches for minutes at a time, which is exactly the situation iOS treats as idle. By default the system dims and locks the screen after a short period without input. Apple's UIKit exposes a property on the application, isIdleTimerDisabled, that is false by default; the app sets it to true while a game is on screen and back to false when the game ends. Apple's guidance is that most apps should leave it alone, and that the exceptions are mapping apps, games and programs that need to keep displaying content while user interaction is minimal. That is a scoreboard to the letter. Expo apps get the same switch through the expo-keep-awake module, a hook that keeps the screen on while the scoreboard screen is mounted.
Staying awake is the first of a short list of things every scoreboard screen needs regardless of sport, and none of them are about the sport:
- Digits readable from across a court, in landscape, on a TV
- An undo for the last tap, because the wrong plus button gets hit every game
- A log of scoring events with timestamps, which is what makes the final summary and any live share possible
- A screen that stays awake for the whole game
- Scoring that works with no signal at all
- The sport's end-of-game rule, so the app knows when it is over
Picking an approach
Off-the-shelf scoreboard apps versus building your own.
None of this needs a fancy tool for a pickup game. The question is how far your league sits from the defaults, and who changes the app when the league changes a rule.
| Approach | Enforces the rules | Your league's variations | Live share | Works with no signal | Who maintains it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flip-card or magnetic board | No | yes, it is just numbers | No | Yes | nobody, until a card goes missing |
| Generic multi-sport scoreboard app | the common presets | only what its settings expose | sometimes, as a paid extra | Yes | the developer |
| Sport-specific scorekeeping app | Yes | its rule set, not yours | Yes | usually | the vendor |
| Custom-built scoreboard app | Yes | whatever your league plays | if you spec it | if you spec it | you |
A generic scoreboard app is the right answer for pickup games and for any sport where two numbers really are the whole story. A sport-specific scorekeeping app is the right answer when its rule set is your rule set. The presets stop fitting the moment your league has its own rules: a run rule, rally scoring on league nights, a shot clock the app does not offer, pitch counts the coach has to record. From there the vendor's roadmap decides whether they ever will. That is the point where teams build their own scoreboard app, describing the sport as their league actually plays it and getting an app that enforces exactly that, which is what Newly is for.
Clubs that already run their own tools tend to get there first. A running club app that posts the weekly results is a smaller version of the same problem, a record of events that other people want to see, and a scoreboard is usually the next thing the same club asks for.
Before you build
How to spec a scoreboard app in six steps.
Do this on paper first. Every step is cheap to change before a screen exists and expensive after, and step five decides the shape of the whole app.
- 1
Name the rule set
Write down which rulebook the league plays under and the end condition in one sentence: first to 11, win by two, best of three. If two leagues use the app, write two sentences.
- 2
Decide what the clock does
None, counts up, or counts down and stops. Then decide whether the app ends a period itself or only announces that time is up. Soccer and basketball give opposite answers.
- 3
List every counter beyond the score
Outs, fouls, timeouts, server number, cards, pitch counts. Each one is a tap target the scorer needs mid-game and a value the summary needs afterwards.
- 4
Define undo
Every tap must be reversible, including a period change and a side swap. The cleanest way is to store scoring events and derive the board from them.
- 5
Decide who else sees it
Just the court, a TV, a share link, or the Lock Screen. Sharing changes the architecture, so it is a first decision, not a later feature.
- 6
Test a full game with auto-lock on
On power and on battery, with the screen at full brightness. If the screen sleeps or the battery dies before the final whistle, the app is not done.
If you build it with Newly, the plan is $25 a month with no free tier, the app is built on Expo, and the iOS build is uploaded to App Store Connect and installed through TestFlight before it goes to the App Store, per the current docs. The same docs say v2 does not produce Android builds you can install on a phone or upload to Google Play, so if your gym runs Android tablets as scoreboards, a custom app from it is an iPhone and iPad app today.
Sources
Where the specifics came from.
Four things on this page come from a primary source rather than general knowledge. The basketball and soccer sections describe the shape of the rules without quoting numbers, because those differ by rule set.
FAQ
Scoreboard apps, answered.
A scoreboard app turns a phone, tablet or TV into the scoreboard for a game: two team names, the score, the period, set or inning, a clock where the sport has one, and the extra counters that sport needs, such as outs, fouls or the serving side. The good ones also keep the screen awake, offer an undo for the last tap, and can share the live score with people who are not at the venue.
Build the scoreboard your league actually plays.
The score is the easy part. The rules, a screen that stays awake and a score that leaves the building are the app. If your league is past what a preset covers, see what other people have built and start from there.