Digital scoreboards are an integral part of professional and semi-professional sporting events. They are essential to help keep students, players, alumni, or audience members engaged and connected.
Broadly speaking, there are 2 types of digital scoreboards:
- video / LED scoreboards or
- Fixed-digit scoreboards
Video LED scoreboards
Of these 2 types, video / LED scoreboards are the more advanced. They look better, are more versatile and are often more expensive. You can basically think of them as a very large TV screen that is capable of displaying anything you want. This versatility does not just have a financial cost, it also means that the complexity of these scoreboards is much higher. Oftentimes they will require sophisticated software and setups to run.
Video scoreboards allow you to do things like live-action replays and monetizing your audience by showing promotions.
Fixed-digit scoreboards
Standard fixed-digit scoreboards are the "old-school" scoreboards. Usually only a part of the scoreboard can be controlled digitally, for instance the actual score itself, and possibly team and player names. Other parts of the scoreboard are fixed. Because of their relatively simplicity, these scoreboards are more robust, easier to control, and cheaper.
How much does a digital scoreboard cost?
The price range of digital scoreboards is huge. A lot depends on whether you are looking for an indoor or an outdoor scoreboard.
If you go for a simple fixed-digit scoreboard that can be used indoors, prices start at 60 USD and quickly enter three figures. Check it out yourself: digital scoreboards on Amazon.
If you are looking for an outdoor scoreboard, then you will be looking at a four figure price. To get an idea, have a look at these fixed-digit basketball scoreboards.
The most expensive scoreboards are large-scale outdoor video scoreboards. These are comfortably in the five figure price range, and some manufacturers and retailers even offer financing to help pay. It's often hard to find prices for these types of scoreboards, instead you have to get a quote off the manufacturer or retailer.
A cheaper solution?
Instead of paying for an expensive hardware scoreboard, you may want to consider a much cheaper solution: a web-based online scoreboard. For this you only need is a device that is capable of showing a webpage (such as a PC, tablet, or smartphone) and a large TV, monitor or projector.
Introducing Keepthescore
Keepthescore.com is one of the leading solutions for creating online scoreboards. But don't take our word for it, our customers have this to say:
"Wow guys, what a great app, thank you for all your work to get it up and running, I'm using it to stream my son's rugby games in South Africa!" -- Lance
You can literally be up and running in under 30 seconds, no registration nor payment required. If you don't believe us, give it a try.
What's very convenient is that you can control your scoreboard from anywhere, including a mobile phone, without installing anything! Read on for more details.
How to create a free online scoreboard
First you need to decide upon your setup. Both of the following options require a working internet connection.
Option 1: Use one device for controlling and displaying the scoreboard. This means that you need 2 displays connected to the device. One display will show the control panel, the other will show the scoreboard itself. How this is setup will depend on your operating system and is beyond the scope of this article, but here is a good guide to get you started.
Option 2: The alternative is that you have one device for controlling the scoreboard and a second device for displaying it. The only thing you have to solve here is how to get the link for the scoreboard to the second device. You could email it to yourself for instance. The 2 devices do not need to be connected via a cable or Bluetooth, but they do both need an internet connection.
Once you have decided on your setup, here's what you need to do:
- Go to this page to create a new scoreboard.
- Click on "Start here".
- Congrats, you've now created a new scoreboard and are on the "control panel". You have the option to carry out some customizations, such as choosing team names and choosing custom colors.
- Click on the orange "SHOW AND SHARE SCOREBOARD" button. This will open the scoreboard in a new browser tab.
- You can either show this browser tab on a display directly (option 1, see above) or send it to another device and display it there (option 2).
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