How important are statistics and performance for sports club members? You can find out just by asking any swimmer how fast their 100m butterfly is; or any volleyball player how many blocks they made during the last game; or any tennis player what their first serve percentage is. These are numbers that athletes always know because they are a measure of how well they are performing and how they stack up against the competition. And that matters to serious players who are looking to improve.
If you run a sports club, you probably already know that tracking player performance and stats is a great way to keep players motivated and committed. But what's the best way to do it?
Why Should You Create a Sports Club Leaderboard?
Whether you use a leaderboard to track individual successes or league standings, they help define a clear goal and get everyone involved stay motivated through:
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Engagement: Beating the competition is a great goal that will motivate participants to keep showing up and doing their best.
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Transparency & accountability: Having a clear objective that all participants can track and edit themselves helps everyone feel involved and accountable. This is especially the case if you’re using a leaderboard to foster club competitiveness and player engagement. It’s one thing to let yourself down, but it’s a whole other ball game to let your team down. Yes, we seized on that pun opportunity!
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Data-driven improvement: Sports performance tracking gives a black-and-white overview of each player’s or league’s stats. This makes it easier to devise a strategy for improvement moving forward.
Our leaderboards can help you turn everyone into a team player, no matter the sport!
What Are Key Considerations When Planning Your Leaderboard?
If you want your leaderboard to be a success, you should have a well thought out plan for what you want to achieve and how. Here’s what you should be considering:
Objectives and metrics
Define what exactly you want to track and measure. This will depend on the sport and the participants being tracked. For example, if you’re keeping score for different tennis clubs in your tennis league you might want to track:
- Sets won
- Matches won
- Double faults
And if you’re keeping score for your volleyball league, maybe consider tracking the number of:
- Spikes
- Blocks
- Rotation faults
And what if you want your gym members to compete against one another? You can keep track of the:
- Number of days/week at the gym
- Amount of weight lifted
- Participation in fitness classes
Your audience
They are ready. Are you?
Who are you appealing to and how can you convince them to play along? Are your leaderboard participants seasoned athletes who will feel motivated by fierce rivalries? Or is your target audience a mixed bag of sports enthusiasts and ex couch potatoes who might be scared off by excessive competition? And is your sports club leaderboard something fans will be using to follow your league? Here’s what to consider:
- What are the needs of your club members, coaches, and fans?
- Should your leaderboard be publicly available or only for internal use?
- Does your leaderboard have a broad enough mix of goals that all participants can achieve?
Your goals
Where do you want to be in one week, one month, or even one year? Have a goal that all the participants can strive for and make it realistic. For example, maybe you want to focus on long-term goals like:
- Regular improvement to performance statistics (e.g. fewer rotation faults in volleyball, heavier weights at the gym)
- Better rankings amongst other league members on the leaderboard
Or maybe it isn’t realistic that your target audience will be motivated over the long haul. In that case, consider short-term goals like:
- Making fewer errors on a per-game basis
- Spending one extra minute per session on the treadmill at the gym
- Being better than yourself during your last game, gym session, etc.
However you decide to implement your sports club leaderboard, always keep these two things in mind:
- Regular updates keep everyone excited, engaged, and committed.
- A lack of fairness and transparency will spoil the fun for everyone.
Use KeepTheScore to Create Your Sports Club Leaderboard
Now that you’ve got a clear idea of how to cater to your specific target audience, it’s time to get started. Let’s see how you can use a KeepTheScore leaderboard for your tennis club and your fitness club!
For your tennis league, we recommend a team leaderboard:
- Enter the number of participants.
- Choose the names and team names of all your participants.
- Click on Settings to add a board name, choose a new theme or layout, or add your own logo. You can also change the default colors and background image.
- Under Ranking and scores, you can change your score prefix to e.g. sets won, points, etc.
- Start tracking your goals!
Keep track of all your teams in your tennis league and each player’s success with KeepTheScore’s team leaderboard.
If you want to create a sports club leaderboard for your gym, you could create a "multiscore" leaderboard which allows multiple columns:
- Enter the name of your board and the names of all the participants, or have your participants sign up themselves.
- Click on Settings to add a board name and choose a new theme or layout or add your own logo. You can also change the default colors and background image.
- If you click on Score on your leaderboard, you can change the name of the column to e.g. bench press, squats, treadmill. You can also change your prefix to e.g. KG, KM, reps, etc.
- If you want to track additional metrics, you can add more columns by clicking on + Add column.
- Start tracking your goals!
Keep members coming into your gym with a sports club leaderboard to help them keep track of their progress and stay
motivated to improve.
Keepthescore has many other types of leaderboard available. You can check them out here:
Help your athletes continue to improve and succeed with a motivational sports team leaderboard. And let us know what metrics and goals your sports club is tracking with KeepTheScore.
Further ideas
Here are some other posts that may be interesting for you:
- Create a golf leaderboard
- Create a hockey leaderboard
- Publishing race results online
- Creating A Fitness Leaderboard for Group Challenges
- Create a dynamic leaderboard for your timed event
If you have any questions or insights, share them with us in the comments section! For regular inspiration on how to use KeepTheScore delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.
