How a Student Football Team Built a Streaming Business on Twitch

Families in Italy Watching a Match in Maastricht

When Davide and his friends founded Hello Kitties FC—a student football team in Maastricht, Netherlands—they started streaming on Instagram Live. It worked, technically. But Twitch chat during games was a mess:

"What's the score? What time? How many minutes left?"

Nobody could tell what was happening. The stream was just a camera on a field.

Davide is Italian. Most of his teammates are from France, Germany, Italy, Greece. Their families weren't in Maastricht on Sunday afternoons—they were watching from home, and a raw video feed without context wasn't enough.

"The majority of us are foreigners to this country. I'm Italian, so my family and friends watching would be in Italy. That's why most people that watch the streams are either French, Italian, or German—most are not Dutch because the streams are mainly for the people away."

Davide, a second-year synthetic biology student, took on finding a solution. He had no programming background. He needed something he could train a teammate on in one conversation.

Finding an Overlay That Wasn't Built for Gaming

Moving from Instagram to Twitch solved some problems—Twitch is better suited for live sports streaming and has a monetization path—but introduced a new one. Nearly every overlay on Twitch is designed for games. Reaction videos. Gameplay. Not a football pitch.

"I was having a lot of difficulty finding websites that could help me bring that to life because, again, I don't come from a programming background, I don't come from a computer science background. So I couldn't make my own overlays or own live scores to keep."

Canva had overlays, but they were static—no live data. Through YouTube research on Twitch streaming, Davide discovered that what he needed was called an "overlay" and found KeepTheScore.

He tested it, then upgraded to a paid plan once he saw what customization unlocked: team colors, league logos, custom names, the actual visual identity of the match. That's what turned the stream from functional to worth watching.

"KeepTheScore was very intuitive to use. The editing of the colors and the names, it's very easy. I just showed him how it works—it really works as a scoreboard that you maintain on your phone with different buttons."

The Setup: iPhone, Two Links, One Battery Pack

The full streaming setup fits in a backpack:

• iPhone 15 on a phone tripod (camera)
• Battery pack — necessary because streaming over 4G drains fast
• Streamlabs mobile app for broadcasting (OBS on a laptop isn't practical on a pitch)
• A second phone or tablet for controlling the scoreboard

That second device runs the KeepTheScore admin link—the URL that controls the scoreboard. The display link goes into Streamlabs as a browser source overlay. Two links, two roles.

Training whoever was updating the scoreboard took one demonstration:

"At the beginning it was big... he didn't really understand why there were two links. But then when I showed him how it works and everything... he was like, 'Oh, okay, perfect. Easy.'"

The reason for keeping everything on phones: fewer parts, fewer failures. Out on a pitch with no press box and no tech support, every unnecessary component is a potential problem.

"Being out in the open, meaning we have less choices to fix if something goes wrong. So less parts we have moving, easier it is to maintain it running."

What the Scoreboard Did to the Numbers

Once the football scoreboard was live on screen, viewers stopped asking what the score was. That sounds obvious, but the effect on watch time was measurable.

"I could see the moment we started using KeepTheScore, it grew much more. Not only did it grow in amounts of views, but in people staying in the live stream. There was less confusion about what time it was in the game, what the score was, or what point we were at."

The channel qualified for Twitch affiliate status—enough regular streams and viewers to earn ad revenue. Davide is direct about the connection: the scoreboard made the streams worth staying for.

From Family Streaming to League Business

When the Maastricht Sunday League noticed what Hello Kitties FC was doing, they asked Davide to stream all 16 playoff games. One Sunday, 8 hours of continuous football, 20 different scoreboard configurations swapped out between games.

"Since each game would have a different overlay, I had other overlays made for each game. So on the website you can have I think up to 20 overlays made at the same time. So I had one ready for each game. And so between each game I'll just change the link on the overlay."

Then the league asked him to join as a board member. And other teams started paying Hello Kitties FC to stream their games.

"They saw that more people could watch the streams and were following their Instagrams—they really saw the value in live streaming."

The team now earns from jersey sales, Twitch ad revenue, merchandise, streaming services for other teams, and vendor partnerships. What started as a way for Davide's parents to watch from Italy became the club's main revenue source.

The Context That Makes This Work in Europe

Davide points out something worth understanding: European universities don't have the sports culture American ones do. No stadium scoreboards. No official broadcasts. Games happen on pitches with no infrastructure.

"When people were introduced to this league, they had such an admiration for it because they could finally get together with some friends, build a team and actually play together and have pride about something connected through university, but being sports instead of education."

That gap is exactly why a streaming overlay matters more here than it would at a university with existing infrastructure. The scoreboard on screen is often the only scoreboard that exists for these games.

The student budget reality is also part of the story. When Davide wanted to upgrade to a paid plan, the team chipped in. For playoffs, the league covered it. Pay-as-you-go made that practical.

Ready to stream your sports with professional live scoreboards? Get started with KeepTheScore and bring your games to families and fans worldwide.

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