Five Free Online Scoreboards, Tested for Amateur Basketball

Search for "free online scoreboard" and you get about ten results. The catch is that they solve different problems. Some are overlays for a livestream, some are meant for a tablet at the scorer's table, some are built for a TV in a gym. Pick the wrong kind and you find out on game day, when someone asks why it can't be controlled from a phone.

This article looks at one situation only: a basketball game where one person keeps score on a phone and everyone else watches a big screen. Club games, school leagues and 3x3 tournaments all fit.

Full disclosure first: we make LiveScoreboard. Weigh our verdicts accordingly. Details about the other tools come from their public pages and can change, so check them yourself before a tournament.

The five things that matter on game day

1. Setup time. With a referee waiting, two minutes is too long.
2. Phone control. If the scorekeeper has to stand at the TV, it's a failure.
3. Basketball rules. Shot clock, team fouls with bonus, timeouts, periods. A counter that goes up and down is not a basketball scoreboard.
4. Clock accuracy. The clock on the screen has to match the one the referee sees. Tools that run the timer inside a single browser tab drift the moment that tab throttles.
5. Actually free. A lot of "free" comes with limits or a sign-up wall.

The five tools

KeepTheScore

A general-purpose scoreboard with templates for many sports and a strong streaming angle. It gives you a browser source URL for OBS and can be shown on any screen. Basketball is supported, but the product is built around many sports and leaderboards rather than the basketball scorer's table. A good choice if you also stream your games.

ScoreLeader

Browser-based basketball scoreboards that open on a TV, laptop or projector, with no limit on how many you create. It focuses on showing score and clock large for gyms, schools and community events. Worth a look if you want something plain.

Score Cast

Built around one idea: put a live scoreboard on a TV or projector and control it from another device. It supports several sports. If getting onto the big screen is your top priority it does that well; how far the basketball-specific features go is worth checking against your league's rules.

BT Basketball Scoreboard

This one is an app, not a website. You install a scoreboard app on an Android TV or Fire TV device and a separate controller app on a phone, connected over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It feels closest to a real gym scoreboard. The trade-off is that you need compatible TV hardware and installs on both ends, which is awkward for a club that rents a different gym every week.

LiveScoreboard

A basketball-only scoreboard that runs entirely in the browser. Open a link on the phone, scan the QR code on the screen, done. It has the game clock, periods, shot clock, team fouls with automatic bonus and timeouts, with every game-day feature free and no account. The clock is anchored to server time, so multiple screens stay in sync. It's basketball only, and there's no streaming overlay mode.

So which one?

• You stream games and want an overlay: KeepTheScore.
• You want a dedicated TV app and control the hardware: BT Basketball Scoreboard.
• You just need score and clock, big, on any screen: ScoreLeader or Score Cast.
• You run club, school or 3x3 games with full basketball rules from a phone, no setup: LiveScoreboard.

Whatever you pick, run this test

Five minutes before the first real game.

1. Open the scoreboard on the actual screen in the actual gym.
2. Start the clock on the phone, then lock the phone for a minute. The screen's clock should keep running and match the phone when you unlock it.
3. Add two points, take one back, add a foul, use a timeout. Everything should appear on the screen within a second.
4. Turn the screen's Wi-Fi off and on. It should reconnect by itself.

Pass all four and the tool will survive a tournament weekend. Fail one, and it will fail during a game.