Arguably the most important part of recreating the in-person experience of a game is letting your viewers see the score. If fans don't know who's winning or losing, your game's going to be tough to follow — especially for those who start watching in the middle of your broadcast.
For that reason, it's crucial for sports broadcasters to find a way to add a scoreboard to their live streams. Here are a few ways you can do it.
The ability to add a scoreboard to your live stream depends on what platform you're using. If you're sending directly to Facebook Live or another social platform, you won't be able to add a scoreboard without extra production equipment. This is because social platforms only distribute your streams and don't allow for overlays or other production elements.
If you're using a platform like BoxCast, you have several options for integrating your scoreboard while keeping a relatively simple production setup.
Our Scoreboard Overlays feature allows you to overlay a scoreboard onto your live stream before sending it to your streaming destinations (like Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Periscope, and your website).
While the resulting scoreboard overlay will look similar to the one shown above (with some customization options for placement, team colors, etc), you have three different options for scoreboard data ingestion:
Combined with our Automatic Scoreboard Overlays, Scoreboard Assist is the easiest way to capture, customize, and stream scores in real time to your sports viewers.
Scoreboard Assist seamlessly integrates with almost every major scoreboard brand and controller on the market. All you have to do is connect it to your scoreboard controller and your BoxCast encoder. (You can connect wirelessly or with wired options, since it comes with all the cabling and adapters you need to fit your specific streaming situation.) Then, just configure your settings in the BoxCast Dashboard and you’re ready to go live!
For another option, we've partnered with Sportzcast to integrate scoreboard data directly through their ScoreBOT interface, which can be linked to a wide variety of scoreboards.
How to integrate BoxCast and the Sportzcast ScoreBOT
Don't have an actual scoreboard to integrate with your live stream? We also offer manual scoreboard controls that allow you to update the score directly on the BoxCast Dashboard or BroadCaster iOS app.
Here's how it works:
Scoreboards are just one important element of sports live streaming. Here are some other articles you might find useful:
How to Add Sponsors and Ads to Your Sports Live Stream
The Best Camera Angles for Every Sport
The Equipment You Need to Add Announcer Audio to Your Live Sports Streams