Basketball is here: three scoreboard overlays for your stream

It's a Friday night in a half-full high school gym. Someone has a phone on a tripod at half court, streaming the game to the parents who couldn't make it. The basketball is good. The problem is that nobody watching at home has any idea what the score is, how much time is left, or whether the home team is in the bonus.

That gap between "we're filming the game" and "this looks like a broadcast" is exactly what ScoreLayer closes. We started with American football, then added soccer, flag football, tennis, and pool. Today the most-requested sport on our list finally lands: basketball is live.

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And it doesn't arrive with one generic overlay. Basketball ships with three distinct styles, plus all the scoring logic that makes a basketball scoreboard actually work: quarters, a countdown clock, team fouls with a bonus indicator, possession, and timeout rules that match real league formats.

Three styles, one sport

Basketball is a fast, high-scoring game, and the look of the scoreboard sets the tone of the whole broadcast. So we built three styles you can switch between at any time from the control panel. The change is instant and the live overlay updates on its own.

Standard

The Standard scorebug is the clean, no-nonsense option. Team names, scores, the quarter, and the game clock in a compact bar that stays out of the way of the action. It reads clearly at any stream resolution and works for pretty much any level of play, from middle school to men's league.

Standard is free on every plan. If you just want a proper scoreboard on your stream tonight, this is the one to start with.

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ESPN 2018

The ESPN 2018 style is modeled on the broadcast look a lot of viewers already associate with televised basketball. Team-colored panels, a bold score treatment, and a clock strip that sits alongside the bug rather than crammed inside it. If you want your Sunday league game to feel like it belongs on cable, this is the style that gets you there.

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Olympics 2024

The Olympics 2024 style takes its cues from international broadcast graphics: a wider, more editorial layout with room for team records and a match banner. It suits tournament streams and showcase games where the context around the matchup matters as much as the score itself.

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Pick based on the vibe you want. There's no wrong answer, and you can try all three against your own footage before you go live.

Built for how basketball actually scores

A scoreboard overlay is only useful if it understands the sport. A soccer bug can't run a basketball game. Here's what's built into the basketball state so you're not fighting the tool mid-game.

The clock and quarters. Basketball runs a countdown clock: 10 minutes per quarter by default, across four quarters, with overtime periods that start at 5 minutes. The control panel handles the quarter progression and resets the clock for you. Start, stop, and adjust the clock with the on-screen buttons or keyboard shortcuts, so you can keep one hand free.

Scoring the way you call it. Tap 1PT, 2PT, or 3PT to add points. No mental math, no typing the running total. The score updates the instant you tap it: no refresh, no delay, no second device needed. Miss a call or a basket gets waved off? Adjust either team's score up or down in a tap.

Team fouls and the bonus. This is the detail most improvised overlays get wrong. ScoreLayer tracks team fouls for each side, and when a team crosses the bonus threshold, the overlay shows a BONUS indicator automatically. Everyone watching knows the next non-shooting foul means free throws, without you having to say a word.

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Possession. A possession indicator shows which team has the ball, which matters for the arrow on jump-ball situations and for viewers trying to follow a tight endgame.

Timeout rules that match your league

Timeouts are where basketball formats diverge the most, and getting them wrong on screen is confusing. So the basketball setup lets you pick the ruleset your game actually uses:

• FIBA: 2 timeouts in the first half, 3 in the second, and each overtime starts fresh with 1.
• NBA: 7 timeouts for the game, with 2 for each overtime.
• NCAA Men (simplified): 4 team timeouts for the game, plus 1 for each overtime.
• NCAA Women (simplified): 5 team timeouts, carried into overtime with 1 added per overtime.

Choose the preset in the Setup section and the timeout counts behave the way that competition expects. Running a format we don't list, like a local youth league with its own rules? There's a custom option where you set your own starting count, second-half count, and overtime behavior. The broadcast-simplified presets skip things like media timeouts on purpose, so if your count ever drifts, the plus and minus buttons let you correct it on the fly.

See it before you go live

You don't have to commit to a look blind. The control panel shows a live preview of the exact overlay your viewers will see, updating as you change the score, run the clock, or flip between the three styles. Set up your teams, tap through a few possessions, and watch how each style handles a real game state before you ever hit record.

That preview is the same component that renders the live overlay, so what you see in the panel is what lands on the stream. There's no separate "design mode" to second-guess. If it looks right in the preview, it looks right on air.

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Who this is for

Basketball is one of the most-streamed grassroots sports in the world, and almost none of those streams have a real scoreboard. School and college programs putting games on YouTube for families and recruiters. Rec leagues and church leagues running a weekly stream on Twitch. AAU and club tournaments where four courts are live at once and every game deserves to look the part. 3x3 events, which are exploding in popularity and are built for exactly this kind of lightweight, phone-and-tripod production.

If you're already streaming with OBS or vMix, adding a ScoreLayer overlay is a browser source and a share link. You control the score from your phone or a second tab, the overlay updates in real time, and you never touch the encoder mid-game. The basketball sport page walks through what each style looks like.

If you set up American football, soccer, or tennis with us before, none of this will be new. It's the same control panel, the same real-time sync, the same open-the-display link. Basketball just slots into the catalog alongside them. And if you're coming from the tennis and pool launch, you already know the drill.

What's next

Basketball was the top request, and shipping it clears the way for the next wave. Volleyball and hockey are the sports we hear about most now, and both are in the queue.

If your sport still isn't listed and you're streaming it regularly, tell us on the support page. Real demand is what moves a sport up the list, and every one we've shipped so far started as a message from someone who just wanted their game to look right on stream.

Basketball's Standard style is free on every plan, with the ESPN 2018 and Olympics 2024 styles available too. Create a basketball scoreboard →