Volleyball scoreboard overlay with automatic set scoring

A volleyball score on its own says very little. 18-15 could be the opening set of a best-of-five or match point in a deciding set, and a viewer who joins the stream halfway through has no way to tell which. The things that make the score mean something are the set being played, how many sets each team has won, and who is about to serve. Those are also the things a volunteer running a club stream is least likely to have time to keep updated by hand between rallies.

ScoreLayer now supports volleyball. It ships with a Standard scorebug modelled on college broadcast graphics, set and match logic that follows the rules of the sport, and a control panel built for one person working from a laptop or a phone at the side of the court.

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What the Standard scorebug shows

The bug is a single bar along the bottom of the frame. Each team has a panel in its own colour with an optional logo and an optional ranking beside the name, so a ranked college matchup reads 9 WESTFIELD against 13 HARBOR CITY. The two scores sit in dark cells next to each other in the middle, with the set being played between them: 1ST SET, 2ND SET, and so on up to the fifth.

Three smaller markers carry the rest of the match:

• Sets won. Small pips under each score, two per team in a best-of-three match and three in a best-of-five. A pip fills in for every set that team has taken.
• The serve. A small volleyball icon on the inside edge of the serving team's panel.
• Timeouts. Short bars along the bottom of each team panel, one per timeout. Spent ones dim, so viewers can see at a glance that a team is out of timeouts in a tight finish.

The timeout bars use each team's accent colour, which you choose in the team setup. A gold accent on a black panel reads as clearly as white on blue, so pick whatever matches the team's kit. The set pips stay white, so they read on the dark score cells whatever accent you pick.

Set wins, worked out for you

Volleyball uses rally scoring. Every rally wins a point, and a set goes to 25 points with a two-point lead. At 25-24 the set carries on. At 26-24 it is over. There is no ceiling in the official rules, so a long set can finish 31-29, and the deciding set (the fifth in a best-of-five, the third in a best-of-three) is played to 15 instead of 25.

ScoreLayer applies those rules for you. You tap +1 for the team that won the rally and nothing else. When a point wins the set, the board knows it straight away: the winning team's set pip fills in and the label in the middle changes to END 1ST SET, with the final score still on screen. When the sets won reach a majority, the label reads FINAL.

The deciding set uses its own target automatically. At two sets all, 15-13 in the fifth set ends the match.

Ending a set on air

Broadcasts hold the final score of a set on screen for a while before the next one starts. Viewers like to see that 25-23, and it gives commentary something to talk over during the changeover.

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ScoreLayer works the same way. After the winning point the score stays where it is until you are ready. The control panel shows Set 1 to Westfield, 25–23 and a highlighted Start set 2 button. Tap it and the board saves the first set, resets the score to 0-0, gives both teams their timeouts back and moves the label to 2ND SET, all in one update.

Mistakes at set point are easy to undo. If you added a point to the wrong team and the set ended early, take the point back and the set is open again, pip and all. If you have already started the next set, Back to set 1 brings the previous set back with its score exactly as you left it. Every completed set is listed under the buttons, so you can read off the full match score at any time.

Indoor, beach and league formats

Volleyball is played in a lot of formats, and the scoreboard has to match the one on the court. The Match Format card in Setup has two presets:

• Indoor: best of five, sets to 25, a deciding fifth set to 15, two timeouts per team per set.
• Beach: best of three, sets to 21, a deciding third set to 15, one timeout per team per set.

Any of it can be changed to suit your competition. Best of one, three or five; any number of points per set; a separate target for the deciding set; and any number of timeouts per set from none to six.

Many rec and club leagues cap their sets so a match fits its court booking, usually 25 capped at 27. Turn on Set cap, set it to 27, and the first team to reach 27 wins the set even if they are only one point ahead. The deciding set has its own cap, often 17 in those leagues. With no cap set, the board plays standard win-by-two.

Serve and timeouts

The Serving card has a button for each team and one for nobody. Switch it after each side-out and the ball icon moves across the bug. Pre-match, leave it on nobody until the coin toss is settled.

Timeouts sit on the score cards, the same as other sports in ScoreLayer, with a minus button to spend one and a plus button to give one back. They reset to the format's allowance whenever a new set starts, so the only time you touch them is when a coach calls one.

If a format change happens mid-match, for example a tournament director deciding to drop to one timeout per set, the teams keep the timeouts they have already used. A team that had spent one of two keeps that one spent.

Driving it from a Stream Deck or a scoreboard controller

Everything above also works through the ScoreLayer push API, which is how the Stream Deck plugin and venue scoreboard integrations update a board. On a volleyball board:

• scores adds points the same way the +1 button does, and the set logic follows.
• possession sets the serving team, and "toggle" flips it, so a single Stream Deck key can handle side-outs for the whole match.
• period.start with a set number starts that set, saving the previous one and resetting the score and timeouts exactly as the Start set button does. The range follows the board's format, so a best-of-three match refuses set 4.

Getting it on your stream

Setting up takes a few minutes before the first serve:

1. Create a volleyball scoreboard from the control panel and pick the Standard style.
2. In Setup, add team names, colours, logos and rankings, and choose Indoor, Beach or your own format.
3. Copy the overlay URL and add it to OBS, Streamlabs or vMix as a browser source at your stream resolution.
4. During the match, tap +1 after every rally, switch the serve on side-outs, and tap Start set 2 when you are ready to move on.

There is no game clock to run, since rally scoring is untimed. If you want a countdown to the first serve on screen while the teams warm up, the Countdown card in Setup works for volleyball the same way it does for every other sport.

The volleyball scorebug is in the examples gallery with a fourth-set moment on the board, and the volleyball overview page has a full list of features and answers to common questions.

Set up a volleyball scoreboard →