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FieldCast - Automated Live Score and Highlight Broadcaster for Amateur Sports Leagues

Your kid's Saturday soccer league has 400 parents who can't make it to every game, and the current update system is a group chat that nobody reads because Gary keeps sending memes. FieldCast lets a single scorekeeper broadcast live scores, game events, and AI-written recaps to a public league page, SMS, and a parent app — all from one phone screen.

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Difficulty

beginner

What is it?

Amateur and youth sports leagues manage communication through a chaos of WhatsApp groups, manual website updates, and zero-structure email blasts — leaving parents, fans, and league admins frustrated and out of the loop. FieldCast gives every league a scorekeeper mode: one person taps game events (goal, penalty, substitution) on a simple mobile-first web app, and every update broadcasts instantly to a public league scoreboard page, optional SMS alerts, and a generated game recap using GPT-4o. League admins pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited teams and games. The distribution angle is the league admin: one sale covers 20-200 parent end users who never pay but become the retention hook. Buildable fast because it is a thin event-sourced state machine with a WebSocket broadcast layer — no ML, no complex integrations, pure real-time event streaming with Supabase Realtime.

Why now?

Supabase Realtime became production-stable and free-tier viable this year, making zero-infrastructure live score broadcasting finally buildable in a weekend — and the vibe-coding wave means a solo dev can ship this in days, not months.

▸Mobile-first scorekeeper tap interface for logging goals, fouls, and substitutions in real time
▸Supabase Realtime-powered public scoreboard page that updates instantly without refresh
▸GPT-4o game recap generator triggered on final whistle tap, delivered via SMS and email
▸Parent SMS opt-in link so fans subscribe to a specific team without creating an account

Target Audience

Amateur and youth sports league administrators — estimated 30k+ active youth soccer leagues in the US alone, plus basketball, baseball, and lacrosse equivalents.

Example Use Case

A youth soccer league coordinator in Ohio sets up FieldCast in 10 minutes, gives the scorekeeper link to a parent volunteer, and 300 subscribed parents get live score updates and a GPT-written game recap SMS within 2 minutes of the final whistle.

User Stories

▸As a league coordinator, I want to set up a league scoreboard in under 10 minutes, so that parents can follow games without a group chat.
▸As a parent, I want to opt in to SMS score alerts for my child's team, so that I get live updates without downloading an app.
▸As a scorekeeper volunteer, I want a simple tap interface to log game events on my phone, so that I can broadcast updates without disrupting my coaching focus.

Done When

✓Live scoreboard: done when scorekeeper taps a goal event and the public scoreboard page updates within 2 seconds without a page refresh.
✓SMS opt-in: done when parent enters their phone number on the league page, receives a confirmation SMS within 30 seconds, and receives the next game event SMS automatically.
✓Recap: done when scorekeeper taps final whistle and all subscribed parents receive a GPT-written game recap SMS within 3 minutes.
✓Admin setup: done when coordinator completes Stripe checkout and the scorekeeper link becomes active and shareable within 60 seconds.

Is it worth building?

$49/month x 50 leagues = $2,450 MRR at month 3. $49/month x 200 leagues = $9,800 MRR at month 8. Math: cold email to 1,000 youth league coordinators at 3% conversion = 30 customers in month 1.

Unit Economics

CAC: $25 via direct local outreach. LTV: $490 (10 months at $49/month). Payback: 1 month. Gross margin: 80%.

Business Model

SaaS subscription $49/month per league

Monetization Path

Admin pays, parents are free end users. Upsell $99/month for SMS blasts and multi-sport support. Free trial for first season (8 weeks).

Revenue Timeline

First dollar: week 2 via local outreach. $1k MRR: month 2. $5k MRR: month 6.

Estimated Monthly Cost

Supabase: $25, Twilio SMS: $30, OpenAI API: $25, Vercel: $20, Stripe fees: ~$25. Total: ~$125/month at launch.

Profit Potential

Full-time viable at $5k–$10k MRR.

Scalability

High — add tournament bracket mode, sponsor placement on public scoreboard pages, and white-label for sports associations.

Success Metrics

Week 1: 5 leagues in beta. Week 2: first paid league. Month 2: 30 paid leagues, under 15% churn.

Launch & Validation Plan

Post in r/SoccerCoaches and r/youthsports asking how leagues currently handle live score updates — 30+ comments validates the pain. DM 10 league coordinators offering a free full-season trial.

Customer Acquisition Strategy

First customer: find 3 local youth sports leagues on Facebook or Google Maps and offer a free setup call and full season free in exchange for a testimonial. Ongoing: cold email to league coordinators via association directories, Facebook group posts in regional youth sports groups, SEO targeting 'live scores youth soccer league app'.

What's the competition?

Competition Level

Medium

What's the roadmap?

Feature Roadmap

V1 (launch): live scorekeeper, Realtime scoreboard, SMS opt-in, GPT recap, Stripe billing. V2 (month 2-3): season schedule view, game history, email digest for admins. V3 (month 4+): tournament bracket mode, sponsor banner on public page, multi-sport templates.

Milestone Plan

Phase 1 (Week 1-2): scorekeeper UI, Realtime scoreboard, SMS opt-in, and recap flow working end-to-end. Phase 2 (Week 3-4): Stripe billing, admin onboarding, production deploy, 5 beta leagues live. Phase 3 (Month 2): 30 paid leagues, ProductHunt launch.

How do you build it?

Tech Stack

Next.js, Supabase Realtime for live event streaming, GPT-4o for game recap generation, Twilio for SMS, Stripe for billing, Resend for email — build entirely with Lovable for UI and Cursor for API routes

Suggested Frameworks

Time to Ship

2 weeks

Required Skills

Supabase Realtime, Next.js, Twilio SMS, GPT-4o, Stripe billing.

Resources

Supabase Realtime docs, Twilio SMS docs, Next.js App Router docs, GPT-4o API docs.

MVP Scope

app/page.tsx (landing + league setup CTA), app/[league]/page.tsx (public scoreboard), app/[league]/score/page.tsx (scorekeeper tap UI), app/api/event/route.ts (game event create + Realtime broadcast), app/api/recap/route.ts (GPT-4o recap generator), app/api/sms/route.ts (Twilio broadcast on event), app/api/webhook/stripe/route.ts (billing activation), lib/db/schema.ts (leagues + games + events + subscribers), components/EventFeed.tsx (live event list), .env.example (required env vars)

Core User Journey

Admin creates league -> shares scorekeeper link -> volunteer taps events during game -> parents get live SMS updates -> final whistle fires GPT recap -> admin renews next season.

Architecture Pattern

Scorekeeper taps event -> POST /api/event -> event stored in Supabase -> Supabase Realtime broadcasts to public scoreboard page -> Twilio fires SMS to all opted-in subscribers -> final whistle triggers /api/recap -> GPT-4o generates recap -> recap SMS and email sent.

Data Model

League has many Games. Game has many Events (type, minute, team, player_name). Game has one Recap. League has many Subscribers (phone, team_filter). Subscriber belongs to one League.

Integration Points

Supabase Realtime for live event broadcasting, Twilio for SMS opt-in and blasts, GPT-4o for recap generation, Stripe for league billing, Resend for email recaps, Vercel for hosting.

V1 Scope Boundaries

V1 excludes: tournament bracket mode, stats history and season records, native mobile app, sponsor placement, white-label, multi-admin roles.

Success Definition

A league coordinator the founder never contacted finds FieldCast via Google, sets up a league, gives the scorekeeper link to a volunteer, 50 parents subscribe via SMS, and the coordinator renews after the first season.

Challenges

The hardest problem is getting to the league coordinator, not building the product — they are reached through coaches, sports associations, and local Facebook groups, not ProductHunt. Budget 80% of month one for direct outreach to local league contacts, not marketing automation.

Avoid These Pitfalls

Do not build a parent account system in v1 — account friction kills adoption and the product value is zero-login score access. Do not use Twilio for two-way conversation at launch, only outbound blasts, or costs spiral. Your first 5 paying leagues will come from local cold outreach, not the internet — budget 3x more time for finding coordinators than building features.

Security Requirements

Supabase Auth for admin login only, RLS scoping league data to admin, Twilio opt-out on every SMS, no personal data stored for parent subscribers beyond phone number and team preference, COPPA-safe zero-account parent flow.

Infrastructure Plan

Vercel for Next.js, Supabase for Postgres and Realtime, GitHub Actions for CI, Sentry for errors. Total: ~$70/month at launch.

Performance Targets

500 DAU at launch, 2k events/day. Realtime scoreboard update under 2s. SMS delivery under 30s. Page load under 1.5s.

Go-Live Checklist

☐Security audit complete.
☐Payment flow tested end-to-end.
☐Error tracking (Sentry) live.
☐Monitoring dashboard configured.
☐Custom domain set up with SSL.
☐Privacy policy and SMS opt-out compliance published.
☐3 beta leagues signed off.
☐Rollback plan documented.
☐Launch outreach list of 50 local league coordinators drafted.

First Run Experience

On first run: a demo league called Spring Classic 2026 is pre-loaded with a live game in progress, showing 3 events in the feed and a score of 2-1. User can immediately tap the scorekeeper demo link and add a goal to see the scoreboard update live. No manual config required: demo league, game, and events are seeded in Supabase on first deploy.

How to build it, step by step

1. Define schema: leagues, games (league_id, home_team, away_team, status), events (game_id, type, minute, team), subscribers (league_id, phone, team_filter) in lib/db/schema.ts. 2. Scaffold Next.js app with Supabase via npx create-next-app, enable Supabase Realtime on events table. 3. Build /api/event POST route to insert event and trigger Supabase Realtime channel broadcast. 4. Build public scoreboard page app/[league]/page.tsx using Supabase Realtime client subscription to render live event feed. 5. Build mobile-first scorekeeper tap UI app/[league]/score/page.tsx with goal, foul, substitution, and final whistle buttons using Lovable. 6. Build /api/sms route to call Twilio and send event SMS to all opted-in subscribers for that team. 7. Build /api/recap route triggered on final whistle event, call GPT-4o with game event log, send recap via Twilio and Resend. 8. Add SMS opt-in flow: public page shows phone input, saves subscriber with unsubscribe token, every SMS includes opt-out link. 9. Wire Stripe checkout on admin onboarding, gate scorekeeper access behind active subscription. 10. Verify: create test league, open scoreboard in one tab, tap events in scorekeeper tab, confirm scoreboard updates live, confirm SMS arrives, tap final whistle, confirm GPT recap SMS arrives within 60 seconds.

Generated

April 23, 2026

Model

claude-sonnet-4-6

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Disclaimer: Ideas on this site are AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies. Revenue estimates, market demand figures, and financial projections are illustrative assumptions only — not financial advice. Do your own research before making any business or investment decisions. Technology availability, pricing, and market conditions change rapidly; always verify details independently.