Building a community to improve the scoring system in Boxing
=== The system ===
https://fight-score.com - A better boxing scorecard app which provides more informative scorecards created by users of the system.
=== The problem it solves ===
Boxing fans are tired of crazy, weird or downright corrupt scorecards produced by official boxing judges. This more detailed version could enlighten us to their thought process and put pressure on them to score bouts better!
=== The Aim ===
Aim is to build a community of fight fans who score boxing bouts as they watch. We need user who like the concept to adopt it and spread the word of the system to drive enough interest in an attempt to make it a universal tool for official boxing authorities to adopt.
The system allows for in depth fight analysis and statistical data charts which could be of interest to users and other fight fans and really stands this product apart from other basic scorecard applications. This is an area I think could be of use as an engagement mechanism for media/publications/tv/streaming broadcasters.
=== Growth Strategy So Far ===
Most "promotion" via Twitter which gets follows and some click-through. Lately just been following people on Twitter that mention boxing in their bio, plus people posting with hashtags while fights are happening. This is gradually growing the follow count.
Where I am scoring fights, utilising a tweet button which tweets out the round scores and links to my live scorecard. This seems to get a fair amount of clicks but people who are signed up and using the platform don't appear to be using the tweet button while they score.
Reddit is also a good driver of traffic. They produce a large thread for live events and posting a link to score a fight right as it is starting seems to generate a lot of hits, and a few people may sign up as a result.
This of course works best for BIG fights which there is one this coming weekend.
Been signed up to a handful of boxing forums and trying to just be a regular contributor with a view to linking up the system at appropriate times, but this is a slow burner as a newly registered member, I don't want to be spammy. One forum just fully blocked my account as soon as it was registered on the assumption it was just going to be promotional.
=== Other Ideas ===
Connecting with / reaching out to twitter users/influence with large followers in the hope they champion the system and get behind it.
Create an article to explain the system and the why it has been created and send to news, boxing content sites or bloggers and sports/boxing journalists.
Creating a native app. Users have asked if one exists.
Creating a standalone stripped back version of the app that can be embedded into external websites. Which leads to the next point.
Reaching out to boxing news/content sites, bloggers to see if they want to embed the system onto their sites for their users. These would become "partners" or ""
Develop the system to integrate the analysis for particular partners users' data
Live YouTube streaming during fights. If people could follow the fight action as well as tuning into a YouTube stream? Maybe the format would be 2 people are covering how they are scoring the fight as it pans out, looking at the live data as user scores are being generated (charts and stats on the screen), interacting with people in the live chat. OR try to tap up an existing YouTube channel where they do live streams during fights to see if it would be of interest to them.
The last 2 points above could in theory be utilised by TV stations if they were interested in interactivity/engagement with their viewers. Live data provided by viewers between rounds, compare to their own analysers' scorecard etc.
(This is probably the ultimate dream goal to be able to make this a monetised thing)
=== Issues preventing progress ===
I seem to have an issue with wanting to keep adding more and more features and polish before trying to ramp up the promo, though over the last 6 months or more I have put more emphasis in getting it "out there" a bit more.
However I think a lot of the stuff in the ideas list could be really useful, especially the standalone app and native app.
Doing everything myself! From developing more and more features, to creating the artwork, doing all the social promo, tweeting, forum posts etc. It would be good to get some enthusiastic people (volunteers) on board to help in some of the promo stuff. I haven't gone about asking for help at all.
The feedback from users who actually see it & use it is very positive. But there is also a big number of people who sign up, use it a few times and don't come back.
=== In Closing ===
Would this be something worth putting on places like here (Obviously I have now decided it won't do any harm posting here), but also Product Hunt and any other of those kinds of places?
I think it would be especially useful to do so just prior to this weekends big fight? Possibly the biggest fight that will occur this year.
I guess I want to use this weekend to do a big push to get this out there as is. It's a nice system currently and should be usable for the majority of people who will see it on their computer, tablet or mobile phone.
I will then be able to gauge if ploughing on with a native app would be worthwhile or not thereafter.
I don't envision this being any kind of money spinner, but I enjoy developing it and I'm learning loads along the way in terms of coding.
Sorry its a long arse post, but any other tips or advice about this community building thing would be much appreciated.
This is a very cool idea, and I wholeheartedly agree that better scoring would really improve the fan experience. I like all the thoughts you posted here, and don't have a ton of feedback. One random thought: find bars who are buying a big PPV match and go to the bar and casually walk around the bar and ask people who are watching the TVs, "Oh, are you scoring the fight with fight-score.com?" Or maybe wear a t-shirt with fight-score.com on the front. Something like that. Or you could ask the owner if you could put a single sheet of people on the bottom of the tv that says, "Score this bout on fight-score.com". Time intensive but who knows, could work!
Good luck with this. I am rooting for you.
Thanks for your feedback on this and your support it means a lot.
Actively being at fights and/or bars with some ways to get people in there aware of it has crossed my mind. It something that could be tried so wouldn't rule it out but there are some fears there.
People watching boxing in bars (here in the UK at least) will likely just be groups of lads out having a good piss up. Not necessarily be that interested in the scoring of a contest as such, too busy having a laugh with their friends.
Equally at live events the case would be similar though you will also have dedicated fans in there. But then there are technical issues which could arise. Many times in arenas with large crowd the wifi/data signals are jammed up so the website won't load up.
Hmmm... let us say your tool scores better than real judges, but what does it change? Results are still the same. PS I am MMA fan and see it everytime)
Hi, so to clarify this system is for people to use and input their own scorecards. It could be adopted for real, official judges at championship events.
The concept doesn't effectively change anything. A dodgy judge can still be a dodgy judge if they were to use this system, BUT as things currently stand that judge just needs to put 10-9 to his fighter that he is backing....nothing else, no rhyme or reason.
Our system requires the user to choose a reason why they scored the round to that fighter, and it also requires the user to score the round based on a percentage out of 100. (If it was a close round maybe one fighter edges it, so they would score it 55%-45%). This is just another metric we felt added more description to a round when you visually see the scorecard.
So back to an official judge using our method. They now need to input a valid reason why they awarded that round. They have some accountability now, which they could potentially be asked to explain if they were being investigated for a poor scorecard or something.
It might just make the officials think a bit more about how they are scoring these fights.
A centrally computerised system would also eliminate the ridiculous and sometimes lengthy delays between the end of a fight and the announcing of scorecards.
It's 2020! Why are they still using pencil and paper for this? :D
Got it) eahh, make sense. Who is your target audience than? I believe it should be some associations which are regulating the scoring processes? I think there is a lot of legal docs with a lot of rules)
Well in order to drive change, my thinking is to get fight fans using the system. With enough of them doing so, and making noises about it, it might bubble up to some higher ups to consider making the scoring more transparent.
Boxing seems to be a bit of a dinosaur in terms of moving with the times and technology. Any changes to official rulings won't be easy. But if there's demand from fans....it might just be the key to drive change!
Thanks for your comments.
I agree. I wouldn't worry at all about the judges using this tool to start. My 2 cents is build a groundswell of fans who use this as the de facto method for scoring fights. Over time, judges will public pressure to improve their scoring. Maybe eventually they use it, but I don't think you need to make that a goal right now.
Thanks for your feedback and I have come to the conclusion early doors that this most likely will never be adopted officially. But there's definitely something to this trying to improve how its done.
Makes sense to get fans on board using it and with enough traction of fans screaming about it on Twitter/Reddit etc maybe...just maybe it might get looked into....
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Thanks. And I will have a look into that sub reddit.
Currently the only fights that can be scored are the big televised fights and I add these into the system myself following the Boxrec schedule.
I have thought in the past that I could allow users to manually set up their own fights to score, which would be needed say at amateur events. Would need some thinking about data structure wise though.
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Excellent idea to find people who are watching the fight and tweeting about it and tweet at them.
Thank you for the encouraging words.
I agree I really think I just need to be more active and hammer the social aspects a bit more.
It is a bit of a frenzy on fight nights on Twitter with people talking about the fights. I do try to target those posting up their scores but I could probably do more of this and pay less attention to the fights happening at the time myself :D
One possible barrier though to targeting people posting on Twitter (where there's a big community), or Reddit (where there's a big community) or on forums (where they have been posting for years) is they don't want to really move away from their choice of social place. Probably need to drive home some benefits of them keeping their scorecards to reflect back on than being lost in Twitter land.
I dont want to drive them away from their social channel, they can score on fight-score.com and still interact on them. And they get to keep their scoring records at least.
I am currently working on a community system where users can connect with each other and so they have an activity feed of how their connections scored fights.
Will make it so they can see each others scores next to each others to see how they differ.
ALSO, I will allow people to form a scoring 'group' or 'party' accessible by a code and a number of users can join.
So many ideas and not enough time! I need to focus on growing the numbers though, that's for sure.