Ebenstone’s own product · High-school football
Live football stats, scored from a sideline with no signal.
TopBall lets one volunteer score a football game on one phone, play by play. Every total works itself out, and families who can’t be there follow live on a free link.
TopBall’s front page, from its mockup. topball.app isn’t open yet, and every team and score is invented.
- What it is
- A web app for scoring a football game live, on one phone
- Who it’s for
- High-school football programs, and the families who follow them
- Status
- In development
- Web address
- topball.app, not open yet
The problem
Nobody can keep a stat book and watch the game at the same time.
Keeping stats for a high-school football team means writing down a yardage for every player on every play, while the next play is already starting. The numbers a program ends up with are the ones somebody managed to catch.
- 1Every play has to be written down while the next one starts.Down, distance, who carried it and how far, on every snap.
- 2The totals are added up by hand afterwards.A mistake found days later means redoing the arithmetic for the game and the season.
- 3Stadiums have poor signal, and often none.An app that needs a connection stops when the scorer needs it most.
- 4Family who can’t be at the game can’t follow it.They wait for a text, or for the final score.
Why it was built
Why Ebenstone built it
TopBall started on a sideline. Ebenstone’s founder was the volunteer keeping the stat book for a high-school football team, and he built the first version to score that team’s games.
It began as one person’s idea for fixing his own Friday nights. It is now being built into a product other programs can use.
How each problem was solved
How TopBall solves each one
1The problem
Every play has to be written down while the next one starts.
What Ebenstone built
The scorer records only the play.
One volunteer taps each play into one phone. Down and distance, each player’s yardage and the team totals are worked out from the list of plays, so the scorer can watch the game.
2The problem
The totals are added up by hand afterwards.
What Ebenstone built
Nothing is added up by hand.
Every total is calculated from the plays. Correct one play days later and the game, the season leaders and each player’s career totals all update.
3The problem
Stadiums have poor signal, and often none.
What Ebenstone built
It keeps scoring with no signal.
Plays are saved on the phone and sent when the connection returns. The scorer doesn’t have to do anything.
4The problem
Family who can’t be at the game can’t follow it.
What Ebenstone built
Families follow live on a free link.
There is no app to install and no account to make. A field view draws each play as it happens.
Each picture recreates TopBall’s mockups, with invented teams and players.
Where it stands
In development. The 2026 season is being scored this way, live from the sideline.
TopBall turns that season into a product. Football first, and built to take a second sport.
What carries over to your project
- Software that keeps working with no signal
- Totals that are calculated, never typed in
- A public page people can follow without an account
Have a problem like this one?
Something done by hand, somewhere with no signal, that nobody has built the right tool for.
or write to [email protected]