BTVF: Who are you, Christian Dangl?
C.D.: Hi, I’m Christian, the founder and executive developer of Live Score.
I’m a software developer, and I also love sports, which is a great combo for such software, right?
I grew up in Austria, where I had the honor of playing for the baseball team « Attnang-Puchheim Athletics ». I was a lefty and first baseman until I was 16 years old.
That’s also when I started discovering my passion for development and music.
Although there have always been moments in my life where I stopped playing baseball, I never lost my love for the sport. And yes, I came back after some time.
Years later, when I moved to Germany, I also got to play with the Rosenheim 89ers, a fantastic group of people and friends.
Today, I can say I’m lucky to develop software that helps people worldwide with something that connects us all, while also speaking at conferences, writing articles, and helping other developers in our wonderful community and industry.
BTVF: Why did you decide to create Live Score? What was the idea behind it all?
C.D.: While I was still playing for Attnang-Puchheim Athletics and after attending a software development school, I found myself in the position of handling the website as well as live streaming.
Streaming and the matchday experience were a big, but new thing for me at the time. I still remember those days spent in that tiny announcer’s booth, rubbing shoulders with great people.
But when it came to a good scoreboard, there wasn’t a real solution, apart from a few generic approaches integrated into our streaming apps.
So I was looking for something online, and I discovered approaches with a few simple chroma keying integrations. Unfortunately, I wasn’t satisfied with how they worked. That’s when my little developer personality got the idea to create my own app that had to work specifically for baseball. And that’s where it all began.
After receiving excellent internal feedback, I realized it could actually help more people and teams. It’s not always about those big clubs all the time. It’s about our local teams, our friends, and our dads streaming their kids’ games. Everyone deserves a great experience for their viewers, no matter the budget.
In the end, it wasn’t just baseball. I also built football and soccer, just because I could. And after an enormous amount of development time, I finally released version 1.0 on February 11, 2014, with small affordable sports packages and a complete professional edition with even more features.
BTVF: You’ve been the creator of the Live Score app since 2014. Now in 2022, how have you experienced these 8 years of development?
C.D.: It’s been an amazing journey so far.
8 years is indeed a very long time, especially when it comes to the tech industry.
I think the most fascinating thing about Live Score is when you compare how it was supposed to work and what it offers now.
When I look back, 8 years ago, I see a desktop app with remote iOS apps as the ONLY way to control it. Yes, no built-in controls back then. Everything was planned as an iOS-driven software. I don’t have real proof anymore because I didn’t realize it at the time, but I truly think it was the first scoreboard app that could be controlled with iOS remotes in that way.
Additionally, the website was originally planned as a simple homepage, just like those typical mobile app marketing websites you used to see back then.
And if you now use the latest version 2.2 and look at all the details that exist, like the new baseball lineup and service table layouts, general intermission layouts, hardware integrations, and so much more. The scope is much wider and far exceeds what I expected.
The change for me was when I realized that iOS is actually more of a companion to an app that could have even more potential. So in June 2015, there were finally distinct sports licenses available to purchase built-in controls. And that turned out to be an excellent idea. People started seeing Live Score more and more as a tool they could use for their games.
And with the arrival of new customers, the requests multiplied. In fact, there has never been a moment where I thought it could stop, not even now.
Every time you think something seems « done », new features appear, new rules appear, and new sports become interesting.
What I really enjoyed over the past 8 years, regarding the feature list, were the hardware-based integrations. It was indeed sometimes very frustrating, but once it works, it was simply fun to see how these features evolve. Integrating systems like Daktronics, adding radar guns by Stalker Pro, while throwing balls in the office, or playing with all these graphics cards and systems. It’s so much fun, and yes, there’s so much hardware now.
I’m really proud of how Live Score has evolved over these 8 years. It started off slowly, but now you can see it has become an important tool for so many people around the world. Corona also brought a complete change in the industry. After the first lockdowns ended and sports were allowed (but without spectators), new customers appeared from all over the world. Sports streaming reached a whole new list of clubs and people during the pandemic. And they wanted even more features, while budgets were reduced due to Covid. That’s how Live Score finally got affordable subscription formulas. Now everyone can simply get a complete professional edition with all its features for just one month, without any long-term contract.
If you ask me what I’ve seen over the past 8 years, it’s seeing the theme of « sports streaming » spreading to every corner of the world.
BTVF: The world of sports has more and more needs. How do you respond to these demands?
C.D.: That’s right. It’s indeed hard to keep up with everything.
You try to think of all these possibilities, and everything works, until the day a league, which you may have never heard of, suddenly decides to change the rules.
None of this would have been possible without the wonderful clients and Live Score community members who share their feedback and ask us to improve our features.
I am indeed proud to say that Live Score is, and will always be, a customer-oriented software.
The people who use the software have the best ideas about what they need and want.
Don’t get me wrong, there is of course a complete roadmap for each version, but I think it’s always very important to have that flexibility to listen to customers and provide instant fixes. There have been so many beta versions sent to provide an immediate solution to customer needs.
But to sum it up, I think it will never stop… and that’s a good thing.
BTVF: Which sport has the most success in downloading your app?
C.D.: I do of course monitor these peaks and the different season starts worldwide, as best as possible.
So we have these times of the year where sports have their preparation phase and are very successful. However, I must say that basketball and baseball are indeed sports that have a very good overall performance. I am also very happy with how the latest cricket integration has been received. After so many requests, I’m glad to finally be able to offer this sport in Live Score. And from what I see, it was a good decision.
BTVF: What’s your next dream in terms of development?
C.D.: There are so many things I would like to do.
And also so many things I can’t tell you right now
But one of my goals for the next few years is to develop the system and its features and offer it to a wider audience.
BTVF: What can we wish for you?
C.D.: That I can continue to do what I love for many more years.
Building technologies that help people around the world.
Interview conducted by Didier CANNIOUX
