LiveHeats: a software that makes surf events easy to manage | Photo: WSL

Times have changed, and technology has evolved. Remember when there was only one company providing live scoring systems for the ASP World Tour? Those days are over.

With the advent of the internet and digitalization of everything - tangible (phones, watches, TVs) and non-tangible (apps, software, cloud software) - judging a surf contest became a smooth and effortless task.

At least, judges can focus 100 percent of their attention on matching the competitive criteria to each surfer's performance before throwing scores for each ride.

In the early digital days, BeachByte was a famous brand associated with live scoring and heat results.

The company was founded in 1984 by two Brazilian brothers, Mano Ziul and Celso Alves, and it soon conquered the professional surfing circuit.

BeachByte was the official heat scoring system of the ASP World Tour for over two decades before fading away and witnessing other players and solutions taking over their long-lasting monopoly.

One of the new software developers for the sports industry is LiveHeats.

LiveHeats: the Bondi Beach-based live scoring system

Born in the Surf

It all started in 2016 in Bondi Beach, Sydney. Fernando Freire and Chris Friend met in the surf and became friends.

Chris, a former pro surfer, invited Fernando, a software specialist, to compete in the Bondi Boardriders.

After losing his heat, Fernando asked the event director for his results. The tabulation sheet revealed that one judge had noted four waves and the other one only two.

Immediately after, Fernando challenged Chris to develop a software solution that could address and solve the problem.

Soon, they had a prototype and an event to trial it - everything went well, and they learned what they could do to improve the software.

By 2020, LiveHeats had gone global and was the weapon of choice of over 300 sports organizations across 20 countries.

Meanwhile, the business segment welcomed new players with identical solutions and options for sports organizers and promotors.

But LiveHeats wants to ensure they can cover pretty much anything, from schedules and heat draws to real-time judging, getting results sorted, rankings and leaderboards.

And so, Friend and Freira are constantly adding new options and features to their ever-growing surf-inspired software.

One good thing about LiveHeats is that it only requires a 3G internet connection and a smartphone or table per judge.

What Does LiveHeats Do?

LiveHeats is a live scoring and competition management software that helps organizers run sophisticated competitions with minimal effort.

Simultaneously, the company aims to enhance the competitive experience for athletes and spectators.

The software can be used in both judged and racing sports, including surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing, wakeboarding, BMX and FMB, kiteboarding, windsurfing, surf life-saving, and stand-up paddleboarding.

The Australian-based end solution for running surf competitions is the go-to technology of over 550 sports organizations, from grassroots clubs to national bodies and world federations.

It provides tools for addressing member management, event registration, heats and start lists, scheduling heats and rounds, delivering live results scoring and results, managing point tallies, and communicating with athletes.

LiveHeats is an easy-to-use live scoring platform that can be installed on almost any device, displaying a simple tap interface with automated progression between rounds.

It can be quickly edited to correct mistakes, delivers instant live online results for spectators, and can be integrated into a website or live stream.

The software features an automated heat draw generator for fully-seeded heat draws, full flexibility to support any format, and a schedule builder for scheduled heat times.

When it comes to competition scheduling, LiveHeats manages heats or divisions across days and courses, makes schedules available to the public, and automatically updates times as competition runs.

The ranking and point tally management add-on can publish rankings once they're ready, set different levels of events (for example, 1,000, 1,500, 5,000, etc.), and select the top counting events per series (for example, top 5 results).

The athlete dashboard features upcoming heat times and tells competitors who they're up against. There are also performance stats for enhancing the athlete's experience during competitions.

Finally, LiveHeat developed Clippero, a virtual competition management system that allows organizers to run sophisticated online contests in which athletes submit videos and judges score them.

Surfing Australia, Surfing England, Surfing South Africa, National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA), Eastern Surfing Association (ESA), Asian Surf Cooperative (ASC), Rapid Surf League, World Skate, Snowboard Germany, Snow Australia, United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association (USASA), and Rip Curl are some of the organizations using LiveHeats scoring systems.

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