Official Scorer

An official scorer keeps track of the score of the game, among other things. A scorekeeper usually sits at around the half court line on the sideline. They usually have a small console that can add points, fouls, and timeouts at the press of a button. In most cases, this small console is wirelessly hooked up to a big scoreboard so players and fans can see what the score of the game is.

While an official scorer’s main responsibility is keeping score, they also have a few other things to handle. For starters, they must record the number and name of every player who is participating in the game, 5 starters and bench players for each team. This occurs before the start of the game. During the game, they have a few responsibilities:

• must keep track of substitutions;
• must keep track of fouls;
• must alert a referee if a player reaches 6 personal fouls (5 for NCAA);
• must alert a referee if a player or coach reaches 2 technical fouls;
• must alert a referee if a player reaches 2 flagrant fouls;
• must keep a running total of each team’s timeouts;
• must keep a running total of each team’s points.

A scorekeeper is a sophisticated way of making sure each basketball game is fair and no team is at a disadvantage. Without a scorekeeper, a game of basketball would just be a pickup game. Besides, a scoreboard makes the fan experience much better as they can follow the game better if they know the score.