Scoreboard control systems compared: Daktronics, ChyronHego, Click Effects and iSCORE
Choosing the control system for your scoreboard matters more than the LED brand. Here's how the main contenders compare across sport coverage, broadcast integration and total cost.
The LED scoreboard hardware your venue commits to is a 10-year decision. The software it runs on is a daily decision — every match, every operator handover, every sponsor refresh. Buyers spend disproportionate time evaluating the LED brand and almost no time evaluating the control system. That’s backwards.
This is a working comparison of the four scoreboard control platforms most commonly bid in Australian community-to-mid-tier stadium installs.
The contenders
Daktronics All Sport. The incumbent in tier-1 stadium scoreboarding worldwide. Powerful, deep, expensive. Widely deployed in AFL, NRL and Cricket Australia tier-1 venues.
ChyronHego Click Effects PRIME. The broadcast graphics company’s stadium product. Strong on broadcast-grade sponsor graphics and motion templates. Used in many tier-2 stadiums.
Click Effects CrossFire. The mid-market sibling — simpler, lower-cost, less broadcast polish.
Aurora iSCORE. Our own cloud-based platform. Built for community, school and tier-2 stadium scoreboards where a single volunteer or part-time AV manager runs the match.
Sport coverage
Every platform claims “all major sports”. The honest comparison is which sports have first-class rule engines (correct quarter/period/innings logic, sport-specific bonus rules, automated stat handling) versus which sports work but require operator-side rule enforcement.
| Sport | Daktronics | Click Effects | iSCORE |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFL | First-class | First-class | First-class |
| NRL / NRLW | First-class | First-class | First-class |
| Soccer (FFA / A-League) | First-class | First-class | First-class |
| Rugby Union | First-class | First-class | First-class |
| Cricket (T20 / ODI / Test) | First-class | Manual | First-class |
| Netball | Manual | Manual | First-class |
| Basketball (NBL / WNBL) | First-class | First-class | First-class |
| Hockey | Manual | Manual | First-class |
iSCORE was built in Australia and prioritises the sports that actually run on community grounds here. Daktronics and Click Effects’ deep coverage is broader but skewed to North American sports (NFL, NHL, MLB) that no Australian venue uses.
Broadcast integration
If your scoreboard feeds a broadcast truck or a community-TV stream, this matters more than anything else.
- Daktronics: SDI clean output standard, wide adoption in OB-truck workflows, strong with TVU, NewTek and AWS Elemental. Industry standard.
- Click Effects: Native broadcast graphics quality, designed for TV from the start. Best motion design library.
- iSCORE: Clean SDI + NDI output, native templates compatible with vMix, OBS, Wirecast and AWS Elemental. Good enough for community-TV; not yet at Click Effects’ polish for tier-1 broadcast.
Operator UX
This is where the platforms differ most.
Daktronics All Sport runs on dedicated hardware (the Show Control console). It is designed for a trained operator who runs the same venue every match. New volunteers struggle to be productive in less than a multi-day training session.
Click Effects is Windows software with a custom hardware controller option. It assumes a dedicated, semi-trained operator. Sponsor graphics changes require Click Effects’ own template-builder workflow.
iSCORE runs in a browser on any touchscreen. The whole control surface is designed for a single volunteer. Sponsor inventory, player rosters and graphics templates all update from a web admin — no on-site IT visit. Average operator-onboarding time across our deployed venues is 90 minutes.
Cloud vs on-prem
- Daktronics: On-prem. Updates ship as installer files for the venue’s IT team to apply.
- Click Effects: Mostly on-prem; cloud sponsor-graphics features are starting to appear.
- iSCORE: Cloud-native. Graphics templates, rosters and sponsor inventory all live in the web admin. The on-site touchscreen pulls from the cloud and works offline (cached) if connectivity drops.
The cloud approach matters most to multi-venue operators (sporting bodies, school districts, council leisure portfolios) who want to push a sponsor refresh across 30 venues from one admin instead of 30 site visits.
Cost
Honest cost comparison is hard — every vendor packages differently. As a rough order of magnitude for a community-to-tier-2 venue:
| Platform | Initial license + hardware | Annual support |
|---|---|---|
| Daktronics All Sport | $40k–$120k | $6k–$15k |
| Click Effects PRIME | $30k–$80k | $5k–$12k |
| Click Effects CrossFire | $15k–$35k | $3k–$6k |
| iSCORE | ~$2.6k per licence + accessories | $1.2k–$3k |
iSCORE is licensed per scoreboard — typically around AUD $2,600 per licence, plus any accessories (touchscreen control panel, broadcast output card, multi-venue admin add-on). Current pricing is published at iscore.cloud and the Aurora team can quote it bundled with a new scoreboard install. Annual support covers all sport-rule updates, sponsor template additions, broadcast preset updates and remote ops support.
Recommendation framework
- Tier-1 broadcast stadium (AFL, NRL, A-League home venue): Daktronics or Click Effects PRIME. The broadcast pedigree justifies the cost.
- Tier-2 stadium with occasional broadcast (community-TV streamed weekend matches): iSCORE or Click Effects CrossFire. Both will deliver clean broadcast output without the tier-1 price.
- Community ground, school, club: iSCORE. The cloud admin and operator UX are decisive for volunteer-staffed venues.
- Multi-venue operator (sporting body, council leisure portfolio): iSCORE. The cloud-managed fleet model is unique.
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