NPGL

A groundbreaking sports league takes on the real-time web

The NPGL Challenge

Create a brand new sport fueled by technology

Founder Tony Budding’s goals for the National Pro Grid League (NPGL) were beyond ambitious. In under six months he aimed to create a new national sports league and build a public-facing website, a back office management system, and a scoring system that employed complex real-time data acquisition. He engaged Carbon Five to design, build and implement these technologies, which needed to work flawlessly in a live environment that included Jumbotrons and over-the-air TV graphics. The technologies needed to function whether or not Internet access was available.

The Process

Time trials

What originally started as a plan to make athletic fitness competitions entertaining and accessible quickly grew into a highly technical and interactive system. Two-week milestones set the pace for the team, who worked to balance long-term planning with immediate first season needs that included running combines, the draft and and live streaming.

One of the biggest challenges involved capturing real-time data from the competition floor. Carbon Five built a backend system that enabled quick and easy data entry on the fly. The system had to be simple enough for scorekeepers to capture and enter information, yet smart enough to sort and represent the data on multiple platforms.

The Results

Go big or go home

In just six months, Carbon Five implemented a real-time scoring system that worked seamlessly across multiple technical platforms. The NPGL website went live and received rave reviews from the fitness community. The backend system survived stress tests with positive results. As the NPGL gains momentum, Carbon Five continues to spearhead all of the technology efforts for the league.

“My ability to achieve our tech development goals is night and day compared to my previous experiences. I’ve had better results in 6 weeks than I had over two and half years previously.”
Tony Budding
Founder, NPGL