Build a Pickup Basketball Highlights and Stats App

1. 1

   Solve for the ugly footage, because that is the footage

   One phone, waist height, chain-link fence in frame, players in mismatched shirts: that is your input, and models trained on broadcast angles will faceplant on it. Collect real sideline footage from day one (your own runs are the dataset), and scope detection to the high-confidence events first: made baskets are visually crisp (ball through hoop), while assists and steals can wait. Shipping 'we catch every made bucket reliably' beats promising a stat sheet you cannot deliver.

2. 2

   Make player identity a social feature, not a surveillance one

   Jersey-less player tracking is genuinely hard, so let humans help: after processing, players claim themselves with a tap on a few clips and the model follows through the rest of the game. Claiming your own highlights is fun, which converts a technical weakness into an onboarding loop. Handle consent like adults: whoever films owns the upload decision, faces of non-players get blurred on request, and minors' footage follows stricter defaults.

3. 3

   Cut reels that feel like a broadcast, instantly

   Auto-generated per-player reels with score overlays, slow-motion on the best make, and music-ready pacing, delivered before the group chat stops talking about the game. Speed is the product: a reel that arrives tonight gets shared tonight. The box score (points by claimed player, team totals) rides along as a delightful artifact for arguments that used to be unresolvable.

4. 4

   Grow court by court through the group chat

   Every shared reel is watermarked marketing to the exact next users (the other nine players). Seed by filming runs yourself at busy courts and handing players their own highlights, then let league operators and rec centers become channel partners: a pickup league that offers highlights as a perk sells more spots, and pays for a group plan.

5. 5

   Price freemium with processing as the meter

   Free covers a game or two a month with watermarks; a subscription in the range of $8 to $15 a month buys more processing, clean exports, and season stat tracking. Processing costs real compute, so the meter aligns price with cost. Team and league plans (everyone in the run covered by one payment) fit how pickup crews actually organize money.

6. 6

   Expand to adjacent courts before adjacent sports

   Rec leagues, church leagues, and campus intramurals share the single-phone reality and pay more reliably than pure pickup. Other sports (volleyball runs, soccer pickup) reuse the pipeline later, but each sport's detection is its own grind; own basketball's casual layer completely before diluting. The youth-sports safety analysis version of sideline video is deliberately its own card in this library; this one stays about joy and bragging rights.

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