Roy Report Media is preparing to launch Game Center, a new statewide digital platform designed to create a centralized home for Texas high school girls basketball and softball coverage.
The TXHSGBB version of Game Center is scheduled to launch Nov. 1, five days before the start of the 2026-27 Texas high school girls basketball season. TXHSSB will introduce its version of the platform for the 2027 high school softball season.
The project began with a relatively simple objective: Build a comprehensive statewide scoreboard.
It did not stay simple for long.
“The original idea was to add a complete scoreboard,” Roy Report Media founder Nick Alvarado said. “It evolved into something much bigger than what we originally envisioned and what we now plan to roll out this fall.”
Game Center is being developed to connect scores, schedules, team pages, individual game pages, tournaments, rankings, regional coverage and other information within one system.
For Alvarado, the project also addresses what he sees as a longstanding gap in coverage of Texas high school girls basketball.
“Now is a great time because there really isn’t a central place for girls basketball scores in Texas,” Alvarado said. “We want TXHSGBB to become a one-stop shop for scores, news, rankings and more. More importantly, we’re trying to introduce neutral basketball fans to girls basketball and help grow the game.”
A local experience within a statewide platform
Game Center is being designed as a statewide product, but Roy Report Media also wants users to be able to follow the parts of Texas that matter most to them.
The development coincides with the return of TXHSGBB’s regional branches, dividing statewide coverage into 14 regions.
The regional structure is intended to connect Game Center with local scores, rankings, news and other coverage while maintaining a statewide platform.
Fans following teams in one part of Texas will be able to focus on their local scene while retaining access to teams and games elsewhere in the state.
The goal is to create multiple paths through the platform. A user could begin with a team, find its schedule, open an individual game and access other information connected to that matchup.
Game Center also is being developed to help users locate third-party broadcasts when they are available.
“Our scoreboard isn’t just a scoreboard,” Alvarado said. “If a media member or fan wants to watch another game that could heavily influence a district race, we want them to be able to find that game on our website and, when an authorized livestream is available, go in the right direction to watch it.”
Tournaments become part of Game Center
Tournaments will have a significant presence within the new platform.
Game Center will include a Tournament Hub designed to follow events throughout their lifecycle, from upcoming tournaments to active events and completed results.
Users will be able to find tournaments and access information connected to their schedules, participating teams and games. Tournaments also will be accessible through Game Center’s main navigation.
For Alvarado, tournament support was particularly important because of the role those events play during the Texas high school basketball season.
“Tournaments are a staple of TXHSGBB and TXHSSB and, in my opinion, one of my favorite times of the season,” Alvarado said. “It was important that we incorporated tournaments, including the playoffs, to create experiences that other sites don’t offer.”
The development process also presented a challenge: Texas tournaments do not all operate under one format.
Game Center is being built to accommodate multiple tournament structures rather than requiring events to conform to a single format. The broader tournament infrastructure also is intended to support postseason competition.
That capability became one of the project’s surprises as Game Center expanded beyond its original scoreboard concept.
One platform, two sports
Although TXHSGBB will debut Game Center first, the underlying technology is being developed with both basketball and softball in mind.
TXHSSB will use the same broader Game Center infrastructure when its version launches for the 2027 softball season.
“We want to roll out TXHSSB with the same technology as TXHSGBB because we’re under the same big umbrella at the end of the day,” Alvarado said.
The shared infrastructure is designed to account for differences between the sports.
Basketball game management can include the score, period and game clock. Softball requires different information, including the score, inning, half-inning and outs.
Both can operate within a shared system for game status, results and other information while retaining the controls required for each sport.
That approach is intended to allow Roy Report Media to expand Game Center without building two unrelated platforms.
Beta testing planned before launch
Development will continue ahead of the Nov. 1 public launch.
Roy Report Media plans to conduct a limited beta test involving coaches, media members, fans and other selected users before Game Center becomes publicly available.
The beta group is intended to represent different ways people could use the platform rather than testing it solely from the perspective of those operating it.
Alvarado said those different perspectives will be important as Game Center moves closer to release.
“Each view matters for us,” Alvarado said. “We want people from every scope to help us make an experience on their level just as important as our view on the admin side.”
Feedback from the testing period will be used to identify issues and refine the user experience before launch.
Additional Game Center previews and information will be released as development progresses.
A larger goal for girls sports
Game Center represents more than an expansion of TXHSGBB’s website for Alvarado.
TXHSGBB has grown from a project centered on covering Texas high school girls basketball into part of a broader Roy Report Media operation that now includes softball.
Game Center is intended to provide another piece of infrastructure around those sports while making their information easier for coaches, fans, media members and others to find.
“I want fans, media members and coaches to be proud of where the sport is,” Alvarado said. “Football already has tools like this. Basketball and softball deserve them, too. Fans deserve them, and more importantly, coaches deserve them.”
The TXHSGBB Game Center is scheduled to become publicly available Nov. 1 before the girls basketball season begins Nov. 6. TXHSSB’s version will follow during the 2027 softball season.
For Alvarado, both launches connect to a goal that predates Game Center itself.
“From day one, I’ve wanted to help grow girls basketball and give it the same level of attention that football receives,” Alvarado said. “Now that we’ve added softball, we want to do the same for both sports. Girls basketball and softball continue to grow, not only in Texas but across the country, and we want our coverage and the tools available to those communities to grow with them.”
More information and future Game Center updates will be available here at TXHSGBB.com.
