SportsGauge: The umpire coach who built the platform that keeps officials in the game

Its reach spans community and state league Australian rules football, Netball Australia's Super Series, and community and representative competitions across cricket, rugby league, basketball and other team sports.

SportsGauge gives officiating coaches and administrators one place to record observations, share feedback and track officials' development over time.

"Sport puts enormous effort into recruiting officials, but keeping them is just as important," says Billy Mitchell, SportsGauge's Founder. "We started SportsGauge with a pretty simple belief: officials who feel supported are more likely to improve and more likely to stay. Technology can make that support easier to deliver, but the real value is still the conversation between an official and their coach. Our job is to give them better tools to have more of those conversations."

A clipboard, a whistle, and too little time for real coaching

SportsGauge grew out of Billy Mitchell's experience as an Australian rules football umpire coach and his broader work managing officials across more than 10 sports. Through coaching umpires and managing officiating programs, Billy saw firsthand how much time administration took away from coaching conversations. SportsGauge was built to help organisations record observations, manage information and support each official's development.

Billy is supported by a small team combining deep sportstech and officiating experience. Wade Nairn, Lead Developer, brings more than 15 years of software development experience, including over six in sportstech, and leads platform development with a focus on practical, intuitive technology for real-world sporting environments. Craig Churchill, Full Stack Developer, brings more than 20 years of sportstech experience, including roles with SportingPulse, Genius Sports and the Australian Sports Commission, and works across platform development and AI capabilities. Kris Bergado, Head of Customer Success, supports SportsGauge's customers with implementation, platform use and organisation-specific workflows, helping officiating groups strengthen their coaching and development programs while reducing administrative work.

Sport can't grow without officials it can keep

Sport relies on officials, and developing them takes time. Without enough capable umpires and referees, competitions can't grow and the quality of officiating shapes the experience of players, coaches and everyone else involved in the game. Retaining and developing officials requires ongoing coaching, feedback and a sense that their progress matters, but many sporting organisations lack purpose-built technology to support that work. SportsGauge addresses that gap directly: better coaching can improve performance, keep officials in the sport longer, strengthen development pathways and enhance the experience for everyone involved.

From feedback forms to AI-assisted season summaries

SportsGauge's platform is fundamentally about capturing feedback and turning it into development: coaches capture feedback, share it with officials and track their progress, while over time the platform helps coaches and administrators identify trends, recognise strengths and see where additional coaching may be valuable.

The platform brings together observation forms, feedback history, goals, match-day moments and reporting. AI-assisted season summaries help coaches review feedback collected throughout the season. Forms can be configured around the terminology and competencies used by different sports and organisations, supporting their existing coaching approach.

More time for coaching, stronger retention

The evidence of impact backs up that growth story. One organisation using SportsGauge recorded a reduction in umpire turnover from approximately 35% to 6%, demonstrating the potential impact that better coaching, feedback and development can have on retention. In another example, a coaching program reduced the time spent clipping coaching vision from approximately 14 hours a week to around seven hours, freeing coaches to spend more time working directly with officials.

ASTN's role

Billy Mitchell first joined ASTN by participating in the Early-Stage Pre-Accelerator Program, which helped him think beyond the SportsGauge product itself and start looking at how the business could grow across different sports and markets. Since then, Billy and SportsGauge have continued to be involved with ASTN through membership and regular participation in sportstech events around Australia.

That ongoing engagement has proven valuable for a bootstrapped business. ASTN has given SportsGauge access to a broader sportstech community at an important stage of its development, offering the chance to learn from founders and industry leaders who have faced many of the same challenges. The Pre-Accelerator Program helped the team think more commercially about the business, while ASTN events have introduced them to a lot of useful people across the industry and helped build relationships as SportsGauge has grown.

"One of the great things about building a sportstech business in Victoria is the amount of knowledge and experience around you," Billy says. "ASTN has helped bring that community together and given businesses like SportsGauge opportunities to learn from people who have already been through many of the challenges we're facing. For a growing business, having access to that network is incredibly valuable."

What's next

Product development will continue alongside that growth. SportsGauge plans to build on its AI-assisted season summaries to help coaches identify patterns and understand officials' development, with coaches leading decisions and conversations. The team also plans to develop further integrations with officiating and competition management systems to reduce duplicate data entry and make SportsGauge easier to use alongside existing systems. Partnerships and investment could help accelerate product development and international expansion. SportsGauge sees ASTN continuing to connect the business with sporting organisations, strategic partners, investors and international opportunities.

Find out more

For more information on SportsGauge visit https://www.sportsgauge.com.au.