The ABC Open has come and gone, and once again, some of the nation’s best players went at it during what many of us consider our favorite tournament of the year.
The ABC Open captures the essence of what bocce means to so many people: community. The friendships formed, memories made, and bocce played this past weekend were all a testament to the power of this sport.
Following an amazing weekend, BocceLabs is excited to announce that we are about to give every bocce player the ability to build and preserve their bocce legacy—and help build the future of bocce along the way.
Your Bocce History Starts Now
First, congratulations to everyone who competed at Palazzo di Bocce this past weekend. Cheers to all the captains who submitted their rosters and helped make this possible.
A special congratulations goes to the Highwood Stallions +, the ABC Open Gold Tournament champions, and the Roma Boyz, the Silver Tournament champions.
Every player who competed in the ABC Open has officially received their own BocceLabs tournament player card.
You now have the beginning of a bocce history that you can take with you, show off, curate, and continue building. You should receive an email with information about your card. If you haven’t received one, reach out to us. If something on your card needs to be corrected, reach out. If you competed but did not receive a card, definitely reach out.
If you don’t care about your card, I’m not sure why you would reach out—but feel free to do so anyway. We like talking bocce.
This is the beginning of the BocceLabs initiative to create a national tournament and player database and, eventually, a meaningful national ranking system.
It is only a start, but we have to start somewhere.
If you have results or rosters from previous tournaments or past years, send them to us. We can begin preserving your tournament’s history, too.
We can work with spreadsheets, bracket exports, pictures, written records, or whatever else you have. It may require some cleanup on our end, but that is part of what we are building BocceLabs to do.
We can even create a historical player record for someone who does not have an email address or BocceLabs account yet. That player can connect to and claim the record later, so their history does not have to be lost simply because they were not already on the platform.
Every game, player, club, league, and tournament has a history that deserves to be preserved. Every player should also receive something for contributing to the fabric of bocce.
Complex Solutions to Simple Problems
We hear you, bocce world—and you have a lot of great ideas.
Sometimes, though, seemingly simple ideas can be surprisingly difficult to execute in the digital world. But you asked, so we delivered.
Actually, we delivered a lot of things.
Introducing the BocceLabs Bocce Buddy
The Bocce Buddy companion app is designed to give you as much—or as little—as you want from it.
Bocce Buddy is an honor-system app designed to encourage and reward people for simply playing bocce—even if their local club, league, or tournament has not joined the BocceLabs ecosystem yet.
Use it to record your games, practices, results, and experiences. The more you use it, the more your profile develops and the more of your bocce history gets recorded and preserved.
One important thing: every BocceLabs user will be assigned a National Player Number.
Think of it as your unique digital bocce ID. Your number belongs to you and connects your profile, records, results, and history throughout the BocceLabs ecosystem.
Just know this: once you have your National Player Number, you will never need to create another bocce account again.
Whether you play at a new club, enter a tournament, join a league, use Bocce Buddy, or appear in historical results, your activity can connect back to the same player profile and the same permanent number.
With every input, you are also helping the entire bocce community take another step into the digital age.
You can also join the BocceLabs Beta Buddies Program and be on the ground floor as we test, improve, and expand what the app can do.
Become a BocceLabs Beta Buddy:
Ring us at team@boccelabs.com!
Oh, You Thought We Were Done?
Here’s a Sneak Peek at the BocceLabs Custom Club Operating System
We are developing custom technology built specifically around the needs of bocce clubs, leagues, and their players.
Internally, we call these systems our Club Companions: customized software designed around the specific needs of individual bocce clubs.
Custom club operating systems are exactly that: custom. Every venue is different and has different goals, challenges, players, leagues, and operational needs.
Let us help you build the technology that fits your venue and achieve the goals you have for your club. In turn, your club becomes part of something bigger—a connected bocce ecosystem that preserves its history while contributing to the future of the sport.
The BocceLabs Club Operating System can give a club its own customized digital home while connecting its players, games, leagues, standings, and history to the larger BocceLabs platform.
The first version is being developed for the Chicago Bocce Club, and this is only the beginning.
Want to see what we could build for your club?
Give your club a head start!
Ping us at: team@boccelabs.com!
Oh, We’re Not Even Done Cooking
Scoreholi-Who?
Just kidding. They’re great.
But a tournament management system designed specifically for the bocce world is coming.
This is part of Bocce Circuit, our event operations platform for tournament and league management built specifically around bocce.
We are building tools that can help tournament organizers manage registration, rosters, schedules, brackets, results, player records, and tournament history—all while connecting everything to the players’ BocceLabs profiles.
More importantly, we are looking for tournament organizers willing to help us make it better.
If you organize tournaments, we want to hear what works, what doesn’t, and what would actually make your life easier.
Interested in piloting our event management system at your next tournament?
Ding us at: team@boccelabs.com!
Hey, League Managers—This App’s for You
We are also developing league-management tools built specifically for bocce.
The goal is to help leagues manage their players, teams, schedules, standings, payments, results, and history without forcing them to abandon what already makes their league unique.
If you run a league and want to help us test or shape these tools, let us know.
Inquire about the League Manager Beta!
Tell us what you need here: team@boccelabs.com
What Exactly Are You Guys Doing?
At this point, you may be asking, “What exactly are you guys doing?”
The answer is simple:
We listened.
We listened to players, captains, club owners, league managers, and tournament organizers. Then we built as much as we could.
Now it is your turn.
Use it. Test it. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don’t like. Tell us what is confusing, what is missing, and what would make it more valuable to you.
Why So Many Apps?
Because everyone in bocce needs something a little different.
The league manager is a simple entry point for league managers and players to create and join leagues, collect payments, manage schedules and standings, and begin recording their history.
The tournament app is built for tournament directors who need to manage registration, rosters, brackets, results, and everything else that goes into running an event.
Bocce Buddy is for you—the individual player who wants to play more, record games and practices, track progress, and build a personal bocce history.
Clubs get customized club pages. Venues get customized venue pages. League managers, tournament directors, club owners, and players each get tools designed around what they actually need.
But they are not separate worlds.
They all talk to one another.
Your player card and National Player Number exist across the entire BocceLabs ecosystem. Whether you play in a league, enter a tournament, visit a new club, or record a game through Bocce Buddy, everything can connect back to the same profile.
The national player database is the foundation that allows us to begin building one integrated national bocce database—a place where players, clubs, venues, leagues, tournaments, results, and history can finally connect.
And because all of this is currently being built by four bocce maniacs, we want all the feedback you are willing to give us.
Tell us what works. Tell us what doesn’t. Tell us what is missing and what would make these tools better for you.
We are not building this around four people’s opinions. We are building it with the bocce community.
We are all part of this.
One Bocce Data Hub
The important part is what sits underneath all of these tools.
One database.
Bocce Buddy, Bocce Circuit, Club Companions, league management, livestream statistics, and historical tournament imports are all different ways of interacting with the same BocceLabs ecosystem.
The database is the hub. The apps are the spokes.
That means a game recorded through a league, tournament, club, or individual player app can contribute to one connected player history instead of being trapped inside separate systems.
The best part is that everything can still connect back to one place: your BocceLabs profile, where your bocce history can be recorded, preserved, curated, and shared.
Some people still think of BocceLabs as the OBL or CBL app. BocceLabs helped provide the data and technology behind those broadcasts and league operations, but BocceLabs is a company building tools for the entire bocce community.
We are not here to tell the bocce world how to operate. We are here to help.
You keep doing what you do, the way you want to do it. We’ll be here building the tools and making sure the history of bocce is preserved for everyone.
This is only the beginning.
Claim your profile. Join the beta. Build your legacy.
Bon appétit,
Milan