- Client
- Rate The Refs
- Role
- Takeover: Mobile, API & Web Development
- Timeline
- 2023–2024
- Year
- 2024
- Category
- Mobile App
Overview
Rate The Refs is a sports-fan app for rating officiating after live games — a dedicated place to score a crew in the context of a real contest, not a rant in a forum. It is on the App Store (listed by Rate the Refs, LLC since 2020). We took the product over in 2023 and ran it through 2024: the React Native app, a Node/Express/Postgres server on Heroku, and a Next.js website.
Why
Sports fans already argue about officiating — they just do it in unstructured forums with no game context. Rate The Refs exists so a rating happens after a real contest, against a real crew, instead of as a rant in a comment thread.
The app is on the App Store. The case matters for any community product whose home is tonight’s slate.
The challenge
Sports fans had no dedicated place to rate referee performance after live games. Existing forums were fragmented and unstructured.
What made it hard
- Fans already argued about officiating — in unstructured forums with no game context.
- A rating without tonight’s slate is trivia; the home had to be the live contest.
- The app, its API, and the website had to stay in step across three codebases.
Approach
The product brief is a mobile rating flow: today’s games, a structured post-game score, then community around crews and leagues. Discover (teams, conferences, referee reports) and favorites are how the app stays useful after tip-off. A Node/Express API on Postgres serves the app; CodePush ships JS updates without a store release.
Process
- Product brief: A referee-rating app whose home is the live slate, not a blank search box.
- App + API: React Native app with Firebase and CodePush; Node/Express/Postgres server on Heroku.
- Web: Next.js marketing website.
What we built
- Post-game rating: The product is a score against a real contest and crew — not a generic review form.
- League / crew context: Browse by league, team, or officiating crew so the argument has a sports graph.
- App Store app: A consumer React Native app on the App Store, backed by a Node/Express/Postgres API.
- Community around the slate: Comments and favorites belong to tonight’s games, not a timeless rant thread.
How it was built
The product brief is a mobile rating flow: today’s games, a structured post-game score, then community around leagues, teams, and crews. Discover and favorites keep people in the loop after tip-off.
The app is React Native with react-native-firebase and CodePush for over-the-air JS updates. A Node/Express server on Postgres (pg-promise) runs on Heroku, and the marketing website is Next.js. We took over all three codebases in 2023 and ran them through 2024; the App Store listing predates us (2020).
Stack
- React Native: App with react-native-firebase and CodePush
- Node / Express + Postgres: API (pg-promise) on Heroku
- Next.js: Website
Outcomes
- App: Referee-rating consumer product
- Live slate: Rating in game context
- iOS: On the App Store
- API: Node/Express + Postgres
Wins
- A dedicated referee-rating surface instead of a generic forum thread.
- Home as the live contest — rating in game context, not a blank search box.
- A React Native app on the App Store with CodePush updates.
- Node/Express/Postgres API on Heroku and a Next.js website.
Hard parts
- Unstructured forums: Fans could not browse by league, team, or crew. The information architecture had to be a sports graph, not a feed.
- Tonight’s slate: A rating without the live contest is trivia. The product had to start from the game, not a rant box.
- Three codebases: App, API, and website had to move together; CodePush let JS fixes reach phones without waiting on a store review.
Services
- Consumer mobile rating product
- Post-game crew scoring in contest context
- League / team / crew information architecture
- React Native app, Node/Express server, Next.js site