In sports scoring is a quantitative indicator of relative performance in a sporting discipline. Different disciplines have different rules and scoring systems, making it challenging to compare scores across sports. Nevertheless, it is common for a competing athlete to aim to score higher than their rivals in order to win a competition.

The majority of team and individual-based sports use a point-based system to determine the winner, with each competitor accruing points for various activities performed during a competition. These points may be based on abstract quantities, or natural measures such as duration. For example, the equestrian sport of show jumping is scored on the number of obstacles successfully cleared and on time faults, such as if the horse fails to clear an obstacle or falls off.

For many ball and net sports, including association football and basketball, a goal is scored by kicking or throwing the ball into an opposing team’s goal. This is also the case in other basket and net sports, such as field hockey and ice hockey. Some ball and net sports, such as volleyball, have more complicated scoring procedures.