A sport score is a number that indicates a result of a game. It can be used to determine the winner of a competition, but it also can provide useful information about a player’s performance or a team’s strengths and weaknesses.

A sports score is typically a points-based system in which the competitor with the highest score wins the event. This type of scoring is common in individual-based sports such as tennis and golf.

Several team sports have a point-based system as well, including association football and hockey. Some have more complex systems like rugby and baseball, while others have different scores for touchdowns, conversions, safeties, field goals and extra points.

Most sports have a time limit, which means that the winner must achieve a certain number of points sooner than their opponent. In some sports, such as boxing and mixed martial arts, a knockout or submission is the winning score regardless of points or time.

There are many sports that use duration to score, such as track events (track and field, road running and cross country running) and skiing. Other sports use height or distance to score, such as shot put, discus throw and hammer throw in athletics.

Across all sports, scoring tempo – when events occur – is well described by a Poisson process, with a sport-specific rate at each second on the game clock. This rate is fairly stable throughout the game, except in the first and last few seconds of each period, when it is much lower or higher than normal.