Effective date: July 20, 2026

Welcome to Sidelines. These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Sidelines ("we," "us") covering your use of the Sidelines mobile app and related services (together, the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Community Guidelines, which are part of them. If you don't agree, don't use the Service.

1. What Sidelines is (and isn't)

Sidelines is a social competition layer for watching sports with friends: you make picks, throw down challenges with friendly stakes, and keep score in groups. It is a game of bragging rights.

Sidelines is not a gambling service. There is no real money anywhere in the app — no deposits, no wallets, no payments, no payouts, and no ability to transfer anything of monetary value through the Service. "Stakes" are casual social consequences agreed between friends (like "loser buys wings" or "loser posts an embarrassing photo"). Sidelines never holds, transfers, enforces, or arbitrates anything of value, and nothing in the app creates a debt or legal obligation between users. Using the Service to conduct real-money wagering — or to track, settle, or collect real-money wagers made elsewhere — is prohibited and grounds for account termination.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use Sidelines. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may only use the Service with a parent or guardian's permission. By using the Service, you represent that you meet these requirements and that you are not barred from using the Service under any applicable law.

3. Your account

• Provide accurate information and keep your credentials secure — you're responsible for all activity on your account.
• One account per person. Don't impersonate anyone or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or organization.
• Tell us promptly at the contact address below if you believe your account has been compromised.
• You can sign out of all devices and permanently delete your account from Settings at any time.

4. License to use the Service

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the app for your own non-commercial use, subject to these Terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service except where the law says we can't stop you.

5. Your content

You own the content you create — messages, challenges, picks, photos, and everything else ("Your Content"). By posting it, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, and distribute Your Content solely as needed to operate, improve, and provide the Service — for example, showing your challenge to your group, delivering your message to its recipient, or rendering a share card when you tap share. This license ends when Your Content is deleted from our systems, except where limited copies persist briefly in backups or logs on a normal purge cycle.

You are responsible for Your Content and must have the rights to post it. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

6. Acceptable use

Our Community Guidelines are part of these Terms. In short:

• Keep stakes legal, safe, and friendly. Never stake money, anything of monetary value, or anything dangerous, degrading, or illegal.
• Trash talk is the point; harassment isn't. No hate, threats, or targeted abuse.
• No sexually explicit, violent, or otherwise inappropriate content in photos, GIFs, or messages.
• No spam, scams, or misleading content.
• Don't break, probe, overload, scrape, or interfere with the Service, circumvent rate limits or security measures, or access it by any means other than the app we publish.

The app includes tools to block users and report content or behavior. We may remove content, restrict features, or suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, and we may do so without prior notice where necessary to protect users or the Service.

7. Settling challenges

Challenge results are reported and confirmed by participants, with group voting as the tiebreaker for disputes. Pick results are graded automatically from public sports data. Records, streaks, and leaderboards are computed from those results. Whether and how friends follow through on a stake is entirely between the participants — Sidelines has no role in enforcing real-world consequences, and stake disputes are yours to sort out over wings.

8. Sports data

Scores, schedules, and game states come from third-party sports data sources. We work to keep them timely and accurate but can't guarantee it, and grading may occasionally be delayed or corrected — including after a result was first shown. Sidelines is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any sports league, association, or team. Team and league names are used only to identify games.

9. Our intellectual property

The Service — including the app, its design, logos, and the Sidelines name — is owned by us or our licensors and protected by intellectual-property laws. Except for the license in Section 4, these Terms don't give you any rights to it.

10. Copyright complaints

If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, email us at the contact address below with: identification of the work, the infringing material and where it appears in the app, your contact information, a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorized, and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner. We respond to valid notices, including by removing content and, for repeat infringers, terminating accounts.

11. Third-party services

The Service uses third parties to work — for example Apple and Google for sign-in, Google Firebase for realtime messaging and notifications, and GIPHY for GIF search. Their services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies, and we aren't responsible for them.

12. App Store terms (Apple)

If you downloaded the app from Apple's App Store: these Terms are between you and us, not Apple. Apple has no obligation to provide support or maintenance for the app, and is not responsible for any product warranties, claims relating to the app, or third-party claims that the app infringes intellectual-property rights. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. government embargo and are not on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties, and you agree to comply with applicable third-party terms (such as your wireless data agreement) when using the app.

13. Service changes and termination

We're actively building Sidelines, so features may change, be added, or be removed, and we may suspend or discontinue parts of the Service. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms or if we reasonably believe it's needed to protect users or the Service. You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 5, 9, and 14–17) survive.

14. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that scores, grading, records, or other data will be accurate or preserved. Some jurisdictions don't allow certain warranty disclaimers, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

15. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Sidelines and its operators will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of data, goodwill, or profits, arising out of or relating to the Service — including disputes between users and disputes about stakes or their fulfillment — even if we've been advised such damages are possible. Our total liability for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed fifty U.S. dollars ($50). Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations of liability, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Sidelines and its operators from claims, damages, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of Your Content, your use of the Service, or your violation of these Terms or of any law or third-party right.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the state where we are based, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to first contact us at the address below and give us 30 days to try to resolve it informally — most issues get sorted this way. Any claim that can't be resolved informally must be brought in the state or federal courts of the state where we are based, and you consent to their jurisdiction. To the extent permitted by law, claims may only be brought on an individual basis, not as part of a class action.

18. General

These Terms (with the Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy) are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. Our not enforcing a provision isn't a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

19. Changes to these terms

If we make material changes, we'll update the effective date above and notify you in the app. Continuing to use Sidelines after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

Contact

Questions? Email us at [email protected].