The moment a sports fan can’t watch The Game live, especially when his favorite team is playing, can be a truly challenging one.
Immediately he starts looking for a solution – and that solution better be in-app. Because Millenials, despite declining ratings of sports events and aging audiences – enjoy sports just as much as members of other generations. And are looking for live updates, news, scores, stats just like their dads (and mums) are.
According to a research published by global management firm McKinsey, the reason for the decline, on the other hand, is not the lack of interest – but more of a technical issue; Millennials don’t watch TV or subscribe to cable. The audience has to be approached where they are: in-app and online, through streaming websites.
This new emerging audience is also looking for their sports served in a different way, through quick, live insights – like updates and stats. Thus more and more people are looking for these kinds of apps.
Through our analysis of newly emerging apps in the different app stores, we also noticed a significant increase in the number of live sports apps that thrive to bring a solution to the Millennial and Gen X sports fan always on the move.
Developing a sports app
Releasing a new sports app is becoming much more profitable than it used to be in the past. The cutting-edge technology helps the app developer stay on top of the information using tools nobody could even dream about before.
Take as an example a company such as Playsight that provides live streaming for different purposes. They can assist the app developer with tools to follow teams and live games features.
In 2016 Flurry analytics released an annual State of the Mobile report which already showed that sports apps became the second fastest growing mobile app category. It was preceded by social and messaging apps and followed by the business/finance category.
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Paid vs free
Within the sports app segment, the question is – what is your business plan strategy as an app developer? Yes, there are some advantages to a paid app, extra revenue being the obvious one. But remember – 90% of the apps are free, many of them sports apps specializing in providing live results – to live streaming games and statistics trough content and news.
Onefootball-Soccer Scores, for example, provides their users content which is being produced by the app-editors
and external content that they get from different sources. Using this content generation system helps the app attract and engage more and more users and by doing so it can help them with in-app ad monetization that can push their Dollars up. Nevertheless, when it comes to strategy some app developers are using the Fermium model and provide value for their paid users through extra features that are no available for free users. Runkeeper – GPS Track Run Walkthe running app is a great example that doesn’t use ads but still, their business model relay on adding value to their users with extra tools such as training plans, deeper insight on their exercise performance and much more.
Top players
For some people, sport is a religion, and as a result, there are thousands of different sports apps out there – from apps for news, stats and scores, to the official sports club apps – up to the exercise apps and fantasy league apps. The sports app category is big and is growing fast.
Among Mobfox’s top sports apps, you can find prestigious players like BeSoccer. By integrating our super smart low weight SDK during 2018, just when the top soccer league peaked, they managed to increase revenue by 184% in Spain and LATAM. Read more about their success story here.
Are you a sports app developer? Start making more money from your in-app inventory today. Contact me at ofer1209@hotmail.com for more information.