The Ultimate Guide to Live Sports Streaming App Development

Be it a cricket match between the top rival countries or an El Clasico that has taken the entire globe by storm, a sports lover’s resolute to watch these matches is there to stay. No matter the technological advancement, those virtual reality sports games would not satisfy sports enthusiasts.

The amalgamation of technology with sports can have cathartic pay-offs for our sports lovers. Here, by technology, we mean a customized live sports streaming app developed by professional mobile app development companies for all sports fanatics. There’s an app for every other thing these days. Then why not one for watching your favorite players win those trophies and medals?

What are sports apps? The stats

Sports applications are not new and are here to stay. The humungous size of the global sports app market says it all while being at an estimated 3.5 billion US dollars in 2021. This is not it, the market is expected to grow at a gradual rate of 9.4%.

From 2022-2028. Statista data from 2019 show that 64% of users between the ages of 18 and 27 used mobile apps to watch sports content.

Additionally, sports apps were used by 62% of users between the ages of 36 and 43 to stay informed about the sports industry. It suggests that you ultimately target a large audience of individuals aged 18 to 43 when targeting the sports industry.

Why invest in sports apps?

From turning off an alarm in the morning on your phone to writing down thoughts of the day at night, again on your phone, an individual switches between apps on their beloved smartphone hundreds of times in a day. When there is such a huge market and audience that just cannot do without a smartphone or an application in a day, is it advisable for anyone to lose out on an opportunity to develop an app?

Investing in app development pays you off because of several factors –

The surge in usage

Most users are on their smartphones all the time. Of that time, 90% is spent on apps and 10% on internet surfing. Having a handy sports app would provide a convenient platform for users to access information related to sports.

Increasing accessibility and convenience

Having increased the convenience for your customers is going to get you both a loyal customer base with satisfaction and earn money. All people want is comfort and swiftness in this era of digitization and watching their favourite sport on mobile comfortably from anywhere, even while travelling is just the thing that they are looking for.

Increase customer retention

Sports are addictive and sports fanatics do not wait for someone to tell them to check their phones to see their favorite team and players playing. Retention on your sports app is automatically increased if it provides a good user experience and substantial information and features.

Shoot up customer engagement

By developing an app for the sports industry where all the needed features of sports streaming are available along with some unique features like playing along, making teams, chatting, and whatnot, the customers will keep themselves engaged with the app and would not want to get away.

Increase community sense

A sense of oneness always attracts toward a common cause. People who like similar sports come together to cheer up, encourage, support, and play along with their favorite teams.

How does the sports live-streaming app work?

Who would have thought in the era of listening to sports commentary on a radio that there will be a time when watching their favorite player on the field would be as easy as tapping on a hand-sized device?

This is the era of digital media wherein your mobile app is the field and the place of your choice to seat whether it’s your bed or chair or any random location is your stadium. All this has been made possible only because of the multitude of work going on behind a live sports streaming mobile app.

Live sports streaming apps have their development fundamentals quite similar to OTT video app streaming development, where the content is played live to their subscribers.

A sports app can also assist users in so many other ways. Apps for booking sports tickets online; for instance, in addition to assisting users with ticket booking and early check-in, some of them can also assist users in locating a seat, locating their preferred food, locating the shortest line, and other similar tasks. They can even order from their phones while inside the stadium using the app, ensuring that they don’t miss a second of the game.

The mechanism of live sports streaming apps is performed as follows:

• A streaming platform is chosen to lay out the entire plan of the live-streaming app.
• Now, since it is an app and not just a website showing scores, it has to have some detailed and inclusive features all combined together to make it stand out. The apps act as a one-stop shop for all the needs of the user.
• Live sport streaming is done in the same way it is done on cable, but now it is in the comfort of your mobile phone, tablet, computer, and a multitude of devices and locations. Sports apps help the user keep a track of the scores of any particular match they want to follow alongside streaming the match.
• Some apps even have the feature of a chatroom where viewers can put in their thoughts and cheer up the players virtually.

What are the best types of sports apps to Build?

Online sports applications have a diverse range of categories depending on the need of the users. One can find an app that gives them detailed updates of the tournament of any sports they are interested in. another can give them a platform to live stream the match and play along virtually by making online teams.

Sports companies have come up with several creative ideas to increase customer engagement and retention. According to a recent market report, the global live sports streaming market will expand at a CAGR of 24.64 percent from 2022 to 2030, reaching $93.016 billion by 2030 from $18.689 billion in 2021. This only provides a glimpse of the enormous potential of the sports streaming industry.

That said, here are the types of online sports streaming apps:

Sports tracking apps

These are the ones that ping you with a reminder of the sports match next week when you are busy changing shifts in the office. These apps are good for those who do not have the time to sit and watch the entire match but are enthusiastic enough to keep following it every few minutes. Sometimes, you may also find a featured blog or interview about your dearest sports personality.

Sports streaming apps

Even though sports news apps often include live streaming, there may also be sports apps that focus solely on live streaming. Users can watch anything related to their favorite leagues, teams, and sports via a live streaming app, including actual games, training, and vlogs. It is worth noting that live matches have been also a part of the entertainment industry.

Showing live matches of FIFA and ICC world cups have been a part of entertainment app on OTT platforms; hence, it is not uncommon that buyers also hire entertainment app developers to build an app where live sports streaming would be a section.

Team builder apps

These are helpful to organize the teams and players. You might find featured scores of the matches, updates about teams, chats, statistics about sports events, and other news.

Esports apps

The market of esports was valued at over 1.22 billion in 2021. Sports buffers can watch streaming videos, and highlights, follow matches, play along virtually, engage with the players and viewers using live chatrooms, and many more.

Ticket-selling apps for sporting events and games

The conventional way of watching a sports game at a physical location such as sports complex, arena, or stadium is never to die. Sports fanatics still wish to grab a seat in the stadium and watch their favorite players play for real. Keeping in mind that more than half of total sports fans would still rearrange other plans to watch a live match, the sports industry has these ticket-selling apps where you can find information about upcoming matches, and tournaments of different sports, and buy tickets online for sporting events and games.

Sports inventory, merchandise, and equipment store

Getting a jersey in the name of their chosen teams and players is not just a dream anymore. There are apps that sell sports inventory and other equipment related to different sports at one stop. One can buy posters, athletic apparel, athletic footwear, sports equipment, team uniforms, accessories, games, and many other featured products as well.

App Monetization: How to earn from the live sports streaming app?

The most common way of monetizing a sports live-streaming app is to do it via monthly subscription just like other OTT platforms do. The term for this type of monetization is Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD). We all are aware of the success rate of this monetizing model considering most OTT platforms swear by it like Netflix.

Other than SVOD there are other revenue-generating strategies used by OTT platforms. Such as AVOD (Advertising-based video-on-demand) model and TVOD (Transaction Video On Demand) model.

Other than that there are other ways that live-streaming apps can generate income.

• Brand promotion and sponsorships
• Affiliate programs
• Revenue from Advertisements
• Tips and regular payments via third-party platforms
• Regular payments from viewers on a streaming platform
• Donations or tips from fans
• Live shopping

Top features to have in sports streaming app

For your live sport streaming app to be a success, you need to make sure it is loaded with user-friendly features. Remember the more convenience and quality, the more the app runs on the devices of the customers. Here are some of the significant features that your sports streaming app should have:

One-stop sports shop

The more inclusive your app is of the different sports being played around the globe, the more chances it has of becoming the users’ choice worldwide. Include the major sports whose tournaments and matches are frequent and are followed religiously. Provide the scoreboard of each match that the user chooses.

User profile

The sport mobile app users must be able to track and organize each sport that they wish to follow with utmost convenience. They can find and select the sports that they like so they can get relevant notifications when there is any upcoming match or live score for the same.

Sport News

Updated news about the chosen sport and match regarding the upcoming matches, players, teams, and scoreboard, are all essential features of a sports app. Also include the whereabouts of sports teams of different sports, the dynamics of sports around the globe, the news of every sport making changes in curriculum, etc.

Push notification

What is the point of a live-streaming sports app if the user has to tap open the application every few minutes if it wants to check the score? Introduce the feature of push notifications so that one top scroll can get the live scoreboard in front of the user.

Offline sport content

It’s always a good idea to keep your users engaged with your app. Provide some offline content for them to ponder upon. Such as, viewing and reviewing saved videos, offline journals, favourite team, and player profile visits, bookmarked articles read, and much more.

The technology stack for the development of sports streaming app

App development is all about technology and choosing the right tech stack for building an app is essential for its smooth functioning. Here are the things that are required to make a live-streaming app for sports:

Android: Kotlin, Ruby on rails, Node JS, Android SDK, Codeigniter, and React

iOS: Objective C, Fabric iOS, Swift, Laravel

Cross-Platform: Flutter, React Native

Database: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, Oracle, MongoDB, HBase

CDN: Cloudflare, Amazon Cloud Front, Open Connect

Hosting: Amazon EC2

Streaming Protocol: Adobe HTTP, RTMP, M2TS, Apple HTTP Live Streaming, WebRTC, RTP/RTSP

Push Notifications: Twilio, Push.io, MAP

SMS, Voice, and Phone Verification: Nexmo, Twilio

Payment Gateways: Braintree, PayPal, Stripe, EWallets

Cloud Environment: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure

Real-time Analytics: Hadoop, Spark, BigData, Apache Flink, Cisco, IBM

Streaming Media System: Wowza Streaming Engine, Nimble Streamer

What are the steps to develop the app for live sports streaming?

Developing an app includes several steps to follow. Depending on the type of app and pre-defined business objectives, the platform and size of the app change and so do the strategies. Here are the most common steps to develop an app:

Type of app: before you step into the whole research and developing section, you need to figure out what kind of app you are looking to develop. Choose from the types of apps given above.

Market research: for any business to succeed, research is of utmost significance. Do clinical market research about the sports industry, the types of sports preferred by your target population, location, market size, loopholes in the industry, and requirements of the customers.

User experience: ensure that you are investing in some good UI/UX for people to buy the pleasing experience.

Choose your business model: now you want to choose the type of business model to monetize your app so you don’t empty your pockets.

Build an MVP: the next step is to figure out the Minimum Viable Product description.

Data analysis: gather data from existing apps, web, and market research and see what needs to be included in your app to make it stand out.

Execution: the next step is to start with the development and execution of all the planning and put your skills to use.

App Deployment: once the app is ready, its careful deployment is also necessary. Build a community support system so that the users have somewhere to go if they face any issues.

What will be the cost to develop a sports live-streaming app?

Costing is subjective to touch upon. The cost of any app would entirely depend on the type of technologies used, the business model chosen, the complexity of the app, and the functionality of the app.

Additionally, the features that you put in to make your stand out might increase the cost of total production. Considering the basic features and techs, the live-streaming app might cost you something between $30,000-$50,000.

Sports Streaming Made Easy!

Mobile app development seems to be the new cool today with apps being amalgamated in every field possible. Then why should the sports industry dawdle? Sports live-streaming apps are the way to go in this digital era. The online sports app market size is huge enough to let go of an opportunity to build an app. Sports streaming apps provide similar broadcasting as cable streaming but on multiple platforms and with several new features.

Different sports apps have different functions and features. one can choose from these apps and begin the development by choosing the right tech stack, business model, UI/UX, and creative features to engage their customers even more.

Avantika Shergil   |  Mar 16, 2023

An enthusiastic Operations Manager at TopDevelopers.co, coordinating and managing the technical and functional areas. She is an adventure lover, passionate traveler, an admirer of nature, who believes that a cup of coffee is the prime source to feel rejuvenated. Researching and writing about technology keeps her boosted and enhances her professional journeying.