When I look at the library of apps on my phone, I find that many of them are related either to sports or to health and fitness. In fact, I have folders for each vertical. There are so many out there these days, it’s almost impossible to choose favorites.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of sports apps are being created every day by everyone from business students to professional athletes. With the ubiquity of social media, there are athletes sponsoring the development of apps such as their own emojis. Others are getting involved in eSports.
Many are helping build apps for their teammates and even getting involved in apps for the public at large. Here are some new wave sports apps on the horizon:
For Kids
My younger sister will probably never have to worry about her kids getting too little activity. I know a lot of kids, but I think my niece and nephew take the cake on love of the outdoors. They will happily traipse through snow that reaches their waists.
Some kids, however, need a little more motivation to get a lot of activity. Many of their parents are used to wearing Fitbits and Garmin smartwatches to track their activity levels. Why shouldn’t kids have their own? Cole Greene and company have created Sqord to fill this gap.
Pronounced “scored,” the company offers an activity pod that kids wear on their wrists and an app for tracking activity and sharing with others who wear a Sqord pod. Late last year, Sqord teamed with Seattle Seahawks running back CJ Prosise to offer the Come Play with CJ Challenge.
The challenge, which encouraged children in Washington to beat Prosise’s Sqord points, was managed by Premera Blue Cross as a way to help tackle the issue of children’s heart health and overall physical fitness. Sqord even offers group support for families, schools, or clubs. The product launch for Sqord as been so successful, its online store is sold out of all pods.
For Teams
College athletics and the big leagues have also been getting into app development for a number of years. The Oakland Athletics’ former first base coach, Tye Waller, built his own coaching database. Waller worked with a FileMaker coach to create his custom database that not only helped him speed up his reporting and coaching processes but was mobile-friendly.
Two former quarterbacks are getting into the football app game with ReadyList PRO. The brainchild of Jake Plummer and Chad Friehauf. It is a cloud-based interactive playbook designed to make learning a team’s plays easier.
Instead of having a four-inch-thick ring binder of plays, college, professional, and even high school football players have a better learning tool. The software can help players learn team plays and test them on their knowledge.
For Viewers
Even high schools are getting in on the act. All the way in Indiana, the Indiana High School Athletic Association has built apps for Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku to add to its Apple TV application. The association has had its own broadcasting network since 2010. The new IHSAAtv apps are its latest forays into providing live media for its fans.
Live streaming has changed sports forever. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are now streaming full games online. Even Major League Baseball is getting in on the live streaming trend, partnering with Facebook to broadcast 12:25 LIVE during Spring Training.
Major League Soccer teams like the Timbers and Sounders have broadcast live games via their own broadcasting network and app for a long time. They also broadcast live via Facebook and Twitter. Because of growing demand for live streaming, many sports industries may look to stand-alone app development to meet needs.
At the end of the day, that’s what all great apps do: they meet needs. If you see a need that warrants fulfilling, start building your sports tech app today.
