The Ultimate Guide to Fantasy Sports App Development

What is a Fantasy Sports App?

Fantasy Sports app is a fun, inexpensive, and low-energy online prediction game played on the mobile app where the fantasy gamers (person that plays the game) create a virtual team of real sports players. They earn points based on the players’ performances in real-life sports that are converted into fantasy points.

There are two types of fantasy sports widely popular i.e. season-long draft system and daily fantasy leagues (DFL). The fantasy sports platform hosts multiple sports for engagement, including Football, Cricket, Basketball, Golf, Soccer, Hockey, etc. majorly from the Indian Premier League (IPL), English Premier League (EPL) the National Basketball Association (NBA), among others. The app makes the real-time game going on the field interesting for viewers by allowing them to play and be a participant in the app.

How Do the Fantasy Sports App Function?

The app user/participant simply has to create a virtual team of real sports players with a selected budget who they think will score the most points for the selected match. Once the game begins, the individual player’s performance gets converted into points (as decided by the app manager) which in the end gets summed up to declare the result. The team with the highest points is declared as the winner of the contest. Here is a step-by-step process to start with.

1. Join a Match: After registering or logging in to the app, the user can select the match from the available options.
2. Build a Team: Based on the game’s requirement, user can pick the team members.
3. Choose the Leader: After finalizing the team, the user can select the team captain.
4. Team Division: Based on the sport’s guidelines and rules, users can divide the team where virtual players are allowed to join.
5. Team Management: As per the game’s rule, the user can change their team members.
6. Earning Points: Based on the match performance, the players are assigned points, and these highest total points help to announce the winner.

Why Fantasy Sports Apps are Quickly Gaining Popularity?

Since, the inception of the virtual gaming concept, Fantasy sports apps are making rapid strides and going mainstream in many countries. The increasing growth of daily fantasy sports is subjected to reasons like;

• Let’s users participate in quick and easy real money games.
• It offers near to real experience for sports enthusiasts.
• Users can also participate in polls and earn bonus cash through referrals.
• It enhances skills and interest and chucks off monotonous life.
• It helps to build a connection with globally like-minded people.
• It gives an opportunity to sport lovers or fans to change the result of the actual game on a fantasy sports app.
• It also works as a brilliant community building for the fans to empathize with each other.
• According to Statista, there were 45.9 million fantasy sports players in United States in 2019.

What are the Key Features and Steps for Developing a Fantasy Sports App?

Key features include SignUp/LogIn, Home Screen, Live Score, Select Team, Match Result, and more. Development steps involve defining objectives, market research, platform selection, UX design, coding, deployment, optimization, and monetization through participation fees, advertisements, merchandising, leagues, and daily events.

A fantasy sports app comprises of two stakeholders, i.e., the User/Participant and the Admin Panel. We have narrowed down some vital features that both stakeholders’ apps require in the efficient functioning of Fantasy Sports App Development.

Participants/Users App Features

1. SignUp/LogIn Option: It is one of the primary and mandatory features of a fantasy sports app. Users can sign up with an email Id or phone number and password or can use social logins as well.
2. Home Screen: It’s the first page that the user gets after signup/login. The page contains a variety of information about sports, profiles, settings, tournaments, offers, etc.
3. Build Profile: User can manage their complete profile and perform modifications like add, edit, or delete the details.
4. Live Score: It allows users to get the live match scores and feeds.
5. Select Team: The user can build his team by choosing the favorite and well performing team players. To make such decisions right, users can view the statistics based on the real-time performances of each player.
6. Join Game: This feature allows users to join the ongoing or be a part of any scheduled match.
7. Match Result: Here users can track all of their played matches or tournaments along with their results, awards, and rewards.
8. Match Analytics: Through this feature, the user can predict team players’ real-time performance and team’s historical data.
9. Mail Reminders: User should be able to receive a reminder mail and notifications for events such as upcoming matches, match invites, payments, renewals, new updates, etc.
10. Payment Mode: To make in-app purchases or retain earnings, users can exercise multiple modes of payments.
11. In-app Chat: With this feature users can chat with their fellow teammates and other app users globally.
12. Social Media Sharing: The user can share his match performance or updates on his social media account and can invite others to join.
13. Invite & Earn: User can invite their friends to join the application, and on each successful joining the user earns reward.

Admin Panel Features

1. Signup/Login: Admin can signup/login to his account through email id/contact number and password.
2. Organize Leagues/Tournaments: Admin can organize the sporting event to attract global users to connect and play, rather than playing with their known community.
3. Manage Results: Through this feature, the admin can keep track of the results of all the matches played and every individual earned points.
4. Track Payment: Admin can take care of all the payment details and the user details as well.
5. Rewards Management: Admin can maintain track of all the rewards and prizes earned by each player in all sporting events.
6. Manage Players, Team, Matches, and Tournaments: Admin can manage all the details of players, team, matches, tournaments, etc.
7. Notifications: The notification feature informs users about the latest updates, player performance, proposed events, daily offers, etc.
8. Merchandise Sales: Admin can handle merchandise sales of collaborated brands and teams to generate revenue.

How To Get Started? Steps To Develop A Fantasy Sports App

Here are a few simple steps to start with a promising Fantasy sports app development.

Step 1- Define Your Fantasy Sports App Objective

To develop an app, first, you need to define your business objective and niche market, i.e., which type of fantasy sports app you are planning to build.

Step 2- Conduct a Market Research

To ensure the success of your business, it is important to perform a detailed market research. It is a crucial component of any fantasy sports app to develop an updated product with the latest features and trends.

Step 3- Select an Online Platform

There are multiple app development platforms available in the market i.e. iOS, Android, and Cross Platform. As per your target audience, earning goals, deadline and budget, you can easily decide on what all platforms your fantasy app idea will deliver the best result.

Step 4- App’s UX Design

The design of the app is the crucial step of fantasy app development. The UI/UX is the basic building block that attracts users and retains them for longer. But, the app should be simple in design, so that user doesn’t have to experience a hard time while interacting with the app.

Step 5- Coding and Database Designing

Front-end is how an app looks but the back-end development is responsible for that front-end smooth functionality. The developers will develop the user app and admin panel of the fantasy app based on the wireframes. These back-end developers sync the visual elements, features, and functionality to work smoothly. Apart from that, an app also requires a well-curated database to store all the data in a proper format that keeps it safe and secure.

Step 6- App Deployment

After finalizing and developing the app accurately, now it’s time to deploy the app on a suitable platform. When the app is deployed on the right platform, the user can find, download, and access it easily.

Step 7- Optimize Mobile App

Also known as App Store Optimization (ASO), this is the process to higher your app rank in the App Store or Play Store’s search results. Higher rankings makes your app more visible to its potential customers. So, ensure you optimize your app for the app store.

Step 8- Monetize the App

The main purpose of any app or business is to make money out of it. To make this happen, you need to monetize the app through multiple modes, such as in-app advertisements, brand promotion, in-app purchases, commission, different packages or premium subscriptions, etc.

5 Strategic Ways to Monetize Your Fantasy Sports App

1. Participation FeesThe fantasy sports app can be monetized by enforcing the minimum participation fee. The user had to pay nominal charges to enter into any league or tournament. It can be the most prominent yet effective way of monetizing the fantasy sports app. Part of these fees can be used in defining the cash prize of the tournament.
2. Advertisements Advertisements are a brilliant mode of generating revenues, especially when the app is performing well among competitors. Companies tend to prefer such demanding and well-performing apps to market their products and are willing to pay a hefty amount to use fantasy sports apps for the advertisement of their products.
3. Merchandising The fantasy sports app can monetize their business by introducing customized merchandise, accessories, and apparel. It can also be a good marketing strategy to reach more audiences along with generating revenues. There could be a variety of merchandise related to sports, popular events, etc.
4. Organizing Leagues or Tournaments Organizing frequent leagues or tournaments can increase the customer base and make them pay registration or participation fees. It can also boost revenue generation along with attracting and retaining customers. These leagues or tournaments are highly engaging for sports enthusiasts, and sometimes it works like an ethical gamble to make a safe bet.
5. Daily Events Almost every participant in a fantasy sports app seek instant or daily rewards. Such strategies can motivate curious players to participate and play more frequently. These daily events, award of fantasy sports app attract these types of players on the app which compels them to register on the app and pay the minimum on-boarding charges.

Major Players In Fantasy Sports Market Making Headlines

Cost Estimation of Fantasy Sports App Development

After analysing the features of an app and its development process, now it is important to figure out the approximate budget of the app development. The cost can be influenced by multiple factors, such as the location of the Development Company, size of the development team, the complexity level of the app, experience level of developers, quality of UX design, size of the project, project timeline, and many more.

All these factors greatly affect the overall budget of any app. So, while considering all these factors, along with the features of the app, the estimated development cost of a fantasy sports app will somewhere range around US $30,000 to $40,000.

Related post: How to Develop a Fantasy Sports Mobile App like Dream11?

Striking the Right Chord!

The fantasy sports app has a worldwide fan base and is one of the potential market segments that predicts huge growth in the upcoming times. As of now, there are many fantasy sports app available in the market, such as DraftKings, SuperDraft, FanDuel, LineStar, etc. that have covered a huge market, received good reviews, and attained credibility amidst the users.

Put simply, no time can be greater than now to invest in fantasy sports app development. Those who are interested or are planning to get into the e-gaming industry with a fantasy sports app, should not waste a second and quickly touch base with the best Fantasy Sports App Development Company that religiously develops apps that tend to go viral with its infectious UX. Not to forget, Codiant can be your best bet to develop an offbeat fantasy sports app that evokes interest on every tap.