Sport Mobile Apps. Are They Cool Again?

This is?"A guy with a scarf"?episode No.3 for November 2022.

Written in Madrid at SportsPro OTT Summit. Nick Meacham

TL;DR; There has recently been a wealth of new vertical sport mobile app launches, with some of them gaining traction. Long-term success is still to be proven, but for now, they may have found some key features that make them worthwhile. NBA, PGA, FIFA.

Mobile apps in their current format are around for 14 years. A little digital archeology deep dive: in 1997, the Nokia 6110 included a built-in version of the arcade game “Snake,” which many consider the first mobile app. In June 2007 Steve Job launched the iPhone and only one year later, July 10 2008, Apple's App Store was opened with initially only 500 apps.

Original article from the launch day:

For many years I have heard debate about if and when an organization should launch a mobile app. As always there were extreme fans of "why yes" and "why no".

In a timeline maybe we could say

• 2010 few sport brands had an app
• 2018 all sport brands had an app
• 2020 most sport brands asked themselves why they have an app
• 2022 maybe some found a convincing rationale

Daily users - once installed are they coming back?

Contributing to the discussion was the doubt instilled by certain install and usage statistics that showed regularly like users tend to focus their usage on few apps daily, normally the big social and tech ones and gaming, with the result that many apps are installed used once and abandoned.

71% of app users churn after three months.

Value exchange: why should users engage with the app?

Why and when do you need an app for your sport brand. Easy to say you need it, full stop, that seems obvious. But then an app to do what? Why? Why now?

Do you really have a good enough value exchange that users will take time to download the app, and use it often enough to not forget it exists in 1 month? What are the added experiences you can make happen for them. on the app that are not available anywhere else?

Ev85% of the time spent on smartphones is spent using apps.

Have fun and scroll around this article with a lot of mobile apps stats. Build your own story.

Notifications: The simplest advantage of mobile apps. Alert me!

Very often the more basic reason for having an app is that you can inundate people's phones with alerts about anything amazing that happens in your world. Very often not enough if that is the only reason.

There are some "don't do" aspects:

• Don't ask for 30 options of personalisation on which notification I care about
• Don't send alerts too often out-of-context and then stay silent when I really care
• Don't send alert that are cryptic or miss context, I am in my pilates class when I read it

Some people doing cool stuff with this are Owen Donnelly and Windsor Roberts from Pushologies . Thanks to Douglas Billman for reminding me to add this.

The power of video: If you have live sport content you are more than halfway there

Undoubtedly if you have video rights for live sport you are well positioned to have a great value exchange for users, apps that have streaming content for major sports are often considered the most lucrative of app stores. BUT many apps do not have that, so they ar the ones which needs to work in creative mode to define one.

The power of app stores: It is the place to be.

The marketing power of app stores is undeniable, at times it can be on of the top 3 reasons why you need a mobile app, if you are not there you are nowhere.

But through the years we learned that being on app stores is not a passive activity, you need to work on it constantly, engage, be smart, use data.

Sport Apps: They should be in everybody's pocket. Are they?

With sports being su ch a big part of our lives, and mobile apps being in front of us all the time, that seems like a great combo. But let's look at which category of sports apps are really relevant.

• Media sports apps: ESPN, Discovery+, Hotstar
• Vertical sports apps: One Football, Overtime
• League / federations apps: FIFA plus, PGA, NBA , NFL
• Club/team apps: Manchester City, Chelsea FC
• Event apps: Rugby World Cup
• Streaming OTT apps: NFL Game Pass, DAZN

Special events: When the whole world watches you want an app.

Sport can be easily categorized in two main event formats: recurring (example: Football leagues), standalone (example Olympics).

Creating apps for the two cases is quite different and pose different challenges, through the years everybody tried to move from "that app that make sense for 1 month every 4 years", see as a great example Olympic Channel and olympics.com being merged into one big operation.

One app, multiple apps: what is the best approach?

Very often I have seen clients struggling with that decision, when two natively separated app - in terms of functions, reference audience, etc... - may need to be integrated into one single app, or not.

Example: A club with a stadium app and a general app. A federation/league with a general app and a streaming app, and a fantasy app.

There is no single solution for all cases, I have observed success and failures in both cases.

At high level the main advantage of one single app is the aggregation of audiences and the need for users to just install and register for one app, while the disadvantage may come from higher complexity of the UX and weight of the app itself.

First-party data: possibly the most solid reason to launch an app.

With policies and rules to protect users privacy becoming stricter and more widespread, the main reason having an app in 2022 is the ability to consistently gather first-party data and build user profiles as the core engine of growth.

Direct-to-consumer marketing: this is the real success factor.

In the end it became clear both for startups and established companies, if you are launching an app, that is a direct-to-consumer activity, hence you win or lose not only with value, relevance and quality of the app but how you approach the growth of users, usage and monetization. In one word (or four) Direct-to-consumer marketing.

Any growth hacker around?

App ranks this last few weeks: The FIFA World Cup effect is in full motion

See those apps who inspired me to write this article.

NBA new mobile app

Possibly the biggest launch of 2022, from the most innovative league in the US. NBA went all in with live games and a host of features that are making this new app very valuable to fans. I have talked to the team and they still have a lot more advanced features to launch in the coming months. Will be watching.

Andy Wasef Chad Evans Ralph Rivera Bastien Lacheny

PGA new mobile app

Golf is so data rich and the following the event is son not linear that an app that can guide fans through this sophisticated journey has its own place in Golf like nowhere else.

If then the ambition goes beyond digital and enter the physical space of the tournament you may have a winner.

PGA announced the new app in November and made stories a central user experience element, those who know me also know I have ben pestering the industry to adopt that on all apps in the last few years, bravo PGA.

Chris Wandell PGA of America

FIFA Plus for FIFA World Cup

With the start of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar the FIFA plus took center stage worldwide, having combined traditional event app features with live streaming of games in certain regions and innovative features including AR/VR experiences for fans at the stadium.

Giuliano Giorgetti Dario Salvelli Romy Gai Dave Roberts FIFA

One Football

One of the apps that made more noise in terms of business model development has been for sure One Football. They started as a vertical score and news app for football and then expanded their partnership model, then started live streaming in agreement with broadcasters and leagues, then got a huge cash investment (!), then got more streaming rights, then launched on big screen.

Lucas von Cranach Yannick Manuel Ramcke OneFootball

By the way:

Feel honored to be mentioned by? James Emmett ?in his super-smart-witty?Leaders in Sport?newsletter "The Leaders Digest: The ultimate fortnightly guide to the global business of sport."

Thanks for the kind words about my new?LinkedIn newsletter "A guy with a scarf" and making that the headline of this week edition.

To avoid bombarding you with too much content I will move to a bi-weekly format, always on Tuesdays, so expect the next drop on Dec 13.

What do you think? What is the sport mobile app you use everyday, if any? Let me know in the comment below or DM me.