60 million. A number of Fantasy sports players in the US only.
In fact, the global fantasy sports market is expected to cross USD 1 Billion by 2026.
This manifests the fortune one gets in the fantasy sports industry. The scheme of picking up different players, and then betting on them based on their previous performance has come into action for decades.
Let’s talk about the current scenario!
Adding more to fortunes, digitization gave a boost to the fantasy sports tech industry. In today’s time, fantasy sports websites and apps are ruling over the minds of people across the globe.
Year by year, there is a rise in the count of fantasy apps. Some of the popular fantasy sports apps are the Fanduel app, Draftkings, and so on. Of course, this scene has definitely let many entrepreneurs and startup enablers step down into fantasy sports app development.
So, the main question is what is,why and how to create a fantasy sports website and app?
However, before getting into the sports betting app development, let’s understand why you need an online platform for your fantasy sports business.
What is a Fantasy Sports App?
Fantasy sports apps are digital platforms with online games that simulate real-life sports. These platforms allow users to create and manage teams of their preferred game virtually.
There’s also a sportsbook feature where users can bet on outcomes such as the winner, point spreads, over/under totals, and player performances. Users can select players from different teams and compete against other users based on their statistical performance in live games.
Users just need to enter contests with specific entry fees, and the winners will receive cash prizes based on the player’s statistical performance.
If you are skeptical about its legality, you should know that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006 exempted fantasy sports from the general prohibition on online gambling, provided specific criteria are met.
Despite strict regulations, the fantasy sports websites and app market is growing at a CAGR of 13.83% and is expected to reach up to $62.58 billion in revenue by 2029. Investing in fantasy sports app development makes more sense.
Why Do You Need Fantasy Sports App Development?
We all know the time is for digitization, and to be competitive an online platform plays a crucial role. Sports tech startups are ruling in today’s time, henceforth we can say that it is an ideal time for startups in this industry. With a fantasy sports app, you can seamlessly manage your entire business, and give your users the flexibility to enjoy their favorite sports.
A study predicts that the fantasy sports market is growing rapidly. The market size is expected to reach $48.6 billion by 2027.
Most businesses gain huge profits via their fantasy sports application or website. And, this shows why you need an online platform for your sports betting business.
Investing in fantasy sports app development is not an easy decision to make. So, here are some of the key reasons for you to consider investing into fantasy sports app development.
1. Growing Demand
Yes, you read it right! The growing demand is the primary factor for investing in Fantasy Sports App Development. Don’t believe it?
Well, we’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.
In 2023, the global fantasy sports market size was valued at US$26.4 Billion, with the United States alone generating a revenue of US$7.3 billion and becoming the most significant contributor. The market is projected to reach 89.4 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 14.1%. By developing a feature-rich fantasy sports app, you can enter this expanding market and cater to the growing user base.
2. Great Way to Generate Revenue
Investing in Fantasy Sports app development can result in a good ROI and additional revenue sources. This industry’s revenue figures are high due to several revenue-generating models it offers.
So, as an entrepreneur, you don’t have to rely on a single source of revenue. It offers multiple sources of revenue making sure there is regular cash flow for employee expenses, marketing, and business expansion.
This steady flow of revenue can significantly contribute to a business’s positive financial health, making it an appealing prospect for investors. As we proceed with this article, we’ll discuss these revenue models more, so stay tuned.
3. Global Reach
A sports app can achieve a global reach, and there are multiple ways to do it.
All these will ensure that users from diverse backgrounds can seamlessly interact with the platform.
4. Competitive Advantage
Fantasy sports apps can collect user data, including preferences, gaming trends, and player performance. This data can be used to offer personalized recommendations, predictive insights, and personalized experiences to each user. This level of personalization provides a competitive edge by delivering unique and valuable features that cater to individual preferences.
Features like in-app forums, chat rooms, leaderboards, and social sharing enable users to connect with friends, sports experts, and fellow enthusiasts. This sense of community fosters a loyal user base, gives them a sense of exclusivity, and creates a platform that competitors can find difficult to replicate.
How Does Fantasy Sports App Work?
By now, you have gained many insights into why you need fantasy sports apps. Understanding how a fantasy sports app works will help you maximize your ROI.
Several steps are involved here, from the Login & SignUp stage to the Final Results and Rewards. Let’s get to know them one by one.
Login & SignUp
It starts with the onboarding process of users, who can be either new users or existing ones.
New users must start with the sign-up process, where they must enter personal information like name, email address, and a secure password. Some apps may also require users to verify their identity or location to ensure compliance with local regulations.
To provide something unique, you can give them the option to Log In or Sign Up using their social media accounts. You can also let them choose between security features like two-factor or biometric authentication. The entire process should be designed so that users can have a smooth onboarding experience.
Select Sports
Once the user completes the sign-up, it’s time for them to choose the sport they want to play. Fantasy Sports apps mostly include several kinds of sports games, which is essential as it helps cater to a wide range of audiences.
Popular sports like football, baseball, basketball, hockey, cricket, and others can be listed in the app, as these are the most contributing sports in fantasy sports apps. User can choose their favorite sport and continue in the app.
Form Team
Once the user has selected their preferred sport, they can select players from the available pool. At this point, they can choose a fixed number of players to form their virtual team. They must carefully choose their players based on their real-world performance, projected points, and the user’s budget.
One unique feature that you can provide is the Saved Teams feature. Here, users can form different teams in different formations and save them so they don’t have to create a team every time they bet on that game.
Team Modification
As the real-life sport progresses, users can manage their teams throughout the game season by allowing them to make changes in the team.
Users can add, drop, and even select substitutes, which allows them to swap out players who are underperforming or have favorable matchups. They can exchange players with other players in their league, adding an extra layer of strategy and competition.
To maintain the integrity of the competition, fantasy sports apps typically implement roster locks and deadlines, preventing users from changing their teams after a certain cutoff time.
Monitoring & Tracking
Continuous monitoring and tracking provide real-time scores and performance updates for the game and the team.
To help users make informed decisions, they can monitor the individual stats and contributions of each player on their roster, such as points scored, rebounds, assists, or any other relevant metrics depending on the sport. Updates on current scores, stats, and changes in the live game are normal in these apps.
Customizable dashboards allow users to personalize the information they see, prioritize the most relevant data, and align with their interests and strategies.
Final Result & Reward
Fantasy sports apps have a well-defined scoring system that awards points to users based on real-world performance through statistical categories, such as score, assists, rebounds, touchdowns, or any other relevant metrics depending on the sport. The final points are then calculated at the game’s or tournament’s end to determine the winners.
Users with the top-performing teams will be eligible for various rewards, such as cash prizes, virtual currency, or exclusive merchandise.
How To Create A Fantasy Sports Website & App?
Developing a fantasy sports website and application involves several steps, from market research to deployment and maintenance. Here are the steps to build highly interactive and responsive fantasy sports solutions.
Market Research
For a successful fantasy sports app development project, ensure it goes through extensive and systematic market research. Why do we say ‘systematic’ is because it should follow a step-by-step procedure given below:
Last and most importantly, stay up-to-date with the latest trends in the fantasy sports industry, which can help you identify improvisation opportunities in your app.
Decide on an App Development Platform
The next step is to choose a development platform. The platform you choose should align with your target audience’s preferences and device usage.
Here are the platforms you can choose to deploy sports fantasy app:
Read More: Swift vs Objective C: Which is Better for iOS Development?
Hire App Development Company
Once the research and strategizing are done, you need to plan the development process; for that, you’ll need a team of developers. You can go for an in-house team of developers, but it comes at your mobile app development cost.
Firstly, you’ll need to bear the time and expenses of recruiting them. Then, you’ll have to provide them with their monthly salaries, employee perks and benefits, insurance, and paid leaves. This will increase the company’s overhead costs overall.
Outsourcing the development team and hiring a company that provides sports app development services can be alternatives you can consider. You’ll get a pool of skilled and experienced developers in one place and only have to pay for the services you opt for.
Before hiring one, you must check the following things of the company:
A team that understands the industry and has the technical knowledge can deliver a reliable product within your timeline and budget. Make a list of some companies that provide sports app development services, review them, and pick the right one for your project.
Design UI of A Fantasy Sports App
The development team should remember, “It engages better when it is simpler.”
The focus should be on providing a simple, responsive, visually appealing user interface that engages the user. An excessively complicated or cluttered design might be confusing and eventually damage the user experience. Here are some tips to create an appealing fantasy sports app User Interface:
An innovative fantasy sports app with all these tools and techniques can set your platform apart in the competitive fantasy sports market.
Backend Development Phase
Following the UI design phase comes the full-fledged development process. Here, you need to focus on creating a robust and scalable platform by using the right cutting-edge technologies and tools throughout the process.
Consider implementing modern web frameworks like Node.js (with Express.js) or Python (with Django or Flask) to handle user authentication, data management, and real-time scores.
As your business scales, your user base will increase, and thus, you can consider cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Microsoft Azure, which offer database management and serverless functions to handle large volumes of data.
Live scores are crucial in fantasy sports app. You can integrate sports data APIs like NFL, NBA, and ESPN for efficient live score solutions. Plus, WebSocket-based technologies like Socket.IO or GraphQL can be used to update live scores, player statistics, and push notifications instantly.
In the future, this will ensure that you offer users a great gaming experience.
Testing & Deployment
Your app must undergo rigorous testing for a reliable and error-free experience. The quality analyst team examines the functionality, features, and security in this phase.
Some standard tests include unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests, using tools like Apache JMeter or Gatling that simulate high user traffic and identify any blockage or scalability issues within the platform.
It is important to perform a security audit of the fantasy sports platform to identify any security loopholes and prevent unauthorized access. You can use tools like OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite, or Nmap to identify and address potential vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and unauthorized access.
Once the QA team gives it a thumbs-up, it’s ready for deployment in app stores like Google Play or Apple’s App Store.
Support & Maintenance
How can you retain your customers on the platform post-deployment? Answer is by providing continuous support and maintenance.
Monitor the app to track the platform’s performance, analyze user activity, identify issues, and instantly address them using tools like New Relic or Datadog. Ticketing systems and chatbots powered by artificial intelligence(AI) can manage user inquiries, track support requests, and provide timely resolutions. Collecting feedback from end-users will also help identify areas for improvement.
Bonus Point: You can get in touch with our experts for more information on the cost of your fantasy sports app development.
Additionally, providing software updates can let users avail new features, enhance functionality, and fix bugs in case of any.
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Revenue Generation Model For Fantasy Sports App
You know how to create a fantasy sports website or app, but what if you don’t know how to make money from your online platform? Fantasy Sports Apps generate revenue from different sources, which you must know. Discussed below are some of the popular revenue generation models:
Advertising
Advertisements are the most common practice of monetizing applications and are applicable on fantasy sports platforms, too. These ads of other brands will run on your app, and you’ll earn based on the number of views and clicks on them. Your app can directly charge a branding fee for displaying ads of their brands on your platform and generate extra revenue.
These ads include banner ads, video ads, and sponsored content. The key is to balance monetization and user experience, ensuring ads do not disrupt the gameplay.
Fees
Fantasy sports app operators generate huge revenue from this technique. They collect a small amount as a participation fee from users who participate in leagues and contests. A part of it eventually contributes to the prize pool distributed among the winners.
Fantasy sports platforms also charge a commission, called a “rake,” on the contest pots. The commission percentage ranges from 5% to 15%. This is also a common practice in fantasy sports apps.
Sponsorships
The Fantasy Sports app market is growing, which we are not saying, but the numbers say. There is a high chance that you will gain a large user base, and it will become an attractive platform for brands and sponsors to increase their reach and brand awareness.
These apps generate significant revenue by securing sponsorship opportunities, such as branded contests, exclusive partnerships, in-app branding, or exclusive content. Partnering with popular and reputable brands can enhance your app’s brand recognition while generating revenue.
Premium Features
Some Fantasy Sports apps offer a Premium Model for Premium or paid users. In this model, the app provides additional features like advanced analytics, custom team-building tools, exclusive content, ad-free experiences, or access to expert advice. To unlock these premium features, the app charges a one-time or monthly subscription fee.
This gives a sense of exclusivity to the users, which enhances the experience while adding to the revenue.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is a powerful revenue generator for Fantasy sports apps. They generate revenue by earning commissions for promoting brands’ products and services within the app.
For this, the app integrates affiliate marketing links or banners in its interface.
Here, the revenue-sharing models can be based on a percentage of sales, cost-per-click, or cost-per-acquisition. So, whenever a user takes the desired action through the app’s affiliate links, the app earns a portion of that revenue. Generally, they collaborate with e-commerce stores, sports media platforms, or sports merchandise for each sale and referral.
How Much Does Fantasy Sports App Development Cost?
Now, if you have chosen to develop a fantasy sports app, one question may arise in your mind, and this is: “How much does a fantasy sports app development cost?”. The development cost depends on several factors like the follows:
To better understand the cost, we can divide the app into MVP, Standard, and Advanced levels. An MVP app with the essential feature can cost between $30,000 and $40,000, a standard one between $35,000 and $80,000, and an advanced app with the latest features and technologies will cost between $80,000 and $200,000.
Here’s a list for the better understanding of the feature in all the three levels:
| MVP | Standard | Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Single platform (iOS or Android) | Cross-platform (iOS and Android) | Cross-platform (iOS and Android) |
| Basic registration | Social media integration | Biometric authentication |
| Manual player selection | Basic player recommendations | AI-powered player recommendations |
| Basic live scores | Live stats and updates | Advanced analytics and Real-time data visualizations |
| In-app notifications | Push notifications | Personalized alerts and reminders |
| Basic payment gateway | Multiple payment options | Multiple payment options & Subscription-based models |
| Basic performance tracking | Analytics and Reporting | Predictive analysis and AI-driven insights |
| Moderate user capacity | High user capacity and scalability | Enterprise-grade infrastructure |
Are You Ready To Build Your Fantasy Sports App/Website?
We hope all your points on how to create a fantasy sports website and app are now clear. All you need is a perfect fantasy sports app development company that can build your online platform based on your expectations and requirements.
Being an experienced software development company, we have got a team of professionals who can serve your needs. The team follows an entire mobile app development process just to make sure that your application is delivered on time and contains no bugs.
Have a word with our experts! Let’s brainstorm your fantasy app idea together!
FAQs
The cost can start from $30,000 for an MVP app with the basic features and reach up to $2,00,000+ for an advanced app with the latest tech stack and features.
Developing a fantasy sports app generally takes 6-13 months according to your project requirements.
The main factors that influence the cost of developing a Fantasy sports app are stated below:
Currently, the popular Fantasy Sports Apps available in the market are Fanduel, DraftKings, ESPN Fantasy Sports, and CBS Sports Fantasy.
There are four types of fantasy sports apps which are:
Fantasy sports apps are legal in the USA, provided certain criteria are met. Still, some states have banned them.
The required TechStack are as follows:
Article By
Mayur Panchal is the CTO of Excellent Webworld. With his skills and expertise, He stays updated with industry trends and utilizes his technical expertise to address problems faced by entrepreneurs and startup owners.
