The popularity of Fantasy Sports App has soared rapidly over the last couple of years. To give you an estimate, here’s a graph highlighting the year over year increase in the number of fantasy sports app users.
Source: Wikipedia
Clearly, fantasy sports apps have a great demand moving forward. If you own a development company and wondering what your next product should, a fantasy sports app would be a great option.
To make the task easier for you, here is a little breakdown of the best features and estimated development cost of a Fantasy Sports App.
Must-Have Features in a Fantasy Sports App
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User Registration
There are tons of fantasy sports apps today. And ‘user registration’ is one feature they all have in common. As a developer, we are sure you must be familiar with the User Registration API. Even if you are not you can learn about it online (there are tons of resources). Android and iOS APIs have built-in BackendlessUser class, while JS SDK uses the Backendless.User class.
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An Exceptional Landing Page
This is where the app users will end up after they have completed the registration. Naturally, the landing page must be well-organized and extremely user friendly. Users must be able to navigate seamlessly across contents, game feeds, social walls, etc. In simple words, you could design the landing page in a way that makes user onboarding easy.
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Contest Filters/Page
Users must be able to navigate tournaments based on filters such as entry fees range, winning amount, total participants, total winners, etc. Users must be able to join a particular contest upon payment of contest fees.
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Smart Analytics
Fantasy sports are games of skills. Participants create teams based on their knowledge of the game and compete with one another for top positions on the leadership board. However, for app makers, it is extremely essential that they provide a great gaming experience which must include top of the line game analytics such as projections, and analysis from experts, player rankings, real-time match information, score alerts, and blogs.
For instance, ESPN Fantasy Football is the most popular fantasy sports app among football enthusiasts. And one of the primary reasons why they are miles ahead of other fantasy apps is their focus on delivering top of the line analytics to participants. Most recently they even announced integration with IBM Watson to help their players make more informed decisions.
So, whatever contests you offer in your fantasy sports app, make sure that users have everything at their disposal to make informed decisions. This will boost your app’s popularity by some margin.
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Private Group Games/ Tournaments
When they first burst on the scene, fantasy games were all about playing with unknown opponents. But not anymore!
Today users desire more customization and personalization. It’s always a great USP to have players create their own groups where they can invite friends and family, and challenge them for a round of fantasy sports. It’s a great advertisement for the app as well!
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Invite and Earn
Everybody loves some referral bonus. Don’t they?
It is a time-proven marketing technique whereby app users are incentivized for recommending the app to their friends and family. No reasons why you would not have the feature on your app as well!
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Achievement Badges
While they might seem absurd, given that they have little practical value. You simply can’t ignore the fact that every player loves a token of appreciation. It inspires them to strive for better results and higher glory. The same is the effect of achievement badges on fantasy sports players. And you would be surprised to know how often players share their achievements on social walls, showcasing their achievements to their online network.
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Multiple Payment Mode
You would not want to see potential players drop off because the app does not have multiple payment options. Ideally, your app must include credit card, debit cards, PayPal, and UPI payment modes to cover as many users as possible.
Cost of Developing a Fantasy Sports App
Developing a fantasy sports app depends on a wide range of factors. The primary among these includes the technology stack and app features and functionalities. With backend integrations included, the cost of development for android and iOS platforms should be anything between $20000-25000.
But you should remember that we are giving you a rough estimate. The cost of development may vary with factors such as team experience, location, etc.
For instance, the average hourly wage for a software developer in the USA is in the range of $100-$150. Whereas in India, it’s only $30-$40. This is also the reason why more and more app development projects are outsourced to offshore countries like India and Ukraine. These countries offer the same quality of work at almost half the cost of developing the same project in-house.
How to Find the Best Outsourcing Company For App Development
Unlike in the past, today you can use online marketplaces like Upwork and Outsourcely to find verified freelance developers. You can post your requirements (including your expected budget) and get in touch with developers.
There is another alternative as well whereby you can hire a company that does all the work on your behalf, starting from ideation and design to development and deployment. However, finding the right outsourcing partner is no longer an easy task, considering that there are tons of companies that do not have a proven track record.
Follow these tips to ensure that you hire the best outsourcing partner:
- Check the company’s online footprint, such as Facebook page, LinkedIn page, Google reviews, etc to measure genuineness and reputation.
- Check reviews in directory listings like – Glassdoor, GoodFirms, Clutch, and Reddit.
- Ask for an existing list of clientele and get in touch with them for information on the quality of work, communication, project delivery, etc.
- Check for domain and technology expertise wisely
- Organize virtual meets with the development team, project managers, etc.
- Verify testimonials and referrals.
This brings us to the end of this blog. We hope that the information answers most if not all the questions that you may have related to fantasy sports app development.
