Remember way back in the early days of smartphones, when sports apps were awful, non-essential, or just a website with a fancy skin on it? Those days are long gone, and any company that wants to reach as many people in as many markets and demographics as possible needs a functional, useful app. That’s doubly true in the sports landscape, where apps can provide scores, news, written stories, video content, and so on and so forth.
Today, we asked our writers about sports apps, their favorite ones, and the flaws that even the best apps have.
More and more companies are putting a larger focus on their apps, but there really doesn’t seem to be one without warts. What sports apps do you use most often (not to stream live games), why, and what would you change about them?
Andrew Bucholtz: The only sports app I currently read anything on is The Athletic’s app, and even then, that’s more from finding stories on Twitter that then open in the app. Their app is fine, and it’s useful to be able to follow particular writers, but you can do that on the site too, so it’s not like the app’s really breaking new ground. And most of my reading of the site happens from my computer; the app’s just useful if I happen to be out and about. But either at home or outside, I’m most likely to open an Athletic story after seeing people talking about it on Twitter; I don’t often go to the site’s homepage or open the app on its own.
For scores, I’ve used apps like The Score, Yahoo Sports, and CBS Sports in the past, and they’re all fine, but I don’t currently have any of them on my phone. These days, it seems faster and easier to just open my browser and Google whatever score I’m looking for, and then I don’t have apps eating storage space on my device. I should throw a shoutout out to CBS’ website score pages, though, especially for college football; their scoreboard is by far the best I’ve seen and the easiest to sort, and I’m regularly looking at that on Saturdays. I do also have the ESPN app on my phone, but I only use it if I’m looking to watch live games while not at my TV. And I’ve used the Yahoo Fantasy Football app in the past and like it, but I’m not currently in a fantasy league.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with most sports media companies’ apps, but they’re not particularly necessary for me outside of watching games. I’d rather get my scores from the web and get my stories to read from Twitter, where I can see what people are talking about from all outlets, not just one company’s app. And most companies’ websites work just fine on mobile browsers, so I can still read relevant stories people are talking about on my phone without needing to install a particular app.
Phillip Bupp: I honestly don’t use too many apps. I mostly use Twitter to get my breaking news and scores and then use The Athletic to read their columns. For fantasy football, I use ESPN’s fantasy app since it’s an ESPN league, but for most non-soccer sports purposes, I’ll just go online.
For soccer purposes, I use an app called FotMob. Trying to keep track of so many leagues around the world, FotMob is way more organized than if I tried to find everything online. It’s got scores, tables, and schedules from just about every league around the world. If I need to find out who is currently leading the Malaysian Super Liga, I can find that out on FotMob, so it’s a useful resource for me to quickly keep track of the soccer world.
I’m going to sound like an old man, but the key to a great app for me is to keep it simple. That’s really what I would change on many of these apps. Don’t give me all the bells and whistles if they’re not needed. Just give me my info, scores, and news, and leave the superfluous stuff off. Less is more and that’s certainly what I look for in an effective app.
Ian Casselberry: The app I use to follow sports news — and all news and trends — is Twitter, of course. But if we’re talking solely about sports apps, it’s Bleacher Report for me. Especially if you’re following or covering a team, no app collects breaking news, analysis, and social trends better. When I was covering football earlier this year, it was an indispensable tool. And it also links me to the one column I read there, Mike Freeman’s NFL 10-Point Stance. For scores, I like CBS Sports. I can get to the sport I need and the particular score quickly, then click through to box scores and stats when needed.
However, I’m using The Athletic app more and more these days because its alerts often compel me to click through to an article or column. And with their podcasts available only through the app or site, I end up going there to listen to their increasing amount of sport-specific or team-specific audio programming.
If I was answering this question a month or two ago, I probably would’ve said ESPN, especially for breaking news and analysis. But there are too many times now where I click the alert and the app doesn’t take me to what I want to read. Also, the autoplay videos and ads just jank up the whole experience for me and I quickly close the thing.
Ben Koo: I have a ton of apps on my phone but I’d say 90% of my usage is the Yahoo Sports app and the Clippit app. I’ve long been loyal to Yahoo as my default for looking up scores and stats. Yahoo Sports is a pretty bare bones app that does this and not much else, although the NFL partnership makes viewing games extremely easy. Clippit is an amazing app to make clips of things you’re watching on TV and is a big help for work.
I have a handful of apps I use for streaming games that would include ESPN, MLB At Bat, Fox Sports, and Sling, but outside of those I have the following apps that I use very little:
- The Athletic (reading shit)
- DraftKings (do a small $5 weekly thing with the idiots I watch football with every week)
I don’t really like downloading fantasy specific apps for the leagues I am in. I have too many apps already, although doing this stuff on my phone through the browser sometimes is pretty clunky. I have no interest in having a ticketing or apparel app. I don’t need help buying anything. I’m sure there are some sports apps out there that might add some value for me, but I’m already trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on my phone and find I’m pretty up to speed and efficient using what I have. I’ve tried a good amount of apps and in general, just prefer finding things using my browser or via social media.
Joe Lucia: There are five sports apps I use a lot for various reasons. First is MLB At Bat, which is pretty flawless – it has a great interface, is updated frequently, and there is a ton of information in the app. However, it’s a pain in the ass to look at stats in At Bat, and don’t even think about trying to look at leaderboards. That’s the biggest, and really, the only issue, I can think of with it. In the offseason and around the trade deadline, I use the MLB Trade Rumors app a lot. It has a very simple interface, and you can also use it to access MLBTR’s other sites (covering the NBA, NFL, and NHL), though I never really do. My biggest issue with the MLBTR app is how it’s impossible to see the “other” main page content in the app (things like arbitration projections, free agent lists, etc) that is typically on the sidebar. I’ve been using The Athletic’s app more as well, though it’s pretty much just to read articles: none of their podcasts interest me, and the scoreboard isn’t great.
And then, there are the two apps I use most often, which also have the most issues. Goal Live is a phenomenal app for soccer scores, and every league in the damn world is covered (with the major leagues getting extra content like player ratings and commentary for matches), but there are just so many ads that it destroys the user experience. There is nothing worse than opening the app, having to sit through a ~30 second ad, clicking a match, seeing multiple ads on the match page, and having to sit through *another* ad when you pick your phone up five minutes later. I’d gladly pay $5 or whatever for an ad-free version. I’m also going to ding it a little bit for not having any video, but that’s understandable, given how many leagues would need to be negotiated with.
The other app I use a lot is the ESPN app, and a lot of the issues I have with the Goal Live app are also prevalent here. There are a ton of ads littered throughout the app, along with autoplay videos that you need to toggle off, preroll videos that you can’t skip before any videos you *do* want to play, and an interface that just does not give a shit about what you want to see. ESPN’s app really seems to be trending more towards watching live content and ESPN+ content, and I could not care less about either (especially since I’m no longer a + subscriber) when I just want to check an NFL or college football score on a weekend. Maybe I should look to my colleagues for advice on a new Swiss army knife app to use for scores.
Jay Rigdon: The app I use to find and consume sports news the most is Twitter, though that’s not really the spirit of the question.
For sports-specific apps, I use two from Yahoo, Fantasy Football (as that’s where my only league is) and their generic Sports app, which for my needs is the cleanest scores/schedules app. I find I use it a lot more when I’m checking game times, schedules, TV networks, or betting lines than I do looking for actual live scores, which I’ll often just get by searching Google if necessary. I like the Yahoo app because it’s relatively clean, typically has whatever sport or game I’m looking for, and is fairly customizable and uncluttered, giving me what I’m looking for right away with the option to dive deeper if necessary.
There’s a new sports app in heavy use for me now, though: the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Mobile sports gambling went live in Indiana in October, and while I certainly don’t throw a ton of money around at all (far from it!), it’s fun to scroll through and see how things are looking, or try to piece a parlay together, etc. And live in-game betting can also elevate an otherwise mundane viewing experience. As for the app itself: it has some issues. It’s incredibly slow to load and open, even on a newish Pixel. It’s also somewhat tough to see exactly what you’re betting on, which can be an issue; lines flicker in and out in ways that seem much more manageable when using a desktop browser. Obviously these aren’t just first world problems, they’re first world asshole problems, but I’m just trying to answer the question here. Presumably things will get cleaner over time; there’s an update waiting for me right now, in fact.
