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Do you know how many people play fantasy sports on their mobile? According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association the number is 56.8 million!
This is the total number only in the United States and Canada. This stats clearly showcases the market need of a fantasy sports application and the increasing demand of it and the exact reason why you should invest in fantasy sports app development. Additionally, it is also said that people are spending billions of dollars while they play in these applications and they want more.
Are you too thinking of how to start fantasy sports app development? Then trust us you are at the right place. Herein, I will walk you through step by step guidance on how to create a fantasy sports app, what features you can add, which sports you should promote more and why, setting up revenue models, and marketing strategies.
Table of Content
- Understanding the Market Need
- How the Fantasy App Works
- Know your Competitors
- Define your Unique Selling Point
- Features for Your Fantasy Application
- How to Start Fantasy Sports App Development
- How to Monetize your Fantasy Sport Application
- Ways to Market your Application
- Challenges you Might Face
Understanding the Market Need
According to Statista, the total revenue of fantasy sports apps is expected to grow up to $65.45 million by 2027 and this will keep on increasing. Today there are more than billions of applications in the Play Store and App Store thanks to the revolution brought by Apple in 2008. According to the analyst opinion from Statista, the online gaming industry has thoroughly transformed by the app revolution. This you can see easily by checking that the games category is the largest and highest grossing app category.
These stats should be enough for you to understand why and how the gaming category is changing and why you should collaborate with a fantasy sports app development company as they will help you to keep up with it.
How the Fantasy App Works
Firstly, let me give you a quick overview of how the fantasy app works. Your application can be either dedicated to any one game or can consist of multiple games. We all know how much people love cricket and even you would like to invest in fantasy cricket app development. So, let me walk you through how cricket’s game will be played.
- Select the Game: Users will open the application, upon logging in they will select the game they are interested in playing. For example; here they select Cricket.
- Forming the team: Users will assemble and try to form a team. For Cricket, each team needs to have 11 members.
- Select the Captain: Users can select the team captain unanimously.
- Start the Game: Once the team is set, the game will begin
- Leadership Board/Rewards Distribution: The winning team will be on the leaderboard and pre-decided rewards will be distributed.
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Know your Competitors
You must be thinking why you should know your competitors, right?
Knowing your competitors will give you an added advantage as you will know their weaknesses and strengths. Based on this data you can define the opportunities which your fantasy game application might have. Additionally, this data will also help you to define your unique selling point giving you an added advantage over your competitors and will help you to learn how to make app like dream11.
The current market leaders are:Dream11
Dream11 is a fantasy gaming application which is founded in India. It provides you with a range of games to play from and has a pretty easy to use and understand interface. However, they are still likely to gain global recognition like other competitors. There are many companies who have copied the concept of dream11 and just focused on fantasy cricket app development and this has worked for them.
PS: We can also help you make a dream11 clone app.
BatBall11
BatBall11 is another well-known fantasy gaming application which provides a wide range of games to the users to select from. Users will have to download an application, select the game of their choice and can start playing. It launched in 2019 and has one of the most-modern looking interfaces which helps gain it wide-range of users.
ESPN Fantasy Game
ESPN Fantasy games are owned by ESPN itself, making it easy to have global recognition. In fact, it is one of the well known applications at the global level and you are very likely to learn from it. This app is also pretty reliable for online gaming and is known for its easy to use interface. One of the best features of ESPN is the future predictions which is free to use for people. This feature helps users to stay engaged with the application and rely on its data, making it retain users.
Yahoo Fantasy
As the name suggests, this application is backed by Yahoo itself and so it also has pretty recognition. Moreover, since this is a web application, it serves as a USP for Yahoo as it's easy to access for users.
Define your Own Unique Selling Point:
While you are investing in fantasy sports app development studying these various competitors will help you to know your competitors better. It might also help you to define some weaknesses and strengths of them. Combining this data together will help you to understand the opportunities you have which in turn will serve as your USP. One of your USP can also be just to focus on 2 to 3 games at a time.
Below are some of the unique selling points as you get started with fantasy app development:
Visually Appealing Interface:
User experience of an application has a huge role to play when it comes to attracting customers and retaining them. Your aim should be to provide users with an interface which is easy to use and is visually appealing. Overall, the application should not bombard users to learn plenty of things at the same time.
Adding Regional Games
This can work as a huge USP for your application and can help you connect to the regional and younger audience. You can also make sure that these games are curated according to the geographic locations and the countries users are based from. Having this feature will help you to have an extra edge over your competitors.
For instance, if you are building a MVP version of your application, you can start with fantasy cricket app development. Focusing on one game will help you to have an added benefit and Cricket is also a well-known sport. If you don’t know where to start, you can also collaborate with fantasy cricket app development company like ours.
Providing Ease to Collaborate
While you get your fantasy sports application developed and designed you really need to focus on how you will let users easily collaborate. This is the much needed feature and can not be difficult for people to form a team.
Define Referral System
Referral system has been around the market for years and an amazing marketing technique. It can help you to have a dedicated and loyal customer base. In addition, you can also set up referral rewards or a certain amount of discount on the games they play.
Once you have defined the features which might help you serve as your USP, now you need to define the list of features which your application will have. Let me show you how.
Features for Your Fantasy Application
To come up with feature lists, start with defining the scope of your project and the target location. This will be essential as you are defining which games should be there in the application. It will help you to build MVP of your application.
User Registration and Profile Management
Users should be having an ease to create their accounts and then manage their profile. The profile management will also help users to diversify the games they want to play.
Player Drafting
This feature will allow users to form teams and have a healthy competition among themselves. Users can also have access to the real-time players stats and ranking. Additionally, you can also provide this feature based on the subscription model they have. More on this later!
Fantasy Leagues
Users could manage and create various private and public fantasy leagues. Users can also customize the rules of the games and can also invite their friends and family.
Player Statistics
You can provide this feature based either behind the paywall or for free, depending on your business model. You can provide real-time and historical player statistics, showcase news, injury updates, and more.
Live Scoring
You can let users provide real-time scoring updates during live games and have leaderboards for leagues and also individual matches. This will keep the healthy competition among users and will also help you to retain customers.
Chat and Social Integration
Having an ease to share their profiles and leaderboards easily on various social media platforms will allow them to flaunt your app. This will help them to connect with their friends and also have some fun.
Gamify your Gaming App
Adding some minor elements of gamification will help you to have an edge. You can have leaderboards, rewards, coins, and much more to help retain the users and gain new ones.
Thinking of working with a fantasy sports app development company? You are at the right place. Our team of experienced developers and designers will help you develop a dream11 clone app.
Once you have defined the features the next step you must be thinking is how to develop a fantasy app? Let’s walk through it.
How to Start Fantasy Sports App Development
Ideate and Research
All the above mentioned research clearly reflects why you should start fantasy sports app development as your next project. Target any one market and focus on the users there. Think which sports these people prefer more? Do you think they like cricket? If yes, shall you invest in fantasy cricket app development? Do you know how to start? If not, shall you reach out to a fantasy cricket app development company? Answering these questions will help you have a clear picture of what exactly you need and how to cater to your audience.
Once you understand the market need and have defined the unique selling point your application will have, you are ready for the next phase.
Design
Reach out to a fantasy app development company like us who has an experienced design team and ask them to start sketching out the designs for your application. Having an application with a good interface will help you to stand out a lot. Additionally, it will also help you to have better market share and also reach out to a wider audience.
Development
Once you have designed the application and have got the approval from the stakeholders your next step is development. In this step too, fantasy app development company like ours will help you to stay ahead of the game by using the latest tech stack for your application.
Testing
The next step is testing. The same company should also help you with testing your applications’ features. Carrying out testing of your application is essential before deployment because you want to make sure that users can access all the possible features of your application.
Deployment
This is the last step! Once your application is ready and has passed from all the testing you can now focus on the deployment aspect of it. You can upload your application on PlayStore and App Store and can start marketing it.
How to Monetize your Fantasy Sport Application
There are plenty of ways you can monetize your application. Top 2 models which works for this application are:
Subscription Model
This is the most common way of monetizing your application. You can come up with 3 plans for subscription and can divide the pay as per the features you want to provide for each tier. For example, you can set certain features behind the paywall too and ask users to pay if they are interested in accessing it.
Pay as you Play
This is the second most common way to charge for fantasy sports applications. You can ask users to pay as they want to play the games. The reason this will work is that according to research from Statista, the in-app purchase revenue in sports is likely to reach $29.01 million. Meaning even your users will be interested in-app purchasing.
Ways to Market your Application
Social Media Marketing
Leverage the power of various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and others. Your target audience is likely to be on these platforms. You can also reach out to influencers and carry out influencer marketing. This will also help you to reach the right target audience.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
One of the best ways to start out in SEO is to create a marketing website similar to your competitor Sleeper, and start your SEO journey. The added advantage of this type of marketing is you will have an opportunity of ranking on various search engines and target your customers. Additionally, you can also create a proper funnel which will help you to divert your customer to download your fantasy sport application.
In-App Referral Model
For this, you can set up a marketing campaign that is providing users with affiliated links to share with their contacts and in return gain something. It can be gaining a certain discount or an opportunity to play their game for free for a certain time period. This type of campaign has been a huge success for plenty of big companies. It is one of the tried and tested methods to carry out.
Challenges you Might Face
For any project anyone does there is no straight path. One is bound to face challenges in some way or the other and it is very given too. You need to focus on how you can resolve them. Let’s explore some of the challenges you might face:
Difficulty in Finding your Market
Finding your niche market can be really difficult initially especially in scenarios like where you are trying to build out with huge scope. In such scenarios you can narrow down the scope of your project initially and target 2-3 games and start creating a loyal customer base around it. This will help you have less competition and also have a marketing grip. Once you know you have succeeded in this area you can expand the scope of your application.
Challenges in Marketing
Marketing can become a daunting task at times and it does not even ensure return on investment. In such scenarios, it is better to reach out to fantasy sports app development company like ours who have experienced marketers. Rely on their knowledge and use the correct platform to target your users.
Lack of Technology Knowledge
You don’t have the knowledge of what is the right tech stack to use? Don’t worry. Rely on our experts who can help you get started with how to create fantasy cricket apps. Our experts can help you at each and every phase from design, development, to deployment and be your IT backbone.
Conclusion
Now is the time for you to act. Don’t just wait for the right moment to create fantasy apps like cricket. Here’s your chance to shine and expand your business. If you are struggling and don’t know where to get started, reach out to us. We can help you build the right application with our strong expertise and knowledge. Our team of designers, developers, and marketers can help you at each stage and can help you create an application the way you want.
