Most fans of sports prefer watching their favorite teams and leagues via the mobile apps of sports websites. The world situation with pandemic also forced people to opt for online watching rather than viewing live matches in pubs or stadiums. Sports apps are not just platforms for watching live streaming of matches; they also offer a range of additional features to make the app more competitive and user-friendly. Some features require some membership fees, while the others can be accessed free of charge. Let’s see what does AppStore offers to its users in terms of sports streaming apps.
Free options
This list includes the products that do not require a purchase or any membership fees. There are options with premium versions but the basic features can be accessed with no investments. Most of the products are also available for alternative platforms, too. We have taken into the account the comments of the users and tested the applications to see if they are really convenient to use.
ESPN Sports App
ESPN is one of the most successful apps used to watch live sports. It has quite a high rating in AppStore of 4.2 and a range of nice reviews from the users; it is also available on the Android platform. It is not only a sports streaming platform and offers some more unique features. The amount of content is probably one of the main advantages of ESPN: they provide the users with various kinds of sports events.
Sports you can watch with ESPN
Most likely, everyone is going to find their favorite sports to watch live streaming, however, there are no options for NBA and NFL. The main focus is made on baseball and soccer, but there are also most sports events happening all around the world including NHL, MMA, college sports, and also e-sports.
How much does it cost?
You can actually download the app for free, but to have access to most features and streams you will have to pay 6 USD per month. If you buy an annual membership, this will save you a small amount and will cost 60 USD for a year. As they cooperate with the other apps, Hulu and Disney+, there are special offers for a combined sub.
Special features
Being primarily a live streaming app, ESPN has more for sports lovers. Their enormous library contains loads of recordings of different matches and fights, besides, they show programs, talk shows, and documentaries on sports and provide the users with tons of written content dedicated to games forecasts and analysis which can become an excellent help for those who is keen on betting on sports.
In addition, you will receive notifications about the key moments of the chosen sports events and have an access to live scores. Certainly, there is also the latest news feed with exclusive information on the industry, so no wonder this app remains at the top of the App Store and Google Play.
CBS Sports app
CBS Sports is a division of an American CBS TV channel and their app designed for iOS and Android operating systems is dedicated to coverage of all sports that are presented by the channel. Provided you have a stable Internet connection, this app can actually become an ultimate solution to watch the vast majority of popular sports including MLB, NFL, MLS, NCAA, NBA, and others. Live streaming is greatly mixed with a decent news feed, information on statistics, scores for all games, and schedules of the upcoming matches that make it easier to track the updates about your favorite game or team. In addition, the developers tried to make your experience different by adding many games with real money prizes.
Navigation and features
The main thing CBS sports is proud of is that all members who use this app can customize it according to their preference. The app allows you to create a special feed and add there only the highlights you want to follow. All scores, matches, games, sports streaming, and the latest news will be kept in your personal tab called My Team.
To switch to the other sports news, you have to choose another tab; besides, you will get access to Live TV, Live Radio, and some exclusive data and breaking news. You can watch every game from your iPhone device or connect the app with your TV for a better experience.
Drawbacks
One of the recent updates at the end of the year brought a huge deal of disappointment for many loyal customers and significantly decreased the rating of an app. The vast majority of the dissatisfied members turned out to be iPhone users like the changes made in terms of favorite teams schedule and new navigation can not be called a very convenient one. However, the app still remains at the top of the iPhone’s store so probably this is a matter of use.
SuperSport
The app is available for iPhone and Android devices, too. It is one of the apps that are free for downloading and gives access to many sports with the main focus made on football, soccer, cricket, golf, and tennis. In addition, it allows you to watch a live stream of world events in motorsport, aquatics, boxing, cycling, and wrestling.
What can you find in the app?
Totally free of charge you can find the live scores, multiple ranking tables, video highlights, results, and schedules. Your iPhone will send you notifications whenever there is an important match, any updates about your favorite sport or team, available live streams. To access live sports streaming you can also use another app called DSTV which allows subscribers to watch live sports streaming in certain countries.
Extra features
You can not only watch live sports streaming with SuperSport, but also discuss every match on the stream using the chat channels. In addition, this is one of the live sports streaming apps that enable you to watch a match with live commentary. All this is available in one place, so you can have everything you can enjoy as a sports fan on your iPhone.
Navigation
It allows you to create an account instantly using your iPhone account (Apple ID) or Facebook and Twitter. When you enter the app, you are offered to add your favorite sports or teams to get the latest updates for them. The search bar on the top of the screen makes it easy to search news, game videos, and scores. The tab ‘Sports’ takes you to a list of all available sports. When you choose a certain sport, you are transferred to a page with major events for the chosen game, live matches, video records of the past games, and news. In addition, you can pick a favorite team and follow it to enable notifications about all highlights and live streams. It is also possible to add reminders for any upcoming event. Generally, it looks good and easy to navigate: minimalism goes along with excellent usability.
Drawbacks
The main disadvantage of the app might become a big frustration for those who look for the best streaming app to watch sports. iPhone users tend to complain about very poor and unstable work when a live sports streaming is going on, so it loses its sense to have a sports app instead of watching one of the TV sports channels. However, the developers claim they are working on this matter and will release an update for iPhone and other systems to solve the issue. Another thing is the choice of sports: the app is quite field-specific and you will not find popular ice hockey, basketball, or baseball events.
Live Score App (iPhone only)
This one is not actually about sports streaming apps. Yet, it is a good tool for those who suffer from not having instant access to an app or sports channels that stream live football, basketball, soccer, tennis, and ice hockey. In this app, primarily developed for an iPad device, but also available for iPhone with iOS from 10 or later, you can find useful information about the schedules, upcoming matches, live commentary, and, what is the most important, live scores updated in real-time mode. For football and basketball matches, you can check a ball tracker and follow the ball and actual live scores.
According to football fans, the updates are one of the quickest when it comes to live scores in comparison to the other apps of the same kind developed for iPhone.
La Liga Sports TV
This is an official app from National Professional Football League and it is one of the highest-rated sports apps for iOS. Even though it was created with a focus on football, it provides a really wide library of sports you can choose from.
What is offered in LaLiga Sports?
You can enjoy almost any sports event free of charge in this app. It includes basketball, football, rugby, tennis, hockey, gulf, water sports, Olympic sports, Marathons, motorsports, boxing, and others. The latest updates added about 30 new sports and events. In addition, you can check the commentary of the matches, videos, and reports. There is also a ‘Favorite Team’ section, notifications, scores, and news.
Premium features
For an additional fee, you can buy access to some less famous sports and leagues like the LNFS, Handball League. There is also special content about the latest news and matches and information about players and teams. Among the other apps, this one provides the users with one of the most excellent qualities of the videos and has a 4.7 ranking score according to 733 voters. At the moment this is one of the most highly prized apps in the iOS market.