Mapping The DNA - Mobile Apps For Sports

Vikramjiet Roy

Director,
Cricket Companion

Be it a Cricket Match, a Soccer Game, a Formula-1 race, or a game of Tennis doubles; today’s fast paced generation wants to be the first to be informed about any ongoing event of interest – watching it LIVE is the call of the day. While there are those who content themselves with the brief highlights or the quick previews, let us face it; the true sports fan never likes a quick preview of his favorite sport – which is many cases has almost acquired a cult status. Be it Cricket in the Indian Subcontinent, Soccer in European Union or Baseball or Basketball in the United States, the world map is dotted with avid sports followers who would do anything to catch but a glimpse of what they admire and enjoy.

Reality however, all but fulfills the usual sports fan’s desires. Owing to today’s smartphone-flaunting, ever-connected generation’s busy schedules and the increasingly ambitious work-centric expectations from even the most average of workers in today’s world, even catching up with one’s favorite sport is a far-fetched cry and all one ends up with is a quick preview of the highlights, which, to be honest, take the sheen off the sport – neither being engrossing to even the average sport follower’s fantasy, nor giving him the much craved high-pitched, emotionally-engaging, adrenalin-pumping action he expects and desires from what he sees.

This situation, needless to say, more or less created a vacuum in the space-time fabric of the average sports fan, who on one hand, having his worldly commitments, would neither enjoy the sport at the stadium – without giving up on something supposedly equally, if not less important, nor would be in front of his television screen. The life of the average modern man, dotted with close commitments, had but little space to accommodate all that he desired. While on one hand, time schedules became more compact, life became more closely connected and most commitments, so to say, pinned on the same coordinates in his schedule, the advances in technology brought forth tools and applications to deal with the same – be it better management of time or connectivity on the move. This era of contrasting commitments saw a boom in technological applications, which sought to bridge the divide and make life easy and balanced for humans in all spheres of life.

The needs of the average, working-class, sports fan too found their place in the fast expanding universe of mobile application ecosystems. These applications provided the users with an option of being a part of the event, connected to what they liked, even while on the move. The individual’s virtual presence replaced the much sought after physical presence which never seemed to fit in with dynamic individual lifestyles. Many of these applications, while providing users with the feeling of “being there” all along, also managed to sustain it throughout the event while engrossing the user.

1 2 Next