It definitely doesn’t make any sense to highlight that technologies have entered all spheres of our life and that today we already can’t imagine performing a wide row of traditional everyday tasks without using different types of software products. But in this article, we’d like to focus on one precise industry and analyze how it is being gradually changed under the influence of innovative technologies and their mass adoption. We are talking about sports.
Today, it is really interesting to observe how both fitness lovers and professional athletes start relying on various software products in their sports activities. There are apps for analyzing physical activity and creating workout plans, apps for tracking team performance and designing strategies for upcoming games. And it is just a small part of the whole range of available options.
It is also important to note that launching a sports app can be a rather profitable idea. According to the data provided by Statista, in March 2022, in-app revenues of MyFitnessPal, which has won a reputation as one of the leading fitness and sports mobile applications globally, reached almost $9 million. Fitbit, which is in the second position on the top sports app list, accumulated over $8 million in the same period.
The figures sound rather impressive. Right? They indicate a high demand for such solutions from the side of users and, consequently, give us grounds to make an assumption that the demand for sports app development will be growing as well.
The reasons for this skyrocketing popularity are related to the benefits that such apps provide to their users. And we offer you to have a look at the main aspects that are being evolved with the help of innovative technologies.
Performance/activity monitoring
The first type of solution that usually comes to our mind is a fitness bracelet that helps to track physical activity during the day. Moreover, modern apps allow switching to different modes that correspond to various kinds of activities like hiking, cycling, running, etc. It helps to make a more precise analysis.
But when it comes to professional sports, fitness bracelets won’t be the best choice. Nowadays, there are a lot of more innovative options. There are special wearables that can measure athletes’ performance in real-time and at the same time are convenient to use. Such solutions are powered by special sensors that can be placed either on the above-mentioned wearable devices, clothes, or directly on bodies. They can measure a lot of important parameters such as heart rate, breathing, temperature, hydration, etc.
Thanks to GPS units, it is also quite simple to see the distance and the speed that an athlete has reached. In team sports, GPS helps detect the location of each player during a match which is crucial for strategy analysis and further planning.
What is extremely good about sports apps of this type is that they not only help to monitor the performance in real-time but also provide access to the history of training and matches and, in general, allow analyzing huge volumes of information in retrospect.
Elimination of injuries
We all know that despite the fact that physical activities help people to stay healthy, many kinds of sports can lead to numerous injuries, especially when athletes are exhausted or feel unwell.
Thanks to monitoring their state in real-time and analyzing the conditions on the field, coaches can warn athletes about risks and change a training strategy based on the most relevant data.
Enhanced communication and sports education
Mobile apps, as well as sports web platforms, provide users not only with access to various educational materials and content of different types but also with the possibility to communicate with people who have similar interests. All these opportunities have a positive impact on the efficiency of sports training as thanks to learning new information and exchanging experiences with others, people can get a significantly better understanding of the peculiarities of training processes.
Though in this article, we’ve mentioned just a couple of aspects that have been already changed (and are still being changed) with the help of modern software solutions, you can understand that the real impact of technologies in the sports industry is much bigger. Many sports apps are powered by IoT which is also quickly developing thanks to the introduction of more sophisticated wearable devices. The segment of sports software solutions looks quite promising and still has a lot of space for newcomers. But do not forget that to launch a successful app, first of all, you need to clearly understand what tasks you are going to solve with it and what requirements and expectations your target audience really has at the current moment. Market analysis as well as social studies of the group of potential users will help you to answer a lot of questions that you may have at the stage of planning.