As a startup in the sports sphere, Citizen Sports has a simple, but annoying problem: They’re not ESPN. And it’s simply hard to compete with the name that has basically become synonymous with sports. Yahoo might be able to do it because, well, they’re Yahoo, but for a startup, it can be frustrating when, on many levels, you’re beating your competitors in innovation, but still trailing by so much.
That’s the basic gist I got after a meeting with Citizen Sports’ Jeffrey Ma and Brian Mead. The fact is that they are doing some innovative stuff in the space, but still getting overshadowed, and that means it can be hard to make meaningful money. For example, their fantasy sports options are hugely popular thanks to their Facebook app (Ma thinks they have a shot at being the overall number 3 fantasy option behind Yahoo and ESPN in the business), but this hasn’t translated into the types of ad deals that ESPN sees because they are able to leverage their television network, and Yahoo can leverage all its other properties.
Citizen Sports recently released a “pro” version of their iPhone app Sportacular. It’s great; for Push Notification junkies like myself, it’s a dream come true. Not only can you get final score updates pushed to your iPhone, you can get an update every time the score changes, when an inning ends (in baseball), after every third inning, etc. ESPN, despite promises of push on stage during Apple keynotes, still doesn’t have the functionality.
But Citizen Sports is running into a problem that many iPhone app developers run into: How do you monetize an app? They’ve been trying the advertising model with the non-pro version for a while, but the returns aren’t great. So now they’re trying the paid method, but it’s hard build an audience to a level that can pull in any meaningful kind of money. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good an app is, all that matters in moving it is something like if Apple features it. And while ESPN can afford to promote its app (and certainly does on its own network), Citizen Sports can’t match that.
So Citizen Sports is thinking about what else it can do, perhaps in-app purchases of some kind, Mead says. But while those seem like they’ll work for iPhone games, the jury is still out as to just how well the option will work in other kinds of apps.
It’s not like Citizen Sports is totally going it alone, they have a partnership with Sports Illustrated on their popular Facebook app. But despite being a very well-respected name in sports, SI doesn’t have the kind of pull online that ESPN does.
“The next 6 months in the ’sports 2.0 space’ will be interesting,” Ma tells us. “How will startups deal with the ad sales challenge — how do you compete with Yahoo and ESPN?”
He notes that if they absolutely needed to, they could probably cut costs and get to profitability at some point next year, but that would mean cutting a lot of the things keeping them ahead of ESPN in terms of innovation.
Instead, Citizen Sports plans to continue the march forward. They’re working on Android apps, and looking at the other mobile platforms. The problem is that all of that development is expensive, but Ma notes that their backers have been very supportive.
And they have some big names both in the VC space and the sports space, funding them. They include Kevin Compton, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, Jeff Moorad, a former sports agent and now owners of the San Diego Padres, and even former Cowboys QB Troy Aikman is an investor.
You can find the Sportacular Pro app here in the App Store. And here’s the free version.
(And yes, Ma is the same guy who the main character in Bringing Down The House and the subsequent movie 21, is based on.)
First time heard of Citizen Sports. Will do some research about it. It’s interesting.
I don’t think they’ll be around much longer, ESPN and the other big wigs are canonizing the industry. It’s become a very hard industry to enter – and that has a lot to do with them not only cornering the market with brand but encapsulating the long tail with smaller franchises that they keep pumping out.
Sportacular is better – by a MILE – than anything ESPN does.
Sportacular is hands down the best sport app. I love the push feature.
yeah, i love the push customization. very nice.
this is funny because sportacular is just OK. nothing more. I could write an app that is vastly superior given adequate financial incentive.
Really? Send over a resume and let’s get started. You can find me on twitter @meadball
Thanks for the props MG.
If we continue to put the needs of sports fans before everything else, we can’t lose… right? If anyone has ideas or feedback, hit us up @CitizenSports or @Sportacular.
For you fantasy junkies, our free Fantasy Football app has live scoring and push notifications for news and score updates. Let me know what you think! bit.ly/3kbjNh
i think you can’t go wrong with putting the fans first, well, unless you run out of money, but you will have gone down doing the right thing!
Hi Brian,
You’ve got a nice iPhone app and interesting integration into the major social networks however I’m a bit puzzled by your Internet strategy. By limiting your use the web to distributing your applications and ignoring it as a means of engagement (and centralized hub) you’ve alienated a substantial amount of the online population as well as left as huge hole in the center of your internet strategy.
You seem as thought you have a smart management team with solid financial backing, so I assume you’ve passed the idea of running your own website on purpose? If you’d like some advice on your online strategy, please look me up on LinkedIn or contact me directly (ericfacas@gmail.com).
Regards,
Eric
PS – I’m not fishing for a job
I remember Michael Ma rushing ATO at MIT; we couldn’t convince him to pledge ATO, ended up at DU…then he ended up “bringing down the house” some years later. wierd, small world!
wait, first, you mean Jeff Ma? second, he’s a DU? I’m a DU.
What’s a DU?
Sorry, yeah, Jeff Ma. And yeah he’s a DU.
Sportacular is very, very cool. I was really impressed with their march madness effort – completely and seamlessly integrated between the iphone app and my facebook page.
“apps” “apps” “apps”
i miss the days when we called these programs instead of a buzzword
here’s a secret, apps is just an easier way of writing applications.
Matrix movies should be patched to stop talking about “programs”…the future is about apps
I like what Citizen Sports is doing, but Watercooler Sports is owning them in a lot of areas they compete.
Is there really room for 2 companies that do the same thing?
Ad funded models are hurting even the big guys so I’m not surprised it is hitting Citizen Sports. They have some great apps but as they say competing with Yahoo or ESPN in the ad market seems like a tough sell.
Gotta say this is the first I’ve heard of it and am VERY impressed. Slick interface, quick loading, and overall great look. Might even upgrade to the PRO version. Great job guys. Good article as well.
Developer-
If you can develope a similar ad so easily you should do it. But I wouldn’t pay more then $1.99, a one time fee.
Love sportacular. Somehow it was the first free sports app I found and I’ve stuck with it ever since. They consistently make it better. I hadn’t heard of them before the app but I’m a fan now.
How do you get the real-time scoring data? Is that licensed from leagues? Is it pricey?
Stats Inc charges at least 100K a year.
Best sports app hands down…
I know Ma and Mead, great guys and glad to hear the app is cool, I was a big fan of ProTrade
Sports are real time, the only thing that matters are the deals with the leagues to show the sports everyone else is just picking up scraps around the edges, just like espn did for years until they started to sign big deals with the leagues. T
I actually find Sportacular not as good as espn’s mobile site for sports news. It’s too redundant with the sake story from multiple sources, and doesn’t cover nearly as many “minor” sports.
As a geek, I like the push notification and such. As a sports fan who’s not that into MLB, I much prefer espn’s web site, formatted for my Iphone.
While maybe ESPN doesn’t do alerts for the iphone, the send “alerts” via text message for all those things you mentioned for all phones. Not just iphone users. I love that if someone doesn’t do something for the iphone specifically it sucks. I’ve been using ESPN messages for prob 3 years now and it’s great. What else you got?
A few months ago I switched from Sportacular to ESPN for the simple reason: Sportacular, which I’d used for ages, just wasn’t updating as quickly. Maybe that was a temporary glitch and it’s better now. Also, Sportacular seemed too full of betting/odds features, and I would’ve liked the ability to turn off reading other fan comments (which were mainly dreck). However, hearing there’s an ad-free paid app now with push notifications may turn me back.
Actually I recently downloaded it and have the same issue. For example right now the sf giants are playing, have been for almost an hour, have scored and are in the 3rd inning… The app tells me the game hasn’t started. Looks great but if it doesn’t update it’s worthless. I want my $2 back
So, they can’t understand why their app – which they can only advertise on iPhones – doesn’t generate the interest that ESPN & Yahoo can? Hmm….