Overview

Five million people in Ireland and the UK and more than 30 million Americans play fantasy sports games online. The Fantasy Football market is estimated at $70 billion worldwide.

Watching the game itself isn’t good enough for many sports fans. Watching individual player performance for the purposes of fantasy sports has become a driving competitive force.

According to AppLovin, there is a projected total of 1.62 billion hours of fantasy football eyeballs that can be tapped for advertisers via mobile technology.

Sports clubs, leagues and organizations want their own mobile-optimized fantasy sports platform based on their own teams, players and results, while established brands see fantasy sports leagues as a powerful marketing and communications tool.

Trevor Keane, Sportego founder, hired Blood & Treasure to design and develop a mobile-optimized fantasy sports platform to enable sports clubs, leagues and brands to create and manage their own fantasy sports games.

The initial purpose of the app was to enhance fan participation and heighten brand awareness, while enabling data capture and increasing revenue for clients of the platform.

Our team designed and developed the entire platform, including a unique Pick-5 Fantasy Game for GAA and UK Premier League matches. We also added a Predictor Game, allowing fans to predict the match winners.

Through its FanFeud.co.uk product, which we also developed, Sportego became the first mobile platform to offer cash-based fantasy football on Premier League games.

Initially too much manual work was needed to create and manage games live so we automated the games via 3rd party integrations, primarily Opta and Infostrada.

Also, our options for integrating payment processors were limited since easy integrations like Stripe, Balanced and Paypal did not permit betting platforms.

We ended up integrating with other payment processors including AlliedWallet, Skrill, Neteller and Fonix which required changes to the platform to maximize security for users.

We also needed to account for managing different sports and games depending on client preference and quickly create new designs for major clients including Ireland’s SSEAirtricity and the Leinster and Munster GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association).

The biggest challenge was adapting the platform to allow players to bet or play for free. We needed to comply with the laws for online betting and pass an official test from a UK government-appointed test house.

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Within two weeks of launching in the UK, we added a second major British Football Club - Chesterfield FC, after West Bromwich Albion. With clients now including Leinster GAA, Munster GAA, West Bromwich Albion FC, Chesterfield FC and Bury FC, as well as Basketball Ireland and SEE Airtricity, the Sportego platform is well-positioned in the fantasy football niche.

It is also becoming well established among major sports clubs and associations looking for a technology solution that will allow them to connect more effectively with their fan base.

We are proud that one of our senior developers working on the product was subsequently appointed CTO of Sportego. We were also delighted when the Enterprise Ireland awarded High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) status to the company, positioning it nicely for additional investor funding.