Sports API start-ups: The Driving Force For Sports Fantasy Leagues APIs are the essential tools that get you all the goodness from the field to your laptop, phone, TV, whatever the analogies running on the screen comes to form the APIs

For the last few years, online gaming has become one of the most exciting areas of development in the Indian start-up ecosystem. The development has not only reflected in the rise of the Indian gaming start-ups but has also drawn the attention of the global market. According to the report, India has already 326 sports tech start-ups and growing exponentially. Online gaming has become a part of everyday life. The USA & Canada have more than 60 million fantasy players and the Indian fantasy sports industry has over 60 platforms and 20 million fantasy sports players, according to the IFSG- KPMG report.

Though the fantasy leagues kick-started in the early 1950s in the USA and 2001 in India, it has hit like a storm among users for the last few years with the emergence of smartphones and advanced technologies. India is set to witness a massive growth in fantasy sports with the gaming industry growing from Rs.43.8 billion to reach Rs.118.8 billion by FY 2023 at a CAGR of 22.1 percent, according to a report by the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG). According to the Orbis research, the global sports fantasy gaming market is forecasted to grow from $13 billion to $33 billion by 2025.

Global fantasy leagues market comprised of Fantasy football, Hockey, Baseball, Soccer, Basketball, Car racing and others but in India, the fantasy leagues have been dominated by cricket for the last decade. Now other sports are also getting the opportunity to grow in popularity due to the launches of various leagues in India such as Kabaddi Premier league, Indian soccer league, Hockey league & Volleyball league.

Sports APIs Start-ups are the Driving Force

Fantasy league and API are two sides of a coin and they both co-exist. The unsung heroes of the fantasy league are the API providers who work behind the scene. The APIs are more than just a means of bringing you fantasy games on virtually every screen. They can be used to manage fundamental underpinning of the industry itself. It starts from user experience, stats, reception, yards, touchline, throwing, receiving, rushing, interceptions, field goals, injury reports, projections, projections compared to output and the list goes on. The amount of information flying around in the fantasy world is staggering. APIs are the essential tools that get you all the goodness from the field to your laptop, phone, TV, whatever the analogies running on the screen.

Sports APIs are built based on historical data of each sport and its personalities. Each sports person's actions, characters, style of play, behaviour pattern, the game performance have been systematically captured and have been incorporated in the APIs. The process is really painstaking and requires a lot of concentration to create the API without any errors. A small error would cause a lot of problems in the fantasy league apps.

Sports APIs are not only being used for building a fantasy league, the APIs are also being used by many brands for their customer engagement programmes. In India, the recently concluded IPL and world cup have witnessed lots of brands run a contest for their customers which increased their sales as well. The brands include Bookmyshow, Uber, Zomoto etc.

The Growth

As the fantasy sports grew in the Indian market, simultaneously Indian sports tech companies started to establish themselves in the market by providing necessities APIs to the fantasy league developers and making them easily available. Indian start-ups are making their presence felt in the fantasy market. The existence of sports start-ups gives an edge to the fantasy league market and anybody can build the fantasy league by using the APIs. Start-up companies are offering APIs as a plug-and-play model which is easy to integrate with any given system. They are the driving force for the existence of lots of fantasy leagues and sports contest in India.

We can expect many more start-up companies to come up in India since the fantasy league market has lots of opportunities and space for growth in the start-up ecosystem.