The best apps for sports fanatics

While the big summer of sport has drawn to a close, any sports fanatic will be able to tell you that the fun has only just begun. With new NFL and English Premier League seasons kicking off in August and plenty more to come like the NBA, NHL, international cricket and the rest you don't need a European Cup or Olympics to be enthused about sport. Those who follow all the major competitions would have once had to scour the Internet or satellite television in order to find all the news and results they needed, but now a simple app can do all the leg work for you. Here we've collected together some of the best apps for the gathering and streamlining of sporting headlines. From breakdowns of the latest contests between rival teams to the hottest news about your favourite athletes, these apps deliver you everything you could desire and so much more. But as ever, the question remains, which of these excellent apps has the best balance of facts and functions?

YAHOO! SPORTACULAR(free)

  

Bringing together some of the most popular sports in the world under one banner, the Yahoo! Sports news app is one that we come back to again and again. With dependably regular updates and a solid design, it should fare well in this contest.

CUSTOMISATION

By adding your favorite teams from the MLB, NHL, NFL NCAA, NBA, MLS, and major European football leagues. You can streamline the scores and information, and set up notifications for their games.

RANGE

There's definitely an American focus to this app as all the acronyms would suggest, but this is not an app limited to team sports. Golf, tennis and NASCAR are also represented, with plenty of in depth stats and schedules.

INTERACTIVITY

Before matches begin you can make your predictions as to who will win and compose comments to be shared with others. A map of the US and a globe will show which way ABOVE: Seeing game predictions the majority of opinion is facing, and you can broke down can be insightful compare that to the score later.

PERSONALITY

Sportocular is a pretty dry app that's really beginning to show its age. While it's fairly deep, you don't get the excitement or flair that other apps here manage to capture.

For a few stats and scores it's worth a look, but it lacks in range and features that some newer apps are offering

TEAM STREAM HD (free)

   

With the ability to customize your news feed to follow as many or as few teams across multiple competitions as you wish, Team Stream offers flexibility, it features the up to the minute news and scores that sports fans look for in these apps. 

CUSTOMISATION

Pick your preferred sports and teams to customize the news you want to read about. You can also reorder these feeds to priorities the news, although the homepage features big stories regardless.

RANGE

With teams from all the major North American sports, as well as the English Premier League and the top European football teams, things get off to a good start, but peter out. WWE news is also an option, which is something of a surprise.

INTERACTIVITY

You can choose to share the stories you find via Facebook, Twitter or email, but if it's a Bleacher Report story you can also post comments and get involved in the debate surrounding the top headlines of the day.

PERSONALITY

The Bleacher Report-sourced articles feature excellent images and videos, but you'll also find news from other feeds. In those instances you're just getting the original content, which is a shame.

Team Stream HD has a decent range of content, but it's strongest when sticking to its own newsfeeds

ESPN SCDRECENTER (free)

   

Another stalwart of sporting excellence, ESPN's apps always have grand design, great interfaces and quality content. Throw in some customized feeds and solid stats and you should have the perfect fan-app.

CUSTOMISATION

Put your favorite teams and sports into a custom feed so you can streamline your experience with ESPN. All your teams are collected to gather while your chosen competitions and sports are each given their own panel in the app.

RANGE

From water polo to mixed martial arts the ESPN app offers an excellent range. A good example of this is that the football leagues it covers go well beyond Europe and the US. Most major sports are covered here.

INTERACTIVITY

This is the one area where Score Center falls behind the pack, with no interactive elements in terms of gauging fan opinion. You can set up alerts for the latest sporting headlines, but that's really all you get.

PERSONALITY

Thanks to color-coded sections for each of your favorite sports, strong photography and plenty of video content, this app is great for browsing and makes you feel really welcome. lt brims with joy in what it covers.

Solid content and customization make this a winner every time.

SPORTS REPUBLIC (free)

   

Kind of like Flip board but dedicated to sports, this spin off from the News Republic app is a welcome new addition to the field with some fresh ideas and a fresh design. The fine form also come with good functionality.

CUSTOMIZATION

The tiled homepage of Sports Republic can be filled with subjects chosen by you. Since all the news is brought through from various sources it hunts for tags related to your keywords, to bring you the headlines you want.

RANGE

Since you can add virtually any tag you like to your feed, the range of sports should be very broad indeed, but because Sports Republic is limited to only a few feeds you may not be able to get the sport you want. Live results are also lacking.

INTERACTIVITY

While there are no chatting options for discussing the top stories with like-minded sports fans, you can share your mood on each story. This then becomes another way to search for news.

PERSONALITY

Thanks to its wonderfully animated tile homepage, use of photography and Mood system, Sports Republic is one of the strongest apps in this bunch. it's great fun to browse and delivers news in good time.

                            Wonderfully designed and great for customizing your sports news