How cool would it be to run your own sports website about your favorite team or game? Now you can, with a simple, inexpensive WordPress plugin
People who follow sports websites want to know about the latest games, the results, receive a glimpse of the news, and often teams and players need their own profiles. That's why sports websites require dynamic themes because the information on one page never remains the same for long.
New performance points are added to a player's profile, a tournament chart undergoes some eliminations, or game results are put up. In order to first create a design suitable for a sports website, and then to ensure that this design can be dynamic enough to accommodate all of these updates, you will definitely need a set of tools specially created for these purposes. In this list are 10 of the best plugins that provide these tools.
Don't be afraid to jump in and build your own website about your favorite team, or your favorite game. Though there are many big players in this industry, there's always room for niche websites with unique content and insight. Anyone can do anything on the internet, especially with the help of WordPress websites and plugins. I think you'll be surprised at how popular independent websites are because they are closer to the “real” fans, rather than huge conglomerate websites that make decisions based on the bottom line, instead of true fandom!
Not all of these plugins are aimed at tracking game scores and player standings though. Some focus on news, ecommerce, or general fitness as well, so see which plugin fits your own website or business goals.
Big Slam
The plugin's visual capabilities would beat most of its competitors hands-down.
The first one on this list is among the top sellers in its categories, with more than 110,000 websites operating with it. It is particularly recommended for sports teams' websites. The theme provides you with all the structure needed to run a proper website for a sports team. You get to customize lists of events and players, and you can have pages for every single player, game, or team. The theme is fully compatible with SportsPress, which means it supports search engines, automated standings, and profiles for the teams, players, and staff.
These separate posts can include as much information as you want. The plugin comes with an amazing drag-and-drop page builder, which means you can customize and stylize your pages as easily as possible. It's actually the Revolution Slider content builder, which usually costs in the range of $19, but is offered through Big Slam for free. The demo importer can also take a lot of the work off your hands because you can control the scope of the imported content without complexities. The plugin also has a collection of 19 header styles which you can pick from and edit through the page builder.
Big Slam also comes with a Google Fonts library which includes 770 fonts, as well as 14 blog layouts, 9 portfolio layouts, and 6 gallery layouts. You are allowed to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and several other multimedia sources.
The admin interface is quite simple for anyone who can work with WordPress. Its separate interface is in many ways similar to the WordPress dashboard, although it more advanced in certain aspects. All of your content will be fully-adaptable to any of the major devices. Finally, the content generated through this plugin is automatically optimized for search engines.
SportsPress Pro
- https://www.themeboy.com/sportspress-pro/
- Price: Club License ($99) – League License ($199) – Agency License ($499)
SportsPress Pro covers all aspects of a sports website, and it enables you to manage massive amounts of content without having to struggle.
That's one of the smartest plugins generally, not just in the sports category. It enables you to run a comprehensive sports website and stay in keeping with the recent updates. The plugin lets you install fully-automated standings. They can calculate based on the latest score updates and sort the teams by a certain column. It lets you highlight your home team on the table so that it does not get lost in the changes. In the latest version, a feature was added to the plugin that makes it decide between two teams who are in a tie. It analyzes all of the data for the matches they played and does the tiebreaking. To keep it even smarter, you get to create special equations for any sport. The plugin comes with a drag-and-drop interface for such purposes.
Such real-time update capabilities work wonders for event management. You can create the events and display the venue information to your staff and players along with Google Maps for guidance. The plugin also enables you to set the lineup on the website, and lately, you can keep track of each individual player's performance during an event and display the details in a timeline with icons and put it into a match report. You can add animated bar graphs to depict the match stats as well.
There are different layouts for each of these functions, including the calendar, list, and blocks layouts. Even your players will be able to build some well-designed profiles for themselves. The same goes for the staff. You can install leaderboards in order to keep rank your players by performance and different leaderboards can be based on different statistics. Finally, you will find the tournament layout quite easy to organize, and it supports single and double elimination, which guarantees that the updates and the management of the tournament page will not be a hassle.
Real Soccer
- https://themeforest.net/item/real-soccer
- Price: $59
This plugin now has enough features to run websites in any major sport out there.
As obvious from its name, this plugin is a theme especially customized for soccer-related websites. It lets the players create profiles for themselves, sorts players into lists, and can be used to cover multiple teams as it is equipped to manage entire leagues. You can use it to install league tables, fixtures & results, and issue match reports.
The plugin provides you with a high-quality page builder to use in setting up your own designs for each page based on its functions. The Master Slider plugin which is sold for $23 is built into this plugin. You can use it to make animated transitions and apply sliders to your videos. If you don't want to bother yourself with all of that, there are templates that come with the plugin ready-made and only needing to be filled. Real Soccer gives you access to Google Fonts and Font Awesome, both of which you can use to stylize your website's fonts. If you have an online store on your website, you can integrate the plugin with WooCommerce.
WP Soccer
- https://themeforest.net/item/wp-soccer
- Price: $55
WP Soccer can turn your website into a comprehensive, up to the minute source regarding any sport you wish.
Although its name implies that it is limited to soccer websites, this plugin is actually very flexible both in terms of the sports it can cover and in the type of coverage. It can be used in the creation of a website for a single team, and at the same time work with a magazine news website. It gives you all of the tools and you can deploy them as you wish. You can install players lists, league tables, point charts, individual player profiles, team profiles, and fixtures & results. The same features can work with soccer just as much as they would work with American football, rugby, cricket or golf. Feed it the information and it will take care of the rest.
The WordPress Megamenu plugin is built into this plugin. It is an extraordinary content builder that is very popular on its own. WP Soccer also comes with 2 templates for the homepages and 6 color styles that you can apply anywhere. You can set up spaces for news highlights, embedded videos, recent results, breaking news, and where you can carry out soccer polls.
You can integrate the plugin with WooCommerce in order to run your online sports shop. WP Soccer is also translation ready and can be turned into any language you wish.
SportAK
- https://themeforest.net/item/sport-wordpress
- Price: $59
With SportAK, you can manage your entire website and make all of the adjustments and updates you need on the frontend.
SportAK was originally customized for soccer websites, but as it expanded its functionality, websites concerned with other sports have been using it. It has the tools to organize any sort of sports-related content. It provides you with some unique design layouts, each with a certain function in mind. There are layouts for player profiles, others for team profiles, and so on for coming soon and maintenance pages. If you want to set up an online store, there is a layout for that as well.
The best part is that all of these features are accessible via a frontend design tool specially designed or WordPress. That means that whatever level of expertise you hold, you will definitely be able to deal with this one. There are some third-party plugins that SportAK uses. These include the WPBakery Visual Composer, JP Widget Visibility, and Contact Form 7.
Tennis Club
- https://themeforest.net/item/tennis-club
- Price: $59
This plugin can enable you to customize and manage an entire website for your tennis club, center, or player.
Tennis deserves its own spot on the list. This plugin is equipped with all the tools needed to run a website concerned with any aspect of tennis. The theme is made to support websites dedicated to sports centers, personal trainers, sports reviews, tennis clubs/schools, tournaments, and sports stores. Tennis Club uses Visual Composer, which has all the features you might need to adjust the theme as you wish.
Another plugin that Tennis Club has built-in is Booked Appointment, which enables users to book tennis courts or training sessions. The events calendar can be set up to send notifications to users for any upcoming tennis events. Tennis Club is also WooCommerce-friendly, so you can integrate it with WooCommerce and run your own tennis apparel & equipment store right there on your website.
Gameday
- https://themeforest.net/item/gameday
- Price: $39
Gameday is one of the best themes for multimedia display thanks to its slideshow feature. Sports news websites need that touch.
There's a lot that Gameday has to offer despite its relatively modest price. You can transform your whole website with it. First off, the plugin utilizes Thela Post Slider, a plugin that is used in the creation of dynamic pages. You can use its features to create a slideshow for your posts or pages. The posts can include video and audio content. Gameday also allows you to install a scoreboard that you can customize your own way. You can dedicate your homepage to featured headlines, which can include background images, titles, and an excerpt. That can be done with a drag-and-drop page builder.
The plugin can integrate with WooCommerce and bbPress. The former will help you run an online store and the latter can turn your website into a public forum. You can use the plugin to increase your ad units/spaces, which can include wallpaper ads. All of the features are adjustable for mobile/tablet navigation.
Symetrio
Symetrio answers to every need that a fitness and gymnastics website can need in order to operate well.
That's one for the gyms, fitness clubs, and health centers. Personal trainers looking to set up their own website can use this theme as well. Gyms and fitness clubs tend to provide various services and sports. You can have dancing, boxing, mixed martial arts, and CrossFit in the same gym. That's what the plugin is customized for. It enables you to manage events, classes, schedules, and display opening hours. It also facilitates payment and therefore gives you wider registration management capabilities. Recently, Symetrio was updated to integrate with PayPal.
There is a wide range of design templates that come with the plugin, each made to fit for a certain sport or activity. There are templates for personal trainers, extreme events, dance schools, hardcore bodybuilding, fight clubs, marathon events, etc. These designs are generated via Visual Composer and are animated using Revolution Slider, both of which are integrated into the plugin.
Kickoff Sports Club
You can use this plugin's page-builder to create magnificent designs within the original theme.
Kickoff is a theme designed to fit a wide range of sports. It has various designs and layout options that can fulfill multiple purposes, and the plugin's Xpress Page Builder enables you to create layouts from scratch if you don't find what suits you perfectly. You can use the plugin to manage fixtures, results, and player profiles. There are also table and team management features that come in handy with regards to tournaments or leagues.
The plugin comes with built-in WooCommerce integration, meaning that you can use all of WooCommerce's features to design your online shop directly from inside the plugin. Photoshop files come with the purchase of Kickoff, and you can use them to set up the application and use it to edit your website. Finally, the plugin integrates with bbPress and BuddyPress, both of which are forum plugins, as well as Event Manager Pro.
Sportsline
- https://themeforest.net/item/sportsline
- Price: $55
Sportsline is your best choice for running a sports news website.
This plugin best suits sports news websites, although it is also used for teams, players, and agencies. You can use Sportsline to install match fixtures to your website, and you can specify widgets for the display of match results, and there is a widget format that can show up to five recent results at a time. There are multiple news styles that the plugin supports, and you can add image galleries to the posts.
Sportsline is WooCommerce-ready, meaning that you can integrate it with the WooCommerce plugin and set up your own shop. It's also translation-ready, and it already comes in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish.
All of these features can be installed using shortcodes, and the plugin comes with a shortcode builder that will exempt you from even having to find the shortcodes yourself. The content is customized to be SEO-friendly.
What About Traffic & Conversions?
Plugins are great when they solve specific problems in an elegant way. They can make your website work better, engage your audience, and build your brand.
A plugin won't autogenerate traffic or guarantee conversions though. It won't magically turn your website into a thriving, cash-generating online business
Get trained on how to start your affiliate marketing business. Build organic search engine traffic, and start converting visitors into money in your pocket!
Nathaniell
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