There are a lot of sports apps out there, and while a lot of them are good they’ve never really been for me. I’m as diehard a sports fan as they come and I only have two sports apps on my phone. One, for checking scores of games and the other in my opinion is a must have. Team Stream by Bleacher Report. Team Stream in my opinion is great because of how amazingly customizable your experience can be. With most sports apps you’re getting a lot of information. This information may not relevant or interesting and it can be a pain to find what you’re actually looking for.
Team Stream allows you to customize your sports news experience. As soon as you first open the app you are asked to let the app know what your favourite teams are. I for example searched and selected the Montreal Canadians, Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto Raptors and San Diego Chargers. After selecting my teams the app now shows me news stories related to those teams. I always have the option to remove or add more teams and you can even select certain players. For example, maybe I’m not a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, but I want news on Sidney Crosby, I can search his name and add him to my profile and all stories related to him will also show up in my feed.
Another great feature of the app is that it allows you to display your news feed in 3 different ways. The first shows you stories related to what you have told the app you like, plus any stories that are trending. The second way is to only show stories related to what you’ve said you like, so trending stories are eliminated if they don’t relate to teams and players you’ve selected. Thirdly, you can sort specifically by a team or player. For example, I can go to the list of teams I’ve liked and tap on San Diego Chargers and request that my feed only show me Chargers related stories.
This is easily my favourite sports app and I would recommend it to any fan out there. It’s aesthetically appealing, very intuitive and provides a fantastic user experience.
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– Josh
Great review, Josh! With so many different teams and sports out there, I can see why an app like this would be really helpful to drown out all that noise and get you the news and info you actually care about. I’d say a lot of users are looking for simplicity and a level of flexibility in the apps they use and it looks like Team Stream does a great job at this. Thanks for sharing!
What a great idea for an app. While I don’t have any sports apps on my phone, a lot of my friends do and I see their notifications blow up on their phone with all the latest scores of different teams playing. I’ve often heard a lot of them complaining about being bombarded with notifications that aren’t really relevant to their interest so I think being able to pick and choose your teams is a great feature that more apps should utilize!
Sounds like a great app for any hard-core sports fan. Does the app have an equally user-friendly desktop version? If so, which do you utilize more? If not, do you think it would benefit from one? (I can imagine people at work looking to check scores, highlights, and news might find it easier, and less obvious, to check a website rather than their phones).
Great review Josh. This sounds like a great app I might have to check it out. I’ve always had the problem of sports apps sending me a message of the scoreline automatically, which ruins the match if I don’t catch it live. Does Team Stream only show the score once you open it?
Glad you enjoyed the review! Drowning out the noise and just getting news on teams and players I care about is definitely the big appeal of this app.
I shared the same frustration as a lot of your friends. Sports apps are great to stay connected and in the know, but 99% of the notifications I was getting from them were about topics I wasn’t interested in. This is great because it only gives me updates relevant to what I’ve told the app I’m interested in.
The app does have a desktop version. I don’t have an account, but it looks similar to the mobile version. I prefer the mobile version, I don’t want to have to get my laptop out and go the the website just to check for small updates and scores. My phone is always with me so I get the scores right away and it’s easy to to just swipe away a notification if it’s not something I’m interested in.
Thanks! It is a really good app, but it does have the issue you’re describing. It shows a notification on your phone, but you have to engage with it to see what it actually says. So it won’t just pop a score up on your phone and ruin the game for you, but you don’t know what the notification is until you open it.
Ugh, I am constantly watching my boyfriend’s phone blow up with tweets and “thescore” reports on EVERY.SINGLE.GAME. Tailoring an app to only specific teams is a great way to keep in touch with the things you want to hear. I could see myself keeping in touch with my Toronto favourites like Amir Johnson, especially because I want to see that he’s doing well in his other ball endeavours, even if he’s not on our team this year. I wouldn’t want to keep up with the Celtics though :P.