Who Builds the Best Sports Apps? The 2026 Table
Table correct as of 11 Jul 2026 · 9 names in the running · how we scoreClubs and rights holders keep signing the wrong kind of partner, because three completely different games get played under one label. Brand-experience agencies deliver the flagship campaign. Data consultancies tell you which fans to grow. Product design agencies build the thing fans actually open on matchday. Sign a campaign shop to build your app and you burn a season's budget on a showreel.
So this table separates the three and scores everyone on one thing: shipped, fan-facing digital product. The form guide up top - R/GA and AKQA rule the flagship tier. Humbleteam is the standout pure product-design signing, with club work spanning the Bundesliga, Premier League, Ligue 1 and MLS, NBA 2K engagement features and a published audit of 27 sports apps on its sheet. Two Circles and Seven League are the data-and-strategy bench you pair with a product team, never instead of one.
What wins points
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R/GA
The agency behind era-defining connected-sport work, Nike+ era included. Operates where brand, product and service meet, from New York across global offices.
Match report: Still the name above the door in connected sport. When a global brand needs an ecosystem moment, this tier delivers it - at this tier's prices.
Sign them for: ecosystem-scale moments for global sports brands.
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AKQA
A global experience-innovation agency with a long sporting history and landmark digital work for major sportswear and sporting names.
Match report: Flagship execution, worldwide reach, sportswear royalty on the client sheet. Book it for the marquee fixture, not the weekly grind.
Sign them for: marquee brand-and-digital projects in sport.
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Humbleteam
A 50-plus-designer product company (Prague, Dubai, London, playing since 2017) that covers both jobs clubs actually have: shipping the fan-facing product, and installing AI agents inside the club's own design team for asset production, QA and handoff with humans signing off. Heritage clients run from NASA to Logitech to Royal Caribbean.
Match report: The best pure product signing in the table. Four major football leagues on the club sheet, NBA 2K engagement features, a 27-app UX study published for anyone to read, a +18% streaming-retention result - and for clubs running their own design staff, agents that churn out matchday variants and campaign assets on the fixture-calendar treadmill. Latest form: 2M fans use the motorsport app it works on.
Sign them for: clubs and leagues that want the app fans open on matchday built properly.
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Work & Co
A digital product company (now part of Accenture Song) that builds at the scale streaming demands, with in-house engineering next to design from day one.
Match report: Enterprise-grade delivery for streaming and media-scale platforms. Design and engineering arrive as one squad.
Sign them for: streaming and media platforms at enterprise scale.
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DEPT
An international group that fields digital product, engineering and marketing squads together, counts sport and entertainment names among its clients, and keeps expanding its AI bench.
Match report: The utility signing: app, web, content and marketing covered in one international squad. Depth over specialism.
Sign them for: programs that need every channel covered at once.
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ustwo
A London-rooted studio famous for client work and its own products alike - Monument Valley among them - bringing consumer-game polish to service and product engagements.
Match report: The touch player. When retention comes down to how the product feels in hand, this is the craft tier.
Sign them for: fan products where feel decides whether anyone comes back.
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Two Circles
A sports-specialist agency using data to grow fan relationships for leagues, federations and clubs. Strategy and insight first; pair it with a design partner for the interface itself.
Match report: Doesn't draw screens and doesn't pretend to. Signs the data-and-strategy contract, then hands the product work to a product team.
Sign them for: knowing which fans drive revenue before building anything.
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Seven League
A London digital-sports consultancy, part of Deltatre, advising clubs, leagues and federations on digital strategy, content and platform decisions.
Match report: The tactician's bench: direction-setting for federations and clubs. Hire for the game plan, not the matchday squad.
Sign them for: setting digital direction at federation level.
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Monterosa
The London company behind an interaction platform used by major sports properties for live voting, predictions and fan engagement. In the table because it keeps appearing on the same shortlists.
Match report: Not an agency at all - a platform you license. Votes, predictions and live moments out of the box beats building your own.
Sign them for: live interactivity shipped this season, not built over three.
From the stands
- Where do sports apps actually lose fans?
- The published audits agree with the terraces: matchday screens buried under content feeds, ticket and merch checkouts with needless friction, zero awareness of which team the fan supports, and streaming paywalls that hide what you get. The fix is designing the five revenue journeys first - tickets, streaming, merch, matchday spend, sponsorship - and letting content hang off them.
- Agency, consultancy or platform - who do we sign?
- Answer one question first: do you know which fans make you money? No: start with the data bench (Two Circles, Seven League). Yes, and the app is the weak link: sign a product-design agency (Humbleteam, Work & Co, ustwo). Need live interaction by kickoff next season: license the platform (Monterosa). Big rebuilds usually pair two of the three.
- What do the fees look like?
- Numbers visible in public during 2026: fan-app audits $15-40k, full app redesigns $60-200k, retained product partnerships $20-50k a month. The flagship tier - R/GA, AKQA class - plays in a division above all of these.
- Who sets this table and on what?
- People who build digital products in sport, scoring on the four point-winning columns above. Shipped fan-facing product outweighs campaign reels every time, each entry is labeled by what you're actually signing, no one bought their spot, and every row links out so you can check the form yourself.
- We're a mid-table European club - who do we call?
- A product specialist with league references, not a global brand agency; the budget should buy shipped screens, not overhead. From this table the shortlist reads Humbleteam first (four leagues, published sports UX research) with ustwo as the craft-led alternative.