The sports websites we have on our desktops and smartphone homepage for ease of access are not random selections so here is my top 10.
It’s safe to say these are our go-to sources for sports news and the selected apps are never slated for sleep.
Below, I list my top 10 selections, some repositories for news stories on a whole raft of sporting codes for the all-round sports enthusiast, others for sport-specific consumers.
10. Planet Football
Planet Football? Who are they? You ask. This list recognises not only the seasoned luminaries, but also the rough diamonds, those works in progress holding a lot of promise.
Planet Football falls into the latter category. To be honest, the website probably belongs in the “one to watch” league, the new kid on the block, a great prospect making waves.
This precocious fledging has all the attributes of a future star. Try them. You will thank me later for the referral.
9. NewsNow/Sport
Makes this list purely for its usefulness as a ‘referral’ resource and headlines aggregator. The portal is the ultimate ‘webcrawler’ indexing the latest sports news headlines from a wide range of publications.
8. Planet Rugby
Arguably the best rugby website out there outside of tournament and rugby governing bodies’ official websites.
The Planet Rugby team have their finger on the pulse of the game, serving up some riveting content and cracking features dissecting the game’s major talking points.
The site belongs to the Planet Sport network of sites which is place to follow the Six Nations.
7. Football365
I have been a huge fan of Football365 for years, a devout disciple of their edgy and quirky editorial style. There are so many features on this website to titillate the football fan’s senses.
The good old Mailbox is still a banger even after all these years.
Mediawatch, too, is another Football365 icon with an enduring appeal. That the Mailbox in particular continues to thrive in the age of the immediacy of interaction offered by social media platforms like Twitter is a nod to good journalism and the F365 team’s uncanny ability to facilitate dialogue with and among football fans.
6. BBC Sport
There is something refreshing about the no frills simplicity of the BBC Sport website – neutral reportage, more facts than conjecture, no click-baiting.
The website exudes the authority of provider of official, fact-based news. With an extensive menu and dedicated pages for all major sporting codes, BBC Sport ticks the right boxes.
Of course, there is the odd rumour, but the kind fans like to read about, especially about football player movement. For the avoidance of confusion, gossip is labelled accordingly, with rumours attributed to source.
5. Flashscore
It’s a toss-up between a host of live score type sites – Flashscore, Fotmob, SofaScore and LiveScore in this battle of live score websites, with the former taking it by the slimmest of margins.
I don’t care much for Flashscore’s football text commentary, which tends to be templated (undisguisedly formulaic in parts) laced with football descriptor clichés like “the goalkeeper leaped like a salmon to stop the shot from going in,” or “Ronaldo gets on the scoresheet with a fantastic strike,” only to discover that the “fantastic strike” was actually a fortuitous goal with the help of a wicked deflection.
Other than that, I love the Flashscore user experience on the whole. The live score feed itself is brilliant.
In some jurisdictions the feed is a good few seconds ahead of the live TV broadcast feed. Like most, I have this habit of keeping an eye on the Flashscore App to keep tabs on other matches while watching one on TV.
Ofttimes I discover on Flashscore that there has been a goal in the live match I’m watching as many as 10 seconds before the goal arrives on TV.
4. NFL.com
It’s rare for official sports bodies’ websites to wow fans with their content.
They tend to be rather ‘plain vanilla’ with a focus on informing and communicating official developments.
The NFL website, with a cult-like following, bucks the trend. It reflects the uproarious spirit and energetic character of the game. It is unsurprising therefore that the website has established itself as the sport’s official bible.
3. Goal.com
I don’t expect there to be consensus on this one, because they are tens and tens of good football websites out there.
So, it boils down to personal preferences and what one is looking for on a football website.
Fifa.com, for example, is great, but the bulk of the content there has the sterility of official communication.
It’s not as captivating. By contrast, Goal has soul and the content is engaging. For me, this is what makes it the crème de la crème of football websites.
2. Cricbuzz
Far and away the crown jewel of cricket websites.
Cricbuzz has it all – an eclectic mix of news, live scores, features, opinion pieces, live match running text commentary, a gold mine of archives and therefore a useful research resource, etc.
Want to know who is playing where and when? No problem.
Cricbuzz has all schedules for international and domestic cricket. This website is as good as its content contributors.
Cricbuzz boasts the Who’s Who of cricket writers, knowledgeable pundits and keen students of the game.
1. SkySports – SkyGo
While the Sky Sport website is the ultimate sports content factory and warehouse – The SkyGo App is the supreme experience for watching live games.
With isle upon isle of content stacked on their shelves, from mainstream sports content to esoteric offerings and coverage of obscure disciplines, shopping for sports content at SkySports is an experience akin to that of a kid in a candy store.
The website has everything, and what SkySports doesn’t have is probably not worth having.
