Every Major Sporting Event Needs the Masters App Treatment
ANGC deserves all the credit in the world for this marvel of sports entertainment that no one else has figured out how to copy
This is far from an original take; indeed, I’ve seen at least a dozen articles in the last week excited for the Masters if only because it means we all get to use the greatest sports entertainment app ever made (here are a few, along with some big-time tweets). But, given my recent obsession with multi-view, I think it’s worth calling out the features of the Masters app that work so well and ruminate a bit on why no one else can get close to matching what Augusta National has managed for years now.
Live Scores Everywhere
Current scores are on darn near every page of the app. The very top of the home page, somewhere on every broadcast option, and against every player on your fantasy team. The only places you can be and not know exactly where the tournament stands is on news pages or browsing the full roster of players (though you see their scores on their own page as soon as you tap through).
When you’re using the Masters app, you pretty much always know who’s leading the Masters tournament. That’s table stakes, but its surprising how hard that can be to do in some sports apps.
Favorites That Work
Favoriting a player in the Masters app makes their score more visible, but not at the expense of losing the context of the tournament. You’ll see stars next to their names on each leaderboard, and you can watch them in a custom “My Group” broadcast that whips around to every shot one of your favorites hits. They also have their own separate leaderboard at the top of that page. But it’s never hard to find the rest of the field or understand what the leaderboard on-site reads. Both ESPN and The Athletic over-emphasize favorites and often make it hard to find anything else, and I think the Masters has found a better balance.
Broadcast Options & Customization
If all you could watch was the aforementioned “My Group” and the primary broadcast, this still might be best-in-class. But that’s not all you can do - you can also watch featured groups coverage (the Masters decides who’s featured), consistent holes to watch each group coming through (there are 3 options here), and the range feed (great in the morning).
If all you could do is quickly switch between all of those, this would undoubtedly be best-in-class. And that’s still not all - you can multi-view any of those feeds to have up to 4 running at the same time. No other live event app even touches the Masters here.
Replays With Highlights
With all that live content, who has time for replays? In the rare event that you miss live action that mattered, you can go to any player’s scorecard, tap into a hole, and watch them play it. You can even see exactly where in the clip each shot happens and skip ahead to whichever shot you want.
Integrated Fantasy
The Masters has its own fantasy competition embedded right into the app. You don’t need another app, you just need to change tabs. And your fantasy score is on your homepage!
Meanwhile, ESPN is well aware of my fantasy football roster(s) but I’ll still never even see relevant news, let alone scores, in the main app…
Why Can’t Anyone Else Do This?
At the end of the day, it comes down to money. Every other broadcaster/rights holder wants to make as much as possible, and Augusta doesn’t. They want to optimize the “patron” experience top-to-bottom, and their app (and ownership of the broadcast) are an extension of that. It’s amazing what can happen when you’re not trying to make as much ad revenue as possible.
This edition of Huddle Up from
explores how that impacts the rest of the tournament, and you can see how it bleeds into the digital experience.
This is one of my favorite weekends of the year, and this app being as good as it is is honestly a big reason why. Let’s have a weekend.