Use SportsPress to Build Incredible WordPress Sites for Clients
Last Updated July 27th, 2023
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A long time ago, before WordPress became the standard software for publishing content on the web, our agency built custom systems for professional sports teams. Our clients were mostly baseball teams but we handled other sports on occasion as well. We had to build everything from scratch for the teams to manage all of the information their fans demanded: results, schedules, player information, statistics, etc. Now, thanks to SportsPress, all of this can be done inside of WordPress quite easily.
SportsPress, from ThemeBoy, is an all-in-one WordPress plugin solution that is unmatched in the sports space. Let’s take a look at how the base plugin, and its growing list of extensions, can help you build a sports website for any future client projects you might encounter.
What Exactly is SportsPress?
The free version of SportsPress has countless features that enable you to transform your WordPress blog into a fully configurable team, club, or league website. Many features are available such as:
- Automated standings
- Statistics
- League table configuration
- Sport presets
- Data Importing
- Clubs and Teams management
- Players and staff management
- Compatibility with WPML
You can also use free extensions like SportsPress for Baseball, SportsPress for Basketball, SportsPress for Cricket, SportsPress for Football (Soccer), SportsPress for Golf, and SportsPress for Volleyball with the plugin to ease your task.
Plugin Details
This plugin was originally published by its owner in November of 2013. It is currently on version 2.7.22 and last experienced a revision on September 19th, 2024. The newest release operates on WordPress 6.4.5. This plugin is now operating on over 10,000 WordPress sites. It has had over 874,570 downloads. There have been 36 support requests with a 72% response rate. SportsPress – Sports Club & League Manager has ok support from its developer. Reviews for SportsPress – Sports Club & League Manager are very positive. Many of the end-users who left an evaluation found this plugin to be great.
Security Issues and Vulnerabilities
There have been 2 recorded security or vulnerability issues with SportsPress. All of those security problems have been fixed. Here are the details:
| Date | Description | Fixed? |
|---|---|---|
| 11/16/21 | Reflected Cross-Site Scripting This was a medium concern issue that was fixed in version 2.7.8. | Yes |
| 6/7/20 | Cross-Site Scripting This was a medium concern issue that was fixed in version 2.7.2. | Yes |
The pro version of SportsPress offers more advanced sports functionality related to WordPress website integration, sports data addition, club management, event management, automated statistics, and publishing.
Three purchase plans provide you premium license for one year. They are:
- Club costs $99 for 1 site and is best suited for teams and small clubs
- League costs $199 for unlimited sites and is best suited for leagues and larger clubs
- Agency costs $499 for unlimited sites and updates forever.
After the license expires, you can renew it for 50% off the original price. Additionally, you are provided a 30-day money-back guarantee with every purchase.
SportsPress Extensions and Third-Party Plugins
Now, let’s take a look at the extensions and third-party plugins available for SportsPress. These will help add additional features you won’t find in the base plugin.
SportsPress for Football (Soccer)
Use the football/soccer extension to turn your WordPress installation into a fully functional website for a soccer team. This is one of the rare examples of WordPress soccer plugins you can find. It offers soccer branding for SportsPress, an interface for managing fixtures and results, plus support for football field maps and information displays. It even supports properly reporting own goals.
Plugin Details
This plugin was originally published by its owner in September of 2015. It is currently on version 0.9.6 and last saw a revision on August 27th, 2020. The latest edition functions on WordPress 5.5.15. This plugin is currently running on over 6,000 WordPress sites. It has had over 95,120 downloads. There have not been many help requests from end-users. SportsPress for Football (Soccer) does not have any reviews. It’s not easy to tell what the WordPress community thinks about it yet.
SportsPress for Basketball
The basketball extension for SportsPress lets you extend the main plugin to help you build sites for basketball teams. Some noteworthy features include basketball branding to WordPress admin, features to help you manage basketball games and results, support for basketball court data and maps, and handling roster starting lineups and benches.
Plugin Details
This plugin was first released by its developer in November of 2016. It is currently on version 0.9.1 and last experienced a change on August 27th, 2020. The newest update runs on WordPress 5.5.15. This plugin is now operating on over 2,000 WordPress sites. It has had over 35,370 downloads. There have not been many help requests from end-users. SportsPress for Basketball does not have any reviews. It’s not easy to tell what the WordPress community thinks about it yet.
SportsPress for Baseball
The SportsPress baseball extension helps you finish off your baseball team website with additional features. This extension gives you the power to properly handle baseball game schedules and results. It provides support for baseball field data and maps for information. It also helps you deal with annoying baseball quirks like partial inning statistics using decimal notation. Something we have struggled with in our own projects in the past.
Plugin Details
This product was originally released by its owner in April of 2016. It is presently on version 1.0.2 and last experienced an update on August 27th, 2020. The most recent version works on WordPress 5.5.15. This plugin is actively working on over 900 WordPress sites. It has had over 13,210 downloads. There have not been many help requests from customers. Reviews for this plugin are very positive. Many of the users who left a piece of feedback found this plugin to be great.
SportsPress for Cricket
You can use the SportsPress cricket extension to unlock features to help you complete your cricket-focused website. This extension makes it easier to handle cricket schedules and results. It helps you manage the calculation of totals and extras and has special presentation options for handling players. For example, you can show players who did not bat separately in their own area of the site.
Plugin Details
This plugin was first released by its owner in September of 2015. It is currently on version 1.1.4 and last saw a change on August 27th, 2020. The most recent edition works on WordPress 5.5.15. This plugin is currently operating on over 500 WordPress sites. It has had over 16,200 downloads. There have not been many assistance requests from users. Reviews for SportsPress for Cricket are very positive. Many of the users who left a review found this plugin to be great.
SportsPress for Volleyball
The volleyball extension helps you improve your SportsPress-powered volleyball website with additional features and options. It provides a suite of volleyball tools to better help you in handling volleyball schedules and match results. You can also create a libero and starting lineup selection using custom 4-state checkboxes.
Plugin Details
This piece of software was originally published by its creator in July of 2019. It is now on version 0.9 and last had a revision on August 27th, 2020. The most recent update works on WordPress 5.5.15. This plugin is presently functioning on over 500 WordPress websites. It has had over 3,910 downloads. There have not been many support requests from end-users. SportsPress for Volleyball does not have any reviews. It’s not easy to tell what the WordPress community thinks about it yet.
SportsPress for Golf
Seamlessly convert your WordPress installation into a fully configurable golf website with the SportsPress golf extension. We have built plenty of golf-related websites in our time. This combination of SportsPress and the golf extension would have been a huge time saver. The extension features a suite of golf tools, including scorecards, courses, holes per round, par per hole, handicap adjustments, leaderboards, and individual player profiles.
Plugin Details
This plugin was first published by its owner in September of 2015. It is actively on version 0.9.1 and last experienced a change on August 27th, 2020. The latest edition functions on WordPress 5.5.15. This plugin is presently operating on over 200 WordPress sites. It has had over 7,350 downloads. There have not been many assistance requests from customers. Reviews for SportsPress for Golf are very positive. Many of the users who left an evaluation found SportsPress for Golf to be useful.
SportsPress for Ice Hockey
If you want to build a fully configurable ice hockey team website, the ice hockey extension is your best choice. The plugin provides numerous hockey tools, including ice hockey admin branding and terminology. You can also get and display game schedules, arena information, and maps. There aren’t many hockey-related WordPress tools out there so every feature this offers can help.
Plugin Details
This plugin was initially released by its developer in October of 2019. It is now on version 0.9 and last underwent an update on October 11th, 2019. The most recent edition works on WordPress 5.2.21. This plugin is now running on over 100 WordPress sites. It has had over 14,360 downloads. There have not been many help requests from customers. Reviews for SportsPress for Ice Hockey are very positive. Many of the end-users who left a piece of feedback found this plugin to be wonderful.
Live Scores
Finally, let’s look at some third-party SportsPress plugins not made by the developers of SportsPress. Live Scores for SportsPress is a third-party plugin that lets you display live scores to your WordPress website visitors. You define the structure of the sport (periods, time-outs, etc.) and then add in data as it happens during each game. This is a great way to integrate the kind of information sports site visitors are constantly looking for. And you can do it without having to do a lot of programming on your own.
Plugin Details
This plugin was originally released by its developer in November of 2017. It is presently on version 1.9.2 and last experienced an update on April 17th, 2022. The latest update runs on WordPress 5.9.10 and requires at least PHP 5.6 to run on your server. This plugin is currently working on over 300 WordPress websites. It has had over 24,040 downloads. There have not been many help requests from customers. Reviews for this plugin are very positive. Many of the end-users who left an evaluation found Live Scores for SportsPress to be excellent.
Security Issues and Vulnerabilities
There have been 2 recorded security or vulnerability issues with Live Scores for SportsPress. All of those security problems have been fixed. Here are the details:
| Date | Description | Fixed? |
|---|---|---|
| 8/24/21 | Authenticated (Admin+) Local File Inclusion This was a high concern issue that was fixed in version 1.9.0. | Yes |
| 8/24/21 | Reflected Cross-Site Scripting This was a medium concern issue that was fixed in version 1.9.0. | Yes |
With the premium version, you get access to features like live event commentary that lets you add comments on the event page so your visitors know what is happening on the field, custom commentary icons, live notifications integration, auto-start an event, and add a player picture to the commentary.
League Table Importer
Here’s our last SportsPress plugin from a third-party developer. As the name suggests, League Table Importer for SportsPress enables you to import league tables into SportsPress with little hassle. You can select an existing league table to update, match the imported teams with the existing teams, or have the team automatically created if it does not exist. The plugin supports Excel 2007 and above (.xslx format) and XML. This is a huge time saver as well if you have a lot of old data, in spreadsheet format, that you want to add to a site quickly.
Plugin Details
This plugin was first released by its creator in November of 2015. It is presently on version 1.1 and last saw a revision on January 6th, 2016. The latest version works on WordPress 4.4.33. This plugin is actively running on over 80 WordPress sites. It has had over 3,400 downloads. There have not been many assistance requests from end-users. Reviews for this plugin are very positive. Many of the customers who left an evaluation found this plugin to be great.
Save Time and Money Building Sports Websites
The main plugin, and all of the extensions we discussed here today, are available for download at WordPress.org. You can also install and activate all of these plugins from within the WordPress admin. The base SportsPress plugin is free and the extensions we discuss here are as well. Of course, you will have to pay for SportsPress Pro to get additional features you might find useful for your project.
SportsPress is one of the most niche, but versatile, plugins available in WordPress today. There are so many sports teams (professional and amateur) that could take advantage of its feature set combined with the base WordPress content management system. You can see why, over time, it’s become quite popular with WordPress developers and agencies building websites for their sports clients.
Don’t waste your time writing your own tools to handle common sports website tasks like handling player profiles, statistics, and scheduling. Give SportsPress a try and, combined with the right extensions, you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle.
How to White Label WordPress Sports Sites
Are you here as a WordPress developer looking for help for your sports-related client? You might be interested in learning more about our White Label WordPress plugin before you go. Our plugin is designed to allow you to customize and adjust the WordPress admin experience for your clients. The goal is to make your life, and the life of your clients, easier by removing confusion from WordPress. You can hide menu items, rename them complete, and build custom dashboard experiences. White Label also has rebranding features so you can match the admin to your client’s logo and colors easily. Take a look at the entire feature list to learn more about what the plugin can do for you and your projects.
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