Sports nuts to ring up $3.8 billion in mobile content by 2011

HAMPSHIRE, England-Sports-related mobile offerings will explode from a $1 billion market this year to $3.8 billion by 2011, according to new projections from Juniper Research.
The market research group said wireless sports content and services will see an annual growth rate of 27 percent over the next five years, accounting for 40 percent of the overall sports, leisure and information content market by 2011. European users will fuel that growth, accounting for 40 percent of revenues, while Asia-Pacific consumers will account for one-third of revenues. Less than 20 percent of revenues will come from a “rapidly growing” North American market, the firm said.
But those forecasts will be met only if the industry addresses key problems regarding the user experience for such services, Research Director Bruce Gibson warned.
“This will only happen if everyone in the value chain pays attention to detail,” Gibson said. “End-user experience in some markets of mobile sports content services built around the 2006 FIFA World Cup has not been consistently good. Many new users of sports services have been disappointed with the quality of the deliverable and may never buy again.”