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• New Follow Player feature lets fans track their favourite basketball and ice hockey players with real-time notifications, including NBA and NHL

• The NBA competition page received over 1.1 billion opens last season alone, demonstrating the market appetite for more detailed match statistics fans want to access

• This follows the launch of the platform across football in September, activated by 1.3 million fans so far

Flashscore, the world’s most popular live scores and sports news app, has expanded its Follow Player functionality to basketball and ice hockey, allowing users to get real-time updates on their favourite basketball and ice hockey stars in the NBA, NHL and other leagues.

The launch follows the success of the feature for global football fans, launched in September. Within two months of being launched, 1.3 million fans are actively using Follow Player for football, averaging five players each, resulting in around 6.5 million player favourites.

The enhancement allows Flashscore’s 100 million-plus monthly users to add up to 100 of their favourite players to receive personalised notifications. Updates include alerts on whether a player is in the starting lineup, their in-game stats like goals and assists, and post-match performance ratings.

The expansion comes as Flashscore data reveals huge user engagement with the NBA and NHL during the 2024-25 season. In the last NBA season, there were more than 1.1 billion match detail opens across 1,316 games, with an average of around 320,000 users per match.

The most-followed team was the Los Angeles Lakers, attracting an average of 515,000 users to their games. In ice hockey and the NHL, last season saw more than 783 million match detail opens across 1,420 games. The Washington Capitals were the most popular team, with an average of 390,000 users per game.

Company data shows basketball and ice hockey are among the most popular sports with Flashscore users, beyond only football and tennis.

Tomáš Pondělík, Chief Product Officer at Flashscore, said: “Following the hugely successful launch of Follow Player for our football fans, expansion to Basketball and Ice Hockey is the next logical step. Fandom is evolving, and we’re seeing a significant shift from fans, especially with the younger generation, following only their favourite teams to a deeper interest in individual players. We see the same trend in basketball and hockey, where superstars often have a global following that transcends team loyalties. Being able to offer our users the chance to follow real-time updates from their favourite football, basketball and ice hockey stars sets Flashscore apart from other live scores apps.

“Our community has been asking for this feature, and the data shows a clear appetite for in-depth information. With Follow Player now available for basketball and ice hockey, fans can track their heroes in real time with the fast, non-intrusive notifications they expect from us. We’re already working on adding more meaningful player data to give fans a richer understanding of performance, and this is just the beginning.”

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