It’s not often you hear about a new social media platform storming the app stores — especially not one that’s been grown and nurtured right here in South Africa. Discover Sport is that platform, unveiled at the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), aiming to “give every athlete, everywhere, a voice.”
If the name wasn’t a dead giveaway, Discover Sport is a free, mobile-first, dedicated sports social network, weaving together content from professional athletes to their fans. There’s even enough room for ‘federations and media partners’ to promote their own advertisments content in the form of documentaries and broadcasts.
Was that really the best name?
Discover Sport website
“For too long, many athletes and sporting disciplines have been underrepresented. Discover Sport changes this by creating a home for every discipline. From swimming to padel, rugby to gymnastics, chess to showjumping – the new platform values every story and discipline equally.”
It’s already backed by the likes of Tennis South Africa, 360 Padel, Pirates Rugby Club, the South African Youth Showjumping Championship, Boxing South Africa, Beaulieu College, and IBERCUP — with the app proving its worth by hosting several major events during its initial trial phase. Those six months spent in beta also saw more than 3,200 videos uploaded across 1,800 user channels, proving that a market lies in wait.
As much as Discover Sport is about engaging with your particular niche in the sporting world, or even just following your favourite sporting celeb — the app has another goal: money. Athletes who post on the platform will see “a significant portion of future advertising revenue flowing back to athletes, teams, events, and/or sporting establishments.” Yeah, we should hope so. Exposure rarely ever equals cold, hard cash.
Even if you aren’t technically a professional athlete who happens to post to Discover Sport for the fun of it, the app reckons it can change that by supplying users with a wide selection of scouting tools, enabling just about anyone to be ‘discovered’ in their sport, regardless of individual funding or geography.
Or if you’re just there to doomscroll, that’s an option as well. The app offers plent of content — from livestreams, Shorts, long-form videos, and even coaching/educational videos. We briefly tested the app (Android/iOS) and it does exactly what Discover Sport says it does — albeit still lacking a certain level of polish. It’s all free, too, but you’ll need to put up with the app’s banner ads
In a bid to get more users involved in the app’s early life, Discover Sport has launched ByteBucks (patent-pending) — a loyalty programme that’ll earn you bucks just for watching its content and getting your friends onto the app. For now, ByteBucks can only be redeemed with Vodacom, Telkom, MTN, and Cell-C. It plans to expand this to include retail and stadium tickets later.
