Cricket has a huge fan following in India, which has even triggered growth of various business segments. Technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), has played a strategic role in the development of the game. The sports technology has made it possible to come up with creative ideas in the form of various fantasy leagues, which entice fans to play online and generate revenue.
To run the fantasy leagues or to have a live score on any platform, the current and past sports data is essential. This is where Roanuz comes in and has developed enormous amounts of data and made it readily available for the organisers.
Roanuz is a Chennai-based startup which builds cricket API with its state-of-the-art technology. Started in 2011, Roanuz launched AI chatbot last year which gives answers to cricket questions.
The sports tech firm enjoyed 200% profit and is planning to double it in the following years. It has plans of collating all-league match data and strengthening its user engagement in fantasy sports and entering other sports segments as well like football and kabaddi.
In an interaction, Roanuz Founder and CEO Anto Kaspar shed light on various aspects including how the platform works, the way it’s helping cricket coaches, some of their premium clients, among other things.
Here are excerpts.
What inspired you to start Roanuz Cricket API?
When I was young, I was very passionate about cricket, football and swimming. I used to play and swim every day. In the year 2011, I had an initial plan to start a cricket-based website and a fantasy app. But I realised that the data quality and the data format are not developer-friendly. So I decided to have my own data and started to work on the editor and tested using my first cricket-based product called Litzscore. Then, the idea of providing the API for cricket evolved. Since the day we started, we want to be a global sports data provider by utilising state-of-the-art technology and AI to improve quality and provide faster delivery. We are aiming to expand our coverage to more sports and e-sports. We have ventured into kabaddi, volleyball, and football also.
What is the functionality of Cricket API?
API means Application Programming /Program Interface and technically derived as API. It is a set of principles and primary tools for building the complete software system/ application. The Roanuz Cricket API provides the building blocks, and it helps the programmer to develop a cricket based application /website with ease.
Data plays a significant role to build the cricket-based applications like news, blogs, data predictions apps, fantasy apps, and others. The Roanuz Cricket API provides the data through the RESTful API in the JSON format. The Roanuz Cricket API provides the real-time scorecard, stats, and fantasy management system. The fantasy management system helps to manage the player credit values and also provides the fantasy match points, which is the crucial factor in developing fantasy apps /website.
The developer can get the data by integrating just one line of URL with the coding platform. The integration takes less than a day and it depends on the clients as well. After this, the cricket score will be live on their respective platforms.
How is it beneficial for individuals to get involved in sports management?
The recent trend has been on developing fantasy leagues and drawing financial benefits from the leagues. Roanuz’s API comes handy for any sports enthusiasts who want to build a fantasy league. The individual has to be aware of basic coding and be acquainted with sports and we will be able to guide them to set up a fantasy league and the same goes for coaching as well.
How does the chatbot work?
The Roanuz Cricket Chatbot API provides the conversational text type of response. Cricket ChatBot API offers a ready-made solution for any business that wants to have AI cricket knowledge on their app, chatBot or voice assistant devices. It provides NLP-powered AI based statistical answers in the form of conversational text.
How is Roanuz helping brands engage with their customers?
We have a few brands which used our API during the recently concluded IPL to engage with their customers through various promotional contests.
Zomato used the Roanuz Cricket API Live Score & Stats API Plan for the IPL 2019. Zomato has launched Zomato Premier League (ZPL) that allows users to predict the winner of that day’s IPL match and win rewards (additional 30% discount) on the user’s delivery order if their prediction is correct. Over four million people have played ZPL in three weeks and have collectively saved over Rs 8 crore so far while binging on their favourite food.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) came up with a new idea to keep their fans engaged with the RCB team and players. The app helped RCB to share photos with fans, and important live video updates of top players. For the RCB fan engagement app, the Roanuz Cricket API delivered real-time scores and stats API provided the ball-by-ball live score through webhook push notification which delivered the data faster in a timely manner.
Who is your target segment?
The target customers of the company include sports websites, affiliated markets, startups, freelancers who develop websites, sports companies, and whoever prefers to showcase cricket scores on their respective platform.
What is the procedure to build a cricket app using your API?
To build a cricket-based app using the Roanuz Cricket API, the user needs to purchase the suitable Roanuz Cricket API plan and it is a subscription-based model. The dashboard will be provided to the user and they can get the data by integrating just one line of URL with coding disciplines.
Some of your premium clients
Our customers include Amazon Echo, RCB, BookMyShow, MPL (Mobile Premier League), Zomato, Halaplay, Opera, The Mirror [UK], Express UK, Sportskeeda, Kings XI Punjab, Gujarat Lions, Yatra, Freecharge, Asianet News and others.