
The Top 19 WordPress Sports Themes Compared - 2023
Last modified: July 19, 2021
Sport is one of the biggest industries in the world. In 2016, over $100 billion was spent on sport in the US. That’s $1 a day for every person in the US. A big part of the industry now is on the internet. There are countless sports related activities on the internet like watching games online, following specific news, or buying team merchandise. Each of these has a specific revenue stream to build profits, and it’s big business. If you’re in that industry, you need to use one of the best WordPress Sports themes to get noticed and generate revenue.
Why Should You Use One Of The Specific WordPress Sports Themes?
Like with other businesses and industries, you must ensure that your website is fit for purpose. That includes making sure your website matches the needs and expectations of visitors. If you have a site that doesn’t look the part, fans won’t be staying around for long.
This can be disastrous for your profit margins, not to mention your reputation online. You’ve worked hard to build a reputation, and you’re bound to be passionate about your sport. But it isn’t just about your emotional pull to the sport that matters. Your visitors are passionate too, and your site needs to feed off their excitement and emotions to get the most reward for your hard work.
Don’t let the wrong theme ruin your opportunities.
What Should You Look For In A WordPress Sports Theme?
There are many things you need when looking at WordPress Sports themes. The first is responsiveness. More traffic is coming from mobile devices than ever before and Google uses your site’s mobile readiness as a ranking factor. So you need a site that will display perfectly on whatever device they’re using.
Next, you need a theme that will offer functionality to your sports website. You might want to have a news section, events, fixtures, results, player profiles, videos and more to keep your visitors excited and staying on your website.
At the same time you need be able to customize your site. Colors should reflect the sport or team you’re representing. If you’re selling anything (from secret content to team merchandise) then you might also need to have e-commerce software embedded on your website.
Finally, you need to think about SEO. You might have dozens, or more, competitors who offer similar news, information and products as you. If you can’t get to the first page of Google, your traffic is going to be extremely low; if you can’t achieve a top ranking on Google, your revenue is going to suffer.
A sports theme doesn’t just have to cover a specific sport. It could relate to a fitness business like a personal trainer or gym. If you have either of these, the themes mentioned below might be the perfect option for you too.
To help you get started with your website, here is a list of the best WordPress Sports themes available on the market.
# | Name | Image | |
---|---|---|---|
1 |
Jevelin
|
|
More Info
|
2 |
Big Slam
|
|
More Info
|
3 |
Real Soccer
|
|
More Info
|
4 |
Kalium
|
|
More Info
|
5 |
IronMass
|
|
More Info
|
6 |
Divi
|
|
More Info
|
7 |
Eirworth
|
|
More Info
|
8 |
Sport
|
|
Not Available
|
9 |
Splash
|
|
More Info
|
10 |
Gameday
|
|
Not Available
|
11 |
Champion
|
|
Not Available
|
12 |
Sporty
|
|
More Info
|
13 |
Oxigeno Sport
|
|
More Info
|
14 |
Xtreme Sports
|
|
More Info
|
15 |
All Star
|
|
Not Available
|
16 |
Eye Sports
|
|
More Info
|
17 |
WildRide
|
|
More Info
|
18 |
Sporty
|
|
More Info
|
* This button will show the rest of the post and open up an offer from a vendor
Filter between free and paid
Jevelin
Jevelin is a multipurpose WordPress theme that isn’t just designed for sport teams, but it’s certainly worth a mention on this list. It fulfills a lot of the criteria you’d look for in a website such as being responsive with lots of functionality and conveniences.
If you need to set your site up in a hurry, then this theme might be the one. It doesn’t take much time to create as there are demo websites you can use which contain lots of inner content pages. In addition, customization is easy with great widgets, sliders, and inbuilt powerful plugins such as WooCommerce for monetizing your website, to contact form 7 allowing visitors to reach out.
One of the best features of this WordPress theme is that it comes with premium plugins. One example is the Slider Revolution plugin which gives plenty of choice on how you showcase your best news, graphics and other content.
Advantages Of Jevelin:
• Super easy to use element editor to make the look, content and other parts of your website easy to customize.
• SEO friendly so you can draw traffic to your site.
• 40+ custom crafted shortcodes to support a unique and powerful website that reflects your choices.
• Mega menus allow use of images in menus to attract visitors to key content.
Big Slam
This is one of those WordPress Sports themes that excels for one particular sport: basketball. That isn’t to say it’s limited only to basketball; it will function efficiently for most sports, but the team behind the theme clearly had a specific group of websites in mind when creating this design.
One of the best features is the fact that you can really get to brand your website. Whether this is for a specific team, a league your reporting on, or perhaps just your own fan site; the customization options for this theme are immense.
For keeping your visitors up-to-date on the most recent news or scores, there’s a brilliant events page you can use. In addition, you can feature your team’s best players on lists or give them their own individual player/team pages that can detail their vital game statistics. This can be really excellent for those running a site about a single sports team, league, or competition.
Functionality on Big Slam is great. It’s compatible with the dedicated sports plugin, SportsPress. This allows you to publish content relating to game results, automated standings and player rankings. For those looking to get in and design their website, the GoodLayers page builder is incorporated which allows for easy drag and drop page creation.
In addition, one of the nicest touches to the site is related to the maintenance page. When building your website, or if you need to do some maintenance, you don’t have to have an improperly designed site live. Instead, use the function to let people know your website is coming soon or is currently being updated.
Advantages of Big Slam:
• With unlimited sidebars you can utilize a different sidebar on each page.
• Responsive design allows it to be seen on any device without issues.
• Optimized for search engines so sport fans can discover your site.
• You can use Google Fonts or one of your own.
Real Soccer
Like the above, Real Soccer was developed for one specific sport: soccer (or football if you’re from Europe). What’s so great, is that this WordPress Sports theme is not just about the sport, it’s about delivering a great user experience that’s visually pleasing.
The main aspect of the theme is images. Perfect for showing in-game shots and showcasing the best players and team news visually.
But it isn’t just the look of Real Soccer that makes this a great theme for your website. The included functionality will help you get your website to rank well, and offers visitors lots to do. You can create detailed player profiles, league standings tables and have a complete list of fixtures and results.
And if you want to get into the finer details for your team, you can create and publish match reports.
The benefits of Real Soccer
• WooCommerce integration allows you to monetize your website with ease.
• Can include proper statistics such as top goalscorers, top assists and others.
• Compatible with JoomSport.
• Won First Prize of Micro Niche Themes awards.
Kalium
Many WordPress Sports Themes on the market promise a great user experience, but Kalium is one that can prove it. The theme is lightweight and flexible which means it’s great for speed and easy on mobile devices. Plus it will help your site get ranked on search engines.
Another significant benefit is that this theme is so easy to use, you don’t need much experience to build a website. If you want to get something up quickly, use one of the demo sites and page templates to get started. You can utilize the vast customization options available to make the website unique and beautiful.
If you feel confident enough, the included Visual Composure is an effective tool to build an impressive site from scratch that offers the look you want.
Kalium comes with lots of functionality, so whether you want to build an online shop selling team merchandise or a magazine website detailing the latest sport news; it is possible at a touch of a few buttons.
Some of the best features this theme offers include custom menus, the dynamic LayerSlider plugin and WooCommerce integration. This offers a host of possibilities for your website and lots of ways you can monetize it at the same time.
Some of the current users of Kalium also use the theme to publish videos. Videos published could be highlights of matches or live games and help to keep fans excited and coming back. This same functionality is available for your website.
The benefits of Kalium:
• Free lifetime updates available for your theme.
• Can be a great theme if you want to publish videos on your website.
• Multilingual and RTL support available.
• Includes nearly $300 worth of premium plugins free.
IronMass
A theme designed for gyms, IronMass doesn’t disappoint if you’re looking for a design that will make you stand out from the crowd. There are multiple layout options for your to choose from. These will help you get the feel of your site right in just a few clicks. If you want to be more specific, you can use the MotoPress page builder to help you make the pages more to your liking.
In addition, IronMass is compatible with numerous other plugins that will support your business’ growth online. Even without these plugins you can utilize the countless content modules to help you craft the most functional and beautiful web page. There’s a module for everything including, buttons, video, images, countdown timer and more. You are spoilt for choice.
What makes this one of the great WordPress sports themes for personal trainers, gyms and related businesses is its inbuilt appointment manager. You don’t need to be on the phone to accept bookings, your website can do it all for you. There’s even an option to have a timetable for your classes or group sessions. That means less work for you and better management of your time.
Don’t think that IronMass, with all its functionality, is going to leave you with a website that can’t be viewed on mobile. Like all the themes we feature on this blog post, it’s fully responsive and can be viewed on any device without issue. The developers have worked hard to ensure the theme has the best SEO practices employed. That allows your site to rank quickly on the first page of Google, which is essential in today’s market.
Benefits of IronMass:
• A clean code for the best website speed that will improve user experience and offer excellent search rankings.
• Lots of custom widgets to help you design the best, most functional and unique website for your business.
• Compatible with lots of premium plugins for added functionality.
• Highly rated by current users of the WordPress theme.
Divi
It wouldn’t be a list of the best themes without us including one of the strongest themes on the net regardless of the industry you’re in. Divi is still one theme that won’t disappoint you. The front end page builder is so easy to use for those without technical ability and experts alike, that you could develop a professional site in minutes.
With 46 different content elements, there are unlimited possibilities to your end design, which means that you can easily brand your website. But if you don’t want to create the website from scratch, you don’t have to. There are more than 20 pre-made templates for you to choose from and lots of demo sites you can use with your own content.
Plus, it possesses one of the best features of any WordPress theme, the option to A/B test your website’s design. If you want to know what design visitors like, a simple A/B test can find out what layout, color and words work best. This feature isn’t just valuable, it can be the difference between making your website an irreplaceable part of your business or a money sink.
Finally, as you would expect from such a great theme, it’s fully responsive and matches the most effective practices for SEO. Your site won’t be lost on the lower pages of Google. Some basic SEO techniques combined with this theme will help it be found.
Benefits Of Divi:
• One of the best WordPress themes available for any purpose.
• A/B test your site to improve conversion rates.
• Full package, it includes elements to design complex websites with ease
• Website developed for great user experiences.
Eirworth
This is another one of the WordPress Sports Themes that was designed explicitly for a particular sport; in this case golf. While it isn’t as highly rated as some of the other themes on the list, the theme still has some good functionality and design aspects. If you are looking to create a golf website, it is worth a consideration.
First of, it includes a host of special plugins that are designed to give your WordPress website a lot more functionality. For instance, you can use the team members plugin to display information about the team behind the website, or perhaps about players participating in a tournament. In addition, there are plugins for testimonials, pop-ups, sidebars and more. All of this is included, so there’s a lot of potential savings you can make with this theme.
If you require a simple installation and setup, that isn’t going to be a problem here. The site has a simple setup wizard that allows you to install the theme, plugins and sample data in just a few clicks. Therefore, you can be ready to publish your website within minutes. To add to the initial design you can also use several of the countless modules in the page’s design for your site.
This theme is also ecommerce ready and you don’t need to rely on WooCommerce if you don’t want to. It merely takes a few minutes to set up the store and if you want a calendar, that isn’t an issue, as one is included free.
Benefits of Eirworth
• Fully responsive WordPress Sports theme that can look great on any device or with any resolution.
• 7 header layouts to help customize your brand’s site.
• Integration with Google Fonts.
• Clean code and SEO friendly for better user experience and great search rankings.
Please note: When buying this theme, it doesn’t include any images. These have to be purchased separately or you can use your own.
Sport
Sport will help you get the most out of your team’s website. You can establish a great reputation and have an excellent news site for your club in just a few clicks. It’s fully responsive, so can be seen on any device without issue and with retina-ready graphics, your website is going to look awesome.
There are lots of customization features for your site, which is great because no two clubs are the same. So while other teams are focusing efforts in certain areas, you can turn heads by offering sport fans the information they want to know about your club.
There’s lots of additional functionality available with Sport, with 16 widgets and six premium plugins included. On top of that, there are shortcodes to make designing your functional website a lot easier.
Remember that your sport fans need a way to find your website online too. Which is why the inbuilt search engine optimization features are so helpful.
Finally, Sport comes with support for multiple languages.
Benefits of Sport:
• Responsive design so it can be viewed on any device without issue.
• Retina ready to make it look good for website visitors.
• More than 600 fonts available.
• Build your own header for a unique design.
Splash
You might be forgiven to think that Splash is about swimming, diving, or something to do with water. But, Splash has nothing to do with any of those sports, in theory. Instead, Splash was designed for those who want to create a basketball, baseball, soccer or American football site.
This is another one of the WordPress Sports themes that includes the ever popular Slider Revolution plugin. This helps you create stunning, eye-catching front pages to grab the attention of your audience and make a great first impression.
The navigational menu is beautiful and seems to float at the top of the page, something that reminds me of the player about to score a slam dunk. For the rest of your front page, you can use the Visual Composer plugin, which is included with the theme. Further customization is easy for any newbie web designer or website owner with the WordPress Customizer.
In addition, Splash is compatible with the popular SportsPress plugin. Therefore, no matter what sport you’re business is based on, you can provide league tables, fixture information, player profiles and team profiles. You can give the fans a database they will cherish and come back to many times.
And if you want to create some of the best experiences for your audience, you can integrate video and audio content into your website. Video is a particular treat here as almost half of all content viewed online is now video, you’ll have a website that can handle the most in-demand content.
Benefits of Splash:
• Great demos to help get your website started in minutes.
• No limit to the colors you can use on your website so you can match any team colors or develop a unique brand vision.
• Can easily embed video and audio content for the most meaningful interaction with your audience.
• WooCommerce compatible so you can monetize your website with ease.
Gameday
This is a responsive sports theme frequently used by clubs but it’s equally good for sport news sites and others. There are several features of this excellent sport theme that make it an outstanding candidate for your website.
To begin with, it features WooCommerce integration so you can setup a store and start selling products within minutes. This could be team merchandise, tickets or other items you are looking to sell to encourage business growth. There’s also the option to include adverts on your website by using any of the four ad units included. This includes a neat wallpaper ad that will encourage advertisers to contact you, which gives your site a great revenue generation aspect.
For those looking to display scores and league information, you won’t be disappointed. There’s a custom-built scoreboard and you can use the drag-and-drop builder to place it anywhere on the homepage.
Game highlights can be quickly shown on any page with the included slider.
For those seeking a great looking website on mobile and desktop, then this is a great choice. It’s fully responsive, so the pages will adapt to whatever screen size or resolution that the visitor is using.
Finally, you can really build a community on Gameday with its bbPress integration. A community is a great asset for any website as it keeps users coming back to engage in conversations. Add a few moderators who can point users in the right direction to buy some of your products and you have another nice revenue stream.
Benefits of Gameday:
• Can embed video and audio into any post/page. Great if you have that content to engage audiences.
• You can use featured headlines to grab the attention of your audience and entice them into looking at more of your content.
• Unlimited color options to brand your website to match a team or your own personal choice.
• One of the most competitive prices for a WordPress Sports Theme.
Champion
Another theme that’s been designed for just a couple of particular sports, Champion is aimed at the football/soccer market. There are countless great features that make this theme a fantastic option for lots of website owners.
Those looking to display league standings will be pleased to know that there’s a points table manager with fixture management included. There are five header types to choose from and with the included WP Bakery Page Builder plugin, you can develop the website of your dreams in minutes.
If you aren’t sure what you are looking for and instead require a simple design done for you, not a problem. A one click demo option can have your website sorted in just a few minutes.
This theme allows pictures from your team’s games to be shown with pride thanks to numerous gallery options and a responsive design. So your audience can engage with your club and keep up with the latest game whether they’re on a desktop or mobile device.
In addition, if you want interaction on social media, this is easy. The theme includes social integration for numerous social platforms including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Benefits of Champion:
• Manage the teams and players on your website with an easy to use management system.
• Include all the team’s trophies and any partner logos on your website.
• Visual composer included so you can develop your website’s unique design with ease.
• WooCommerce compatible to help you monetize your website with ease.
Sporty
Sporty is one of the best WordPress Sports Themes on the market. The theme creators claim it is used by over 1600 sports clubs. Its popularity is partly because it isn’t specific for any particular sports. Instead, it can be used for various sports, anything from rugby to volleyball and everything in-between.
You can use the included SiteOrigin Drag and Drop page builder to create a perfect and unique website for you. If you want more customization, there’s also the option to use the inbuilt SiteOrigin CSS plugin.
The versatility of the website is further enhanced by the additional inclusions of popular premium plugins like the Premium Dysania Grid Gallery, Popular Team Showcase Plugin and the Zeus slider.
But it wouldn’t be a sports site without some great features to help you give fans the key statistics and information they need. You can have unlimited leagues, cups, etc. as long as you use Tablepress. You can also use lots of colors to match team colors or design your own brand image.
For monetization, utilize the ECWID plugin to create a shopping website. This makes it easy to create a revenue stream with merchandise or other products.
Benefits of Sporty:
• Seven different page loading animations available to give that perfect first impression to visitors when they land on your site.
• Valid HTML5 and CSS3 theme for the best code for SEO and user experience.
• Create your own forums with BBPress. An essential way to engage audiences in a conversation they are all passionate about.
• Give audiences access to your videos with the use of YouTube TV. All you need to do is add your username and channel ID.
Oxigeno Sport
Oxigeno Sport is a fantastic WordPress theme that can be the perfect solution for your next website. It’s great for the team that wants to keep its fans informed with the latest information. You can publish information about future games, past results, the current team information and any league information.
Building a great website is easy with the site. There are countless menu and header styles to choose from and there’s the option to use custom icons. You can use any Google font to create the perfect look with your typography.
As with any website, you also need to ensure you are giving your website visitors a perfect experience. Part of that is speed, which is where Oxigeno Sport excels. The theme has been built with a code that not only makes it mobile friendly, which is great for users and your search rankings, but also great for speed.
Benefits of Oxigeno Sport:
• Built for speed, provide your users the experience they expect and deserve.
• Child theme ready which is ideal for when you want to make changes to the theme’s code.
• Translation ready so you can take your website to the world whatever language they speak.
• WooCommerce support so you can monetize your website with ease.
Xtreme Sports
If you’re looking for a WordPress sport theme that is modern, responsive and creative, then Xtreme Sports might be the best option. This theme is perfect for any site that’s for a club, sports news sites, extreme sports, or an online sports shop.
The online shop can be supported with the compatibility of WooCommerce, which allows you to sell an unlimited number of products and take payments via PayPal or Stripe (without additional premium plugins).
There are lots of ways to create the design of your website. A stunning full width header slider can feature images of your sport. There is also the free inclusion of WPBakery Page Builder that allows you to design the perfect page for your brand image. Finally the Slider Revolution allows you to create great slides for news and promoting products you sell.
Benefits of Xtreme Sports:
• Multilingual ready, so you can get your site across the world no matter what language they speak.
• MailChimp integration is easy so you can build a valuable mailing list to sell your products to later on.
• Free support available.
• One click demo included.
All Star
If you’re looking for a theme that promotes your team’s business activities rather than the games, then you might need to forget the others on the list. Instead, consider AllStar as a great option.
This theme does offer the usual support for displaying fixtures, league tables and player profiles as you would expect. But there are additional options that will help promote your team’s brand across the net and get sponsors/investment. One of the most effective ways to capture the attention of sponsorship is to give lots of information to potential sponsors. This can be done with an FAQ page which can be supplied with the CleanTabs plugin that’s included with the theme when you purchase it. Be reassured you get the Revolution Slider plugin that offers an excellent visual appeal to sport fans.
Customisation is easy with AllStar. There’s a custom drag-and-drop builder so you can design your pages with a polished look for your site. You can even customize your headers with the builder and 40 different options. Finally, there’s the Final Call CSS plugin that allows website administrators to add CSS styling to the website straight from the WordPress Dashboard.
If you’re looking for a website that is all ready, then don’t worry. AllStar includes demo content. You can customize this to your heart’s content and with over 700 web fonts and lots of color options, you can have a unique website in moments.
Benefits of AllStar:
• A responsive design that will look great for your visitors whatever device they are on.
• Video tutorials to help you get started.
• Integrate ads into your website to get another revenue stream.
Eye Sports
Eye sports is one of the sport themes that has been specifically designed for the modern club and those organizing associated competitions. You can offer your visitors a vast array of information including information on clubs, players, fixtures, leagues and other events.
There are tonnes of opportunities to customize your website. This includes lots of layout options, variation on those layouts and you can set it to any color you want whether it is a brand or club color.
Eye Sports includes the FlexSlider as standard but there are no other added goodies with this WordPress Sport theme.
Benefits of Eye Sports:
• SEO optimized so your website is easily found on the search engines.
• Can add Twitter and Flickr feeds to your website with ease.
• You can have a newsletter subscription page to collect leads and visitor information.
• Includes a 404 Not Found Page.
WildRide
One of the best WordPress Sport Themes for those who aren’t representing a specific club but instead want a sports related business or blog. This theme has been made so that it’s easy to install, maintain, and update when necessary.
The biggest asset for this theme is that it can be modified with the WordPress Customizer. There are several advantages to this. To begin with, it reduces the amount of memory it takes to load your site as it doesn’t need to load bulky editing code and it means you have less plugins to manage. However, it can limit your flexibility.
The theme comes with a host of features though to make up for this. For starters it comes with a MailChimp newsletter feature, premium custom slider, carousel and taxonomy tile widgets. This gives you lots of tools to create a great website for your visitors.
Benefits of WildRide:
• Great for SEO as it’s optimized.
• Google fonts integrated.
• Easy and friendly to use, to allow even the novice website owner to develop a site.
• Great support available.
Please note, this site does not include images. These have to be bought separately.
Sporty
Sporty is a full responsive, bare bones theme for anyone who wants to run their own sports blog or news site. While it can function for any club, there are limitations for this theme as it is free. One limitation for Sporty is the color choice you have. It is unlimited like some of the others on the list.
However, Sporty is compatible with most premium and free plugins, so you’ll have plenty of options to ensure your WordPress Sports website is fully functional.
Benefits of Sporty
• A responsive theme that will display your website well on any device.
• Well rated by current users.
• Free.
Final Thoughts
The sports industry is huge and if you have a passion for a sport, team or competition then you can have a slice of the revenues it generates. The issue is ensuring your website matches the expectations of your fellow sport enthusiasts. There are lots of options for WordPress Sports Themes, which one is best depends entirely on your needs.
Understand Your Needs Before Buying One Of The WordPress Sports Themes
Before you purchase one of the WordPress Sports Themes you will need to decide what you expect from the website. Do you want it to showcase highlights from games, sell merchandise, be an interactive community or perhaps just a static website with a list statistics?
You know your goals better than most, but you must consider them before buying a theme for your website. Be sure to also think about SEO. What is your competition’s search ranking like and how will your theme help you to rank better than others? Consider the speed of your website, the on page elements that impact user experience and finally the SEO optimization options available to you. Some of this won’t matter, you might have the skills to combat that. However, in some cases, these questions are important to ensure your next project is not just good, but also a game changing success.