7 best video editing software for sports highlights [2026]
Video editing software for sports highlights usually comes into the picture when editing starts taking longer than the game itself. If you’re a club coach, a social media manager responsible for publishing highlight clips, a team’s go-to person for video editing, or just an enthusiastic sports analyst, you’ve probably tested a few tools already and found their limits. Some are great for hands-on editing, others are faster but restrictive, and a few are built for repeating the same format at scale. To help you find the best option for you, we’ve compiled a list of what we believe are the best sports video editing tools in 2026, with a clear look at what each tool does well and where it makes sense to use it.
1. Premier Pro: Best for manual, timeline-based editing
If you want to make highlight videos, you can't go wrong with Adobe Premiere Pro. After all, it's one of the most widely used video editing software for sports highlights, especially when you want full control over every cut.
It’s a timeline-based editor designed for hands-on work, which makes it a strong fit for editing individual matches, training clips, or custom highlight reels.
That said, if your workflow involves manually reviewing footage and deciding exactly what makes the final cut, Premiere Pro gives you that level of precision.
Key features
- Frame-accurate timeline editing for precise highlight cuts
- Multi-camera editing for games filmed from multiple angles
- Advanced trimming tools for fast in-and-out point selection
- Broad format support for different camera types and codecs
- Integration with the rest of the Adobe ecosystem, including After Effects and Media Encoder
2. After Effects: Best for creating templates for sports highlights
We can't talk about sports highlight video editing (or video editing in general) without mentioning After Effects. Another ace up Adobe's sleeve, this software is the industry standard for creating motion graphics templates used across professional sports content.
After Effects is where most high-quality sports highlight visuals are designed, not assembled. Animated intros, scoreboards, lower thirds, player names, and stat overlays are typically built here as reusable templates. Once set up, those templates can be reused across sports games, players, or teams while keeping the same visual style.
That level of control comes at a cost, though. After Effects isn’t built for fast editing or high-volume output on its own. It comes with plenty of editing features and excels at designing templates, but producing large numbers of highlights manually still takes time, especially when data or text changes between videos.
Key features
- Advanced motion graphics and animation tools
- Template-ready compositions for reusable sports visuals
- Expressions and dynamic controls inside templates
- Effects and layering for stylized highlight visuals
- Seamless integration with Premiere Pro and Creative Cloud
3. Plainly Videos: Best for scaling sports highlights production
After Effects is powerful on its own - there’s no doubt about it! But do you know what makes it even more powerful? Plainly Videos.
Plainly is a video automation software that connects your data with the templates you build in After Effects to render 100s of sports highlights automatically.
It’s the tool to use when editing becomes repetitive, and you need to scale the production of data-driven sports videos without adding more manual work, along with dynamic video ads, real estate listings, and other forms of personalized videos. As a bonus, rendering happens in the cloud, meaning your computer stays free while videos render in the background. What more could you ask for?
Key features
- Automated rendering from After Effects templates
- Data-driven control over text, images, video, and scores
- Cloud-based rendering with no local hardware strain
- Easy to use, with virtually no learning curve
- Native integrations with 20+ tools, including Google Sheets, Airtable, Frame, io, and Google Drive.
- Full API support and first-class documentation for advanced workflows
4. Wondershare Filmora: Best AI tool for basic editing
The tools we talked about so far have been primarily focused on professional audiences - a.k.a. people who already know their way around advanced editing and motion design.
That said, beginners to the editing process might be more comfortable using Wondershare Filmora, since it’s powered by AI and built with ease-of-use in mind.
The software offers a simple timeline layout with drag-and-drop controls, which makes cutting clips, adding text, and applying effects fairly straightforward.
It's one of the best sports video editing software if you’re editing highlights occasionally and want results quickly, without spending time learning a complex tool.
Key features
- Intuitive editing with a drag-and-drop functionality
- Built-in effects, transitions, titles, and templates
- Support for common video formats and resolutions
- Extra tools like motion tracking and green screen (chroma key)
- Low learning curve compared to professional sports video editing tools
5. CapCut: Best for editing highlights on the go
A game just ended and you need to create a sports highlight video while the key moments are still fresh? Try CapCut.
Despite having a PC version, CapCut started as a mobile app, which is where it still shines most. We find it's best suited for quick, on-the-go sports highlights you want to edit and publish straight from your phone.
If speed matters to you and your highlights are headed for social platforms, CapCut fits naturally into that workflow. That same speed comes with trade-offs, but for fast turnaround content, it does exactly what it promises.
Key features
- Mobile-first video editing experience with a desktop option
- Built-in templates optimized for short-form video
- Auto-captions, effects, and transitions for fast edits
- Native support for vertical and social video formats
- Very low learning curve for quick publishing
6. VideoProc: Best for quick trimming and processing
Not every sports highlight task needs a full editing suite. Sometimes you just need to cut clips, convert formats, or prep footage quickly, and that’s where VideoProc fits in.
VideoProc is more of a video processing tool than a creative video editor. It’s designed to handle tasks like trimming, cropping, stabilizing, and converting video files with minimal setup. If you’re dealing with large game recordings and need to quickly extract the best moments of a match or prepare video clips for another editing tool, VideoProc can save you time.
It’s not built for storytelling and adding advanced effects. Still, as a lightweight helper in a sports video workflow, we personally think it does the job surprisingly well.
Key features
- Fast trimming and basic clip adjustments
- Broad support for video formats and codecs
- Hardware acceleration for quicker processing
- Useful for preparing clips before further editing
7. DaVinci Resolve: Best video editing software for advanced color grading and post-production
If color grading is a big part of how you want your sports highlights to look, DaVinci Resolve is hard to ignore. Developed by Blackmagic Design, Resolve is widely used in expert video production and is especially known for its color tools.
This video production platform combines editing, color grading, audio, and finishing in one place, which makes it appealing if you want to keep your entire workflow inside a single tool. It’s powerful, but also more demanding to learn, so it makes the most sense for teams or editors who want deep control over the final look of their highlights.
Key features
- Professional-grade color grading and correction tools
- Timeline editor for longer or polished highlight reels
- Advanced audio tools via Fairlight
- Strong performance with high-resolution footage
- Free version available with a surprisingly generous feature set
The sports video editing tools you choose can either make or break your highlights
Sports highlights don’t usually break because of creativity. They break because the process doesn’t scale. One editor can cut one game just fine. Problems start when the same highlight needs new player names, scores, logos, formats, or versions for different platforms, and suddenly you’re re-editing the same thing again and again.
If you’re handling a handful of clips now, most of the video editing software for sports highlights in this list will get the job done. But if highlight volume is growing and you find yourself covering more games, more players, and more formats, the setup you choose today will either slow you down or scale with you.
If you’d rather pick the latter, book a demo with Plainly Videos to see just how much time you can save from putting automation to work.
