As covered throughout SportTechie’s #NFLTechSeries, more and more teams are starting to take the appropriate measures to replicate the home experience at the stadium. Going to a football game isn’t as fun without top internet reception from one’s cell phone carrier, which is a complete non-issue at the comfort of one’s living room. Online accessibility is an invariable necessity in today’s multitasking age. The ability to receive news as it happens is one of the leading drivers behind mobile usage.
Concurrently, theScore has prepared to deliver news to sports fans with the most comprehensive revamp of their iOS app to date. A few months ago they introduced the Player Alerts feature to augment the experience for the fantasy sports enthusiast. This latest upgrade, however, represents a significant shift forward, particularly with respects to its user interface. Such a makeover dovetails appropriately with evolving user mobile habits, the fall sports season, and ahead of the iOS 7 launch.
According to MediaPost, 79 percent of fans utilized their mobile devices to watch or follow games, 55 percent of them tracked scores, and 87 percent have intentionally done so during times when maybe they shouldn’t just last year.
This trend steadfastly projects as the norm for digital content consumption. Thus, theScore now presents “atomized” or “snackable-sized” segments of information from the larger sports stories as they occur. Each update is placed on top of the previous one to go along with enhanced multimedia offerings, like tweets and videos. Their in-house Content Management System allows their content creators to deliver news conveniently and at an expedited time, which comprises out of a 35-person newsroom team.
“Fans want a unique experience when it comes to following the stories, leagues, teams, and players that matter to them on their mobile devices. They’re looking for quick, bite-sized bursts of information, updated as soon as something happens. So that’s what theScore now gives them 24/7,” said John Levy, theScore’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Besides delivering sports news in a digestible, user-friendly way, there are a few other notable features that have been updated in conjunction with this update.
Top News and Hot Games provides users a tab to look to for an aggregated source of what’s trending and about to be, while filtering all the most important stories in one spot. This facet, in particular, speaks to overarching objective of this revamp and a hub to gauge the pulse of the ever-changing sporting world.
NFL and MLB Player Alerts have been added after already highlighting NHL and NBA respective players score or involving in breaking news, which covers the individual notes for the hardcore fantasy sports fan.
And Player Compare serves as a juxtaposed, cross-comparison tool to analyze key stats. This feature complements Player Alerts and maximizes the app’s in-depth data.
All of these updated features are certainly a proactive response to the digital landscape, as Jonathan Savage, theScore’s Senior Vice President of Product, informed SportTechie: “The current mobile news model is broken. Habits are shifting towards shorter, sharper and more frequent bursts of activity on mobile device; so we’ve redesigned our news features to reflect this.”
With 4.5 million active monthly users, theScore is doing its part to cater to them and stay ahead of the curve with this overhaul on the iOS ecosystem.