Reply With Quote
Very clean. Me likey.
NBA raising curtain on Web site overhaul
By ERIC FISHER
Staff writer - Sports Business Journal
The new-look NBA.com will launch Tuesday, setting in motion the league’s heightened emphasis on digital media.
The result of a frenetic, three-month internal effort, the revamped league site will include an entirely reconstructed suite of fantasy games, a large increase in broadband video offerings, the introduction of a Hong Kong-specific version of the site, and a new “Fan Voice” section in which fan comments will become an integral part of nightly game recaps.
Though the NBA, like other major sports properties, has steadily added elements to its site, the latest reworking is the first systemic overhaul of NBA.com since 2003, and is likely the broadest such effort. Earlier this fall, NBA Commissioner David Stern spoke of the league’s digital business as “a huge issue and an area where we are increasingly spending time and money.”
“We got through the Finals and the draft in June, and it was really time to look at this thing as a whole,” said Steve Grimes, senior director of interactive services for NBA Entertainment. “We now have something very different graphically, aesthetically, back-end, and with regard to content.”
The league’s online revamping will be joined in time for the Oct. 31 start of the 2006-07 regular season by new sites for 10 clubs: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Miami, Memphis, the New York Knicks, New Orleans/Oklahoma City, and Philadelphia. The other clubs will join in later at times of their choosing, and unlike MLB Advanced Media and the NHL, there are no plans for the NBA to use a common visual template for the club sites.
“A big thing for us is having a structure where you can be really flexible, responding quickly to big news and being able go into what I would call ‘war mode,’” said Sean Rieger, e-marketing manager for the Houston Rockets, whose new site has already launched. “And we obviously need to make sure we’re keeping an eye on what’s the next thing instead of just coming out with a sort of ‘me, too’ type of response.”
League officials are placing particular emphasis on the Fan Voice element on NBA.com to drill deeper into the world of online social networking that is increasingly dominating the Internet.
“We are making the fan comments on each game a fundamental part of each game recap, right along with the game story, stats, photos, highlights and so forth,” Grimes said. “They’re part of the coverage. And we’ll archive them right along with the recaps, and also have them on personal profile pages fans can create. We all like to tell the ‘we were there’ or ‘did you see that?’-type of stories. So we’re making that voice of the fan a key element of everything we do.”
Like nearly every other fantasy game operator, the NBA is also coming out with a short-form game to allow for more casual play. Along with rebuilt commissioner and salary cap-style games, the league is introducing its “Pick One Challenge.” Fans will pick one player for each night of the season, and then ac ulate points based on that player’s real-life performance. The hook of the game then is to time correctly when players will post standout performances, bringing the game into conceptual similarity with suicide or elimination pools common in fantasy football.
“When is Kobe or Vince Carter going to have that one huge bust-out game? Since you only use each player once, that’s the game,” Grimes said. “We, like everybody else, want to get more people involved in fantasy and want to make this less threatening, less imposing.”
NBA officials did not specify traffic goals for the new site. NBA.com often draws unique user counts well behind NFL.com and MLB.com in Nielsen Net/Ratings reports.
The Hong Kong version of NBA.com is the 10th international outpost of NBA.com.
The league will offer live streaming of out-of-market games to its NBA League Pass TV subscribers. The pairing of the online and TV products began last February.
Part of the online video strategy also includes an expansion of the content and promotion of TNT Overtime, the broadband video channel started last November.
Very clean. Me likey.
I agree that the old version was awfully cluttered ... and that this new one is much cleaner. However for whatever reason, I really don't like it. Too simple and plain. Looks like some generic website IMO.
I'll like it as soon as I know where every thing they re arranged is.
Yeah man, much "lighter". Too much colored background is so 1996.
If The Club would just get the message that light grey text on dark grey b/g is ing nearly unreadable, we'd be making some progress.
I liked the website from 2-3 years ago better, but it's cleaner than the last one.
The player stats part sucks. I'm using ESPN already.
MLB.com is the only league-run site I use. Mainly because of the stats database.
the introduction of a Hong Kong-specific version of the site
They still really need to revamp the history section. It sucks.
Well-played, old man.
I like the front page, I agree, its much lighter. Haven't seen the player stats thing, hopefully they didn't that up.
Me too. It doesn't just suck; it doesn't work.
If you are a player page, for example http://www.nba.com/playerfile/tony_a....html?nav=page
If you click Career Stats and Totals, it goes to a dead page. It's like that for every player. If they were going to launch it, they should have make sure it worked.
However the front page looks good, though all that white is going to take getting used to.
It's a club, it's supposed to be dark and always will be. So you can get over your ing.
If The Club would just get the message that light grey text on dark grey b/g is ing nearly unreadable, we'd be making some progress.
The stats page looks unchanged, just fills up more of the screen.
Yeah the main stat page is fine. The player stat pages are what is messed up.
Oh.
It seems the QC for nba.com has always been severely, severely lacking.
Seems somebody who really understands web pag design and loves basketball could find themsleves a nice job if they pushed for it.
"nba.com has always been severely, severely lacking."
Imagine how much they pay, $100K+?, and it's ed.
I wonder if it's done in house or sub-contracted?
That's about the fifth time they changed it this year.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
