Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated has launched a mobile app that offers more of what its website has been providing, articles, access to its featured writers and a section offering scores, stats and all types of information at your fingertips.

SI is tapping into a sports-hungry audience that yearns for the latest information as it becomes available. The app is currently for geared for mobiles, but will eventually be made available for tablets. Awful Announcing was able to test the app in the days leading up to the official launch. SI App - 10 Spot
As you can see from the bottom of the screengrab, there are four sections, “My SI,” which is geared towards your favorite teams which you can select when you first download the app or change at any time, “10 Spot,” which are the top ten stories of that particular moment as selected by SI’s editors, “News,” which has stories and videos, and “Scores,” which currently offers scores from MLB, NBA, college basketball and football, NFL and NHL. That section will expand to include international sports such as the Premier League as the app updates.

SI App - Scores
The scores section offers real-time updates and offers alerts at your convenience. You can “pin” as you can see with the LSU-Alabama game meaning it will be in a picture-in-picture window and you can position it in the upper right or lower right corner of the app. To get rid of it, swipe it to the middle of the app and it disappears. It’s a nice feature so you don’t have to keep to stay in that section. You can also get more information during the game by tapping on “box score” and you can get close to real-time information as the contest progresses.

SI App - news w video
The news section offers stories and videos. What’s interesting here is that when you tap to play a video and you scroll down the the section, the video will go in its own PIP window which you can position in any corner of the app. And when the video is over, it disappears.

And you can also have video and score windows up at the same time without affecting the speed of the app.

SI App - video and score
Patty Hirsch, digital General Manager of Sports Illustrated Group, was one of the people in charge of updating the app. She said the new app is part of a strategy to update SI’s digital platforms, “We relaunched SI for Kids a couple of weeks ago. We have this app we’re relaunching, we’re launching the swimsuit app. So we’re just now positioned after 18 months of getting ourselves in a great place, we’re modernizing where we were, we’re really in a great place to start launching innovative offerings to our users.”

Hirsch said the app has been in development since the late summer and one of the most important offerings is the opportunity for users to access SI’s writers more easily and have their content readily available plus the opportunity to “pin” video and scores allows them to get into SI’s storytelling without having to leave their sections.

As for the swimsuit app, Hirsch was reluctant to reveal the changes as it will launch in the next week and a half, but she did say that fans will like what the content from what has been a time-honored franchise for SI, “We’re going to give access to a deep level of content that relates to everyone in the (photo) shoots and the images, the content that wraps around that and there will be some other cool stuff that will be in there as well.”

The new SI app is available in both the iTunes and Google Play stores.

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.

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