In a development that was obvious to absolutely everyone but the people in charge at Fox Sports at the time, FoxSports.com has pivoted back to written content.
It’s been coming for a while now, with various articles popping up here and there, but today Fox revealed a redesign of both the main site and the Fox Sports app. From their press release:
Today, FOX Sports unveils its new FOX Sports App and FOXSports.com, completely redesigned to serve the sports fan of today and tomorrow. The products marry design concepts that are unique to sports, with a robust offering of the best video, storytelling, statistics and live streaming. The innovations include a patent-pending Bonus Cam experience for enhanced fan access, starting with FOX Sports’ first-ever quadruple header to lead off the 25th season of Major League Baseball on FOX, Saturday, July 25.
Additionally, enhanced personalization gives users access to their favorite league, team and player content. Real-time odds, powered by FOX Bet Sportsbook, are integrated throughout the products.
Some of these features have been expected, like the betting odds integration. The breathlessness of the press release aside, the redesign does seem like a major step up from what had been a platform designed mostly so force studio debate show clips upon you if you visited on mobile, whether you wanted to see them or not. (You didn’t.) The new interface looks clean, and worked smoothly, though at first glance it wasn’t easy to discern how the actual stories were organized or sorted. But, hey, there are stories! With words!
It is still kind of amusing, though, to read quotes like this:
“FOX Sports is known for innovation, and this forward-looking digital redesign marks a new era,” said David Katz, Executive Vice President and Head of Digital, FOX Sports. “Modern sports fans are passionate, engaged and uncompromising. Our bold, distinctive products provide them a fresh way to experience the leagues, teams and players they love.”
And realize that it’s talking about a site that promises stories, live TV, sports scores, and the ability to save teams and sports as favorites. That’s not being reductive, either, that’s what they’re highlighting:
STORIES: Users swipe into the most important topics of the day, featuring multimedia perspective and analysis from the most important voices in sports. Driven by editorial sensibility and data-driven insights, each story provides a 360-degree view on the sports topics that matter most.
LIVE TV: Every FOX Sports game and studio show is available to TV subscribers with the tap of a button. Users watch in full-screen mode or flip vertically to get real-time stats, projections, highlights, social feeds and more. NFL, MLB, NASCAR, MLS, College Football, College Basketball, WWE, PBC, PBA and Liga MX, as well as all FS1 and FOX Deportes daily studio shows, are just a click away.
BONUS CAMS: Select games and events will now include patent-pending Bonus Cams, where fans can watch the live telecast while choosing between secondary feeds with different camera angles and perspectives. FOX Sports’ award-winning “Watch Party” concept features prominently here throughout the year. Fans can experience Bonus Cams for the first time starting with FOX Sports’ first-ever MLB quadruple header on Saturday, July 25th and in other sports throughout the year.
SCORES: Fan research shows a desire for easy-to-navigate score pages that are elevated within the experience. The new design simplifies access to the scores and schedules fans want. The date, time and TV network are featured alongside the key odds (spread, money line, total).
FAVORITES: Fans can personalize their experience by choosing their favorite leagues, teams and players. Robust content sections for all Favorites are accessible via the Explore tab.
They might never get traffic back to what it was before the original pivot to video, but at least they finally recognized that plenty of people still want to read things online three years after pointed it out to begin with.
