“We really saw mobile happen in 2011,” said David Finocchio, Founder and Chief Content Producer of Bleacher Report and Vice President at Turner Sports.
Then, Bleacher Report amassed 22 million unique monthly users and 40 percent of that traffic derived from mobile. They debuted an iPad iteration of their popular Team Stream app as byproduct of where users have been consuming their content. The rapid upswing in readership and mass production of content collided to the point that it was imperative that their mobile presence catered and reflected to the demand at hand.
Fast-forward to today, and Bleacher Report continues to evolve its Team Stream app offerings. Fantasy football has been added prior to the start of the NFL season. This new stream within the app should cross-pollinate well with their audience. There’s a ton of fan-generated content produced already and missing out on the countless conversations that fantasy football alone spurs wouldn’t be prudent moving forward. They’ve previously invested as a premium YouTube channel broadcaster, which features two football-centric shows. This latest iteration is available now in both Google Play and the App Store.
This update allows users to specify a stream of individual players from the fantasy teams they’ve created. Also, any and all information related to these players’ performance will simultaneously be prompted within the information architecture as it takes place.
These enhancements complement what they currently present users with and incentives a significant portion to utilize the app for longer intervals of time. The combination of mass users, content, and now fantasy sports that organically fits with Bleacher Report’s target demographics has created a value proposition that McDonald’s has agreed to be app’s launch corporate partner.
Projected engagement and impression numbers should bode well based on the media company’s history.
Considering the mobile discussion that took place at Variety’s Sports Entertainment Summit recently, Bleacher Report’s inclusion of fantasy football within the Team Stream app should’ve been expected.
Tyler Slocum, NFL’s Director of Mobile, did mentioned that there are differences in the second-screen audience and their consumption patterns. This reality forces app creators to provide a unique content strategy directly prevalent to the medium and users’ habits, which isn’t a mirrored representation from their other distribution outlets.
Likewise, Yahoo! Sports’ Vice President of Sports, Games, and Entertainment, Ken Fuchs, admission that their user base doubles each year as it pertains to fantasy sports sheds light on the magnitude of this business. These industry leaders understand the conversion taking place and how big of a factor fantasy football plays into long-term growth.
“We are committed to providing the best, most comprehensive experiences to our fans and these enhancements made to Bleacher Report’s coverage of the NFL are representative of how we’re delivering on that commitment,” said Finocchio in response to this news.
Mobile and fantasy sports go hand in hand with each other now and in the foreseeable future. Bleacher Report’s Team Stream advancements towards fantasy football is only the latest example that supports this ongoing trend.
