Collegiate athletics’ reach and interest is at an all-time high. Fans support their alma maters no matter where their careers take them. Just last year, UCLA Bruins fans flocked the new Pauley Pavilion by 3,196 more than their average attendance during basketball season. In football, nearly 49 million people attended games across the 644 NCAA schools last year, including the SEC topping 7 million as conference by itself.
Nowadays, digital media pervades the natural habits of sports fans. According to Adweek, there’s been a seven percent, 14 percent, and ten percent increase of content consumption by fans in the last two years across online, mobile, and social media fronts, respectively. This shift has impelled conferences like the new American Athletic Conference and schools like the University of Miami to completely redefine their digital strategies. What’s more, startups like Basketball Passport are planning to disrupt the space and galvanize these communities based on their online behaviors.
In light of the ever-evolving climate, the principal institution in college sports, the NCAA, is primed to take another proactive step forward in the digital age.
Today, the NCAA and Turner Sports launch a complete redesign overhaul of NCAA.com, just in time for basketball season and well ahead of college football’s bowl season.
“Our goal with the NCAA.com redesign was to give our users a more simplified, personalized and consistent experience across all devices,’ says Mark Johnson, Vice President of Business Operations at Turner Sports and NCAA Digital.
“This new design allows us to better feature our unparalleled coverage of NCAA Championships and the many compelling student-athlete stories surrounding those events. It also better positions us in an ever-changing digital landscape to provide content to our users via their preferred device,” Johnson continues.
Turner Sports’ redesign of the NCAA official website focuses on a swift, adaptive design in order to provide users a high quality visual presentation, be it on a laptop, tablet, or Smartphone. The user interface and experience immediately stand out through its simplistic appearance and navigation. The emphasis on large pictures within the homepage and across the bevy of pages presents an appealing destination to consume content, regardless of the device utilized. This aspect alone should pay immediate results, in terms of traffic and user session times.
Besides the developments on the surface, there’s plenty of new features that reflect what college sports fans want.
The most exciting and promising feature is Championship Mode. During various times of the academic year when it’s the postseason for each respective sport, the entire site will transform to promote these events. Users can expect live-video streaming of the more than 65 championships to be featured prominently on the NCAA.com homepage and the given sport section. This facet encapsulates the tradition of college sports and distributing it as the most desirable format, live online video.
Another feature that an alumnus of any school would appreciate is the optimized School Pages. Within the drop-down menu, the top 20 “trending” schools are highlighted. Users can sift through a database of the 1,300 NCAA member institutions to check on their school’s page. These pages offer news and social modules directly from the school themselves, with rosters and schedules across the number of sports. The organization and ease of use let’s fans discover the content they want considerably faster and effectively.
From an e-commerce standpoint, the Experience It Live feature serves as a one-stop shop NCAA championships tickets, hospitality, and unique game day experiences. Potential revenues can be forthcoming here since so many fans will be looking for a centralized source with regards to any collegiate postseason game information and amenities.
Along with other added features such as Personalization and Curated Twitter Content, Turner Sports has paved the way for an ongoing, successful NCAA digital partnership. Nearly three years ago and running, the site has experienced a significant rise in traffic coincided with the extended coverage of the complete collegiate football and basketball seasons. This past academic year, NCAA.com averaged more than five million monthly uniques–a 36 percent uptick from 2011. And in mobile, there was over an outstanding 77 percent increase in monthly unique users.
“Our partners at Turner Sports continue to keep the NCAA’s digital presence on the cutting edge. This redesign will enhance the user experience and allow our fans to receive content in a more efficient manner,” says Keith Martin, NCAA Managing Director of Championships and Alliances.
Given the fact Turner Sports have won Webby’s before for their work with the NBA, this redesign of NCAA.com gives a whole new meaning to “One Shining Moment.”