As the owner of exclusive broadcast rights for both the men’s and women’s FIFA World Cup, FOX Sports had the opportunity to bring the excitement of the tournament to fans around the world. My team and I had previously worked on the Women’s World Cup, but this was our first time covering the Men’s World Cup. Our goal was clear: create an engaging and immersive experience for fans, while also optimizing for content discovery and promotion.
To achieve this, I met with key stakeholders including product owners, editorial staff, and executives to gather insights and better understand their expectations. From there, we conducted user research, brainstormed ideas, prototyped potential solutions, and tested them to ensure we were delivering the best possible experience for World Cup fans.
We created Match Center to serve as the central hub for every match, featuring all relevant content such as multiple concurrent video feeds, commentary, rosters, stats, and highlights. This resource was available in the FOX Sports App and FOXSports.com, providing a comprehensive overview of each match from pre-match to live to post-match.
Working closely with Apple engineers, we were able to create a pioneering Apple TV app that offered multiple concurrent live-stream players for the first time. This innovative feature also allowed users to “live browse” channels from the app’s home screen, another first.
As the World Cup is all about rooting for your team, we made sure to provide users with a snapshot of key data points right on the home screen of the FOX Sports app. For those who wanted to delve deeper, an in-depth team page was just one tap away. Through conversations with fans, we learned that their priorities can vary based on their level of fandom, but generally, they wanted to know when their team was playing, the results of their last game, and to see highlights if they missed any of the action.
The Highlights Machine is a revolutionary tool that allowed users to relive the greatest moments from World Cup history. With a simple and intuitive interface, fans could easily select players, teams, matches, years, and play types to create their own personalized highlights. And with access to a one-of-a-kind archive of 300 past World Cup matches provided by FIFA, they could explore the rich history of the tournament.
The fun didn’t stop there—users also had a blast watching highlights created by others. Our editorial team curated highlight reels using a combination of editorial judgment and algorithms to identify the most exciting and relevant content from the archive and current event.
We weren’t surprised that the Highlights Machine became a viral hit, with users sharing their favorite moments from World Cup history.
The FIFA World Cup was an incredible success, but we knew that we needed to keep users engaged even after the event was over. To do this, we created a user journey centered around allowing users to favorite their team. By prompting users to choose their team and then asking for permission to send notifications about that team, we were able to achieve a high opt-in rate and strong retention rates even after the World Cup ended. It was a win-win for everyone involved.
