Mobile app for personalized sports content and community
Sports fandom is shifting from team-centric loyalty toward following individual athletes, driven by social media, personal brands, and athlete-led ventures. While younger fans increasingly engage with athletes directly, most sports apps continue to prioritize team statistics and generalized news. FRS Network identified this gap and set out to create a mobile experience centered on individual athletes, giving fans a more relevant, personal way to follow performance, content, and community. I was responsible for designing a mobile-first product that restructured sports content around athlete identity rather than teams.
Role
Senior Product Designer
Client
FRS Network
Timeline
8 months
Project Scope
- Owned end-to-end UX and interaction design - Led content architecture, feed design, and personalization logic - Designed athlete profiles, performance views, and community features - Partnered with product and engineering to balance personalization with performance constraints
The Challenge
Fans who followed individual athletes struggled to keep track of relevant content across fragmented platforms: - Athlete news and performance data were scattered across social media, team sites, and news outlets - Existing sports apps mixed team and athlete content, making relevant information difficult to find - Fans lacked dedicated spaces to connect with other supporters of specific athletes - Updates about off-field activities and ventures were delayed or inconsistent As a result, fans spent time hunting for information instead of engaging with it.
Key Decision
Center the experience around athletes instead of teams
Research showed that while teams still mattered, many fans—especially those under 30—engaged more consistently with individual athletes. I reorganized the product around athlete identity, allowing fans to explicitly follow athletes and receive content tailored to those preferences. This shift influenced content structure, navigation, and notification strategy across the app.
The Solution
Key Decision
Design athlete profiles as the primary content hub
Rather than treating athletes as secondary entities within team pages, athlete profiles became the core surface where performance, news, and activity converged.
Athlete Profiles
- Customizable athlete following - Performance statistics dashboards - Aggregated news and social content - Business ventures and off-field activity updates
Key Decision
Separate athlete content from team noise through personalized feeds
To reduce content overload, I designed personalized feeds that surfaced athlete-relevant updates while filtering out unrelated team content.
Content Management
- Personalized news feeds based on followed athletes - Automated content categorization - Content filtering and notification preferences - Save, share, and custom list creation
Key Decision
Build community features around shared athlete interest
Instead of broad forums, community features were designed around specific athletes, enabling more focused discussion and connection.
Community Platform
- Athlete-specific fan groups - Discussion forums and content sharing - Event planning and fan meetups - Direct fan-to-fan messaging
Outcomes
- Delivered a mobile experience aligned with emerging fan behavior - Enabled faster access to athlete-specific content without team-related noise - Created dedicated spaces for athlete-focused community engagement - Provided a scalable foundation for future personalization and content expansion
