Mile High Sports, a trusted name in Colorado sports news, analysis, and commentary for over two decades, boasts a very diverse media presence. Their reach spans mobile apps, printed magazines, radio programming, YouTube & Twitch channels, social media platforms, numerous podcasts, and four distinct websites.
Time to level up
We had been working with Mile High Sports for years before embarking on this project, and the limitations of the off-the-shelf website theme we inherited were becoming more and more painful. It was time for a change. We embarked on a quest to create a robust, scalable platform tailored to Mile High Sports’ unique needs.
Forging a mighty design system for a multi-channel publisher
We faced the monumental task of creating a design system that would work across all ~21,000 posts on Mile High Sports. Additionally, it needed to accommodate legacy content on Colorado Preps and upcoming content coming to Mile High Life. An in-depth content assessment informed our robust design system and ensured a flexible platform that would meet the needs of Mile High Sports now and into the future.
A few standout achievements:
- Revamped Site Navigation: We consolidated four disparate main navigation zones with significant overlap into a simplified, intuitive single primary navigation, complemented by a supporting footer.
- Performance Enhancements: Benchmarking showed a Speed Index improvement of approximately 3.1×, and a 2.6× boost in our Lighthouse Performance score.
- Optimized for Mobile: Improving the mobile experience was one of our biggest goals, and we achieved a remarkable 3.75× improvement on the home page mobile performance score.
- Ad Placement and Targeting: We streamlined the ad placement process and significantly enhanced ad targeting capabilities.
- Community Preservation: With only two weeks’ notice, we saved a vibrant Nuggets fan community from getting shut down by its former owner — just days before the NBA playoffs started.
Victories abound
We’re not claiming our new web platform is 100% responsible for the Nuggets winning the NBA Finals, but can it be a coincidence that they secured their first-ever championship in the same year we launched this platform? 🤔
Mile High Sports