Fueling football’s weekly rhythm for 150M fans
- ClientNFL
- IndustrySports
- ServicesCustomer Experience · Technology · Marketing
- CapabilitiesCustomer Experience · Customer Journey Mapping · Understanding Audiences · Audience insights
A video-first redesign to deepen fan engagement
Football runs on a weekly rhythm—from anticipation to kickoff and beyond—while the NFL keeps fans engaged year-round through fantasy, betting, new shows, and live experiences. The app needed to reflect that always-on momentum.
Instead, it felt disjointed and static, falling short of the league’s vibrancy, energy, and boldness. This case study explores how the NFL and Code and Theory approached a video-first redesign to reimagine the mobile experience and deepen engagement—setting the stage for what comes next.
Key Takeaways
Transformed the NFL app into a dynamic, video-first hub tailored to every fan’s journey.
Created a modular design system that adapted seamlessly across 32 teams, events, and preferences.
Boosted fan loyalty, expanded audience reach, and accelerated NFL+ growth through a fan-first evolution.
Refocused the NFL app experience to better fuel fans’ weekly rhythm of football.
Impact
We reimagined the NFL app experience to better match the weekly rhythm of football, helping fans move seamlessly from anticipation to game day and beyond. By clarifying what matters most at each moment and making the journey feel more intentional, the experience becomes easier to navigate and more rewarding to return to.
Sunday gameday on any screen
Sundays are appointment viewing for NFL fans from early day to late night, whether you watch at home, at the bar, or on the go, with an average of 14 games being played between 1 pm – 8 pm EST. NFL+ offers the chance to get live local and national games and RedZone in the users’ hands, wherever they are, to deliver the ultimate Gameday experience.
To get fans into the action as quickly as possible, the new app delivers an easy-to-use, fast, personalized experience that keeps the fan at the center—helping them find what they want to watch and follow the action throughout the NFL day, week, and season.
In tune with the NFL week and season
The habits, behaviors, and passions of Sunday Gameday were the starting point for the experience, but the new NFL app stays in tune with the rhythms of the NFL day, week, and season while always keeping the fan at the center of the experience. Throughout the week, the app's Watch & News screens dynamically adapt to the ebbs and flows of the week, transitioning from Injury Reports in the run-up to Gameday to the Game experience itself to the analysis of the week and the previews of the next one.
Beyond the season, there is plenty of enhanced action around the NFL Combine and Draft. The app includes an immersive draft tracker and an in-depth look at player performance, comparisons, projections and team needs.
A faster, more personal NFL app experience
Combining the NFL's proprietary research with our audience and market analysis, we evaluated how the app could enhance the modern fan experience. Fans are often confused by video services and subscriptions and frustrated with commoditized sports content. In close partnership with the NFL, we reimagined the app to deliver an easy-to-use, fast, personalized experience.
By overhauling the architecture, design, and user experience to be D2C-centric, and highlighting unique NFL features like Next Gen Stats and exclusive content, we created a refreshed, dynamic, and valuable app for all fans.
Modular design system across all 32 teams
The app’s secret sauce, which fans experience but don’t see, is a modular design system built to adapt dynamically across all 32 teams, different game days, events, and a myriad of user preferences. Using atomic design principles, the app scales seamlessly for both macro-level needs (NFL-wide branding) and micro-level moments (individual team matchups or live events like the NFL Draft or Combine).
This flexible foundation helps keep the experience consistent and recognizable while still feeling personal to each fan, team, and moment in the season. It supports a fast, personalized app that can evolve with the rhythms of the NFL week and scale to new features without sacrificing clarity or cohesion.
Reimagined game pages for deeper insights
The redesigned Game Page brings the action into sharper focus with richer play-by-play, deeper stats, and clearer drive charts—so fans can follow every moment and understand how the game is unfolding in real time.
From modular system to game-day detail
A modular design system only matters if it shows up where fans feel it most: in the moments when the experience needs to shift quickly from NFL-wide context to the specifics of a single matchup. That flexible foundation makes it possible to keep the app consistent and recognizable while still adapting to different teams, game days, and user preferences.
That same adaptability carries into the Game Page experience, where fans go from scanning what’s happening to understanding how the game is unfolding. With richer play-by-play, deeper stats, and clearer drive charts, the redesigned Game Page supports deeper dives in real time—so the experience stays fast, personal, and focused on the action.
What We Did
Streaming engagement
2.3B Minutes streamed in app
Weekly active audience
5M+ Users weekly
Industry recognition
Shorty Awards Winner: Best in Sports, Apps
Media coverage
Earned press in Fast Company
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newbiz@codeandtheory.comCode and Theory is a proud member of Stagwell Group. Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing. Led by entrepreneurs, our 13,000+ specialists in 34+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com
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