Bringing in the Modern Sports Gambler
Three years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law which effectively banned gambling in most states. Since then we have seen a proliferation of states (currently 22 states allow either in-person or online wagering) that are legalizing sports gambling via casinos or online wagering. As we at Fox Sports continue to build the best experience for today’s sports fan, we want to also bridge the gap between the sports world and the gambling market. Doing this isn’t as easy as it sounds though.
Within our userbase, there is a wide spectrum of people — from those who have zero experience in sports wagering or those who do daily fantasy all the way to the other end, the folks who are placing money every weekend on a slate of games they see value in. Attracting that breadth of audience means we have to appeal to the novice gambler who is not familiar with wagering and on the other end of the spectrum, for the people who are already familiar with wagering, we have to provide a best-in-class experience providing the necessary information needed for a user to place a wager with ease. Most importantly, since not all users are interested in gambling all of this needs to be complimentary to the experience and not intrusive.
Today there are effectively two primary user personas around consuming sports content; those who are interested in a particular event and follow along via scores, play-by-plays or watching an event and those who are interested in the gambling aspect and how they can amplify their experience via wagering on events. Fox Sports is on a mission to be the provider that bridges that gap between both of these personas. Fox Sports got serious.
“Who is favored in the Chiefs and Raiders game tonight?”
We want to help the user be able to answer that question. We want the user to know the slate of games for today, tomorrow and in the future (where wagering markets are open and available). They should be able to easily see the games and wagers that appeal to them and with one click get the odds data they are looking for in an easily consumable experience.
“The Kansas City Chiefs are favorited over the Raiders this weekend at -175. The spread is at -3. The total is pretty high at 52.5“
What are the typical markets (or bets, wagers) used?
Point Spread: Margin of victory in a game
Over/Under: (Also known as Total) predicting the total score and if it will be over or under what the pre-determined amount is
Money Line: (Also known as Team to Win) picking the winner of the game
Futures: a wager that will occur later in the year or upcoming season
Prop Bet: (Also know as a Proposition bet) is a wager that does not directly tie to the final score or outcome
As I get deeper and use Fox Consumer Product & Engineering (CPE) team names, please use the following link to understand who they are — Bifrost and SportsData. See the section “Top of the Third”.
The Market is Open
With our partnership with FoxBet, we have the power to bring in the markets they have throughout their properties. But why stop there when we also have other useful data at our fingertips? We are able to gather and expose market insights and other data to educate our sports fans leveraging our relationship with SportRadar.
Let’s dive in to how the architectural layers work:
Fox Sports utilizes as much data as possible to have a competitive edge. Multiple sources of data means we need to do some marrying of data before it heads down stream and into the hands of our users. The SportsData team works with a lot of feeds sending a lot of different information daily. Not only are we bringing the Odds information, but also all the data powering the stats, standings and event pages. SportsData’s role in the process is to bring in the data, normalize it and join it to allow for our teams to ingest it properly. (It did not take long to figure out the name for SportsData).
Once the data is in house, we need to bridge our data layer to our customers. “Send it through the Bifrost!” — Thor or Oden probably said that. Bifrost (see this post to understand the different teams who have built the Fox Sports experience for our users) needs to bring in each data point into the micro-service for a variety of endpoints. They then need to massage, cache and deliver a set of templated responses the clients would interpret for optimal rendering. From a product and design perspective, we need to meet exactly what the experience should be. Is it in a table? What words need to be emphasized? What data is filling in where? What order should the information go in? Bifrost is the presentation layer that determines all of it.
What it looks like in SportsData:
What it looks like in Bifrost:
What you see:
Game Time
Let’s give the modern sports fan what they want. With the data models and UI presentation finalized, time to power the pages for users to see. We have odds in a lot of places (and still more are coming) throughout our site. Our most popular pages right now are event, league, and team pages. That means at any point in time our users can come in and find the betting information they are looking for to inform them or help drive a decision to place a bet.
Scores Experience:
Get the odds to the user as soon as possible. We wanted to start the odds early by putting them in the top scores. It should pique the curiosity of our users, at a minimum giving them an idea of who is the favorite in each matchup. This is table stakes in today’s scoreboard. Fox Sports makes our odds information clear and the most relevant markets wagered per sport.
Event experience:
We give the user a quick and easily digestible experience in the pregame and postgame event pages. Natural language is used to describe for the user what they need to know about each event. If you do not want to get deep into odds markets but want to know something about how the game could go, this is for you:
But let’s go deeper. We allow for users to educate themselves more around the popular markets; where the money is going or who the majority of wagers are being placed on. Fox Sports gives you pre-game, live in-game and post-game odds. As markets are constantly moving in-game, we ensure users are up-to-date on where the market is in real time:
League and Team Pages
We wanted to really create an experience where users would have everything at their finger (or thumb) tips. These pages unify the myriad news sources that cover a specific team or sport, real-time stats and standings for users, and social media handles for up to the second news information on their favorite teams. We wanted our fanbase to have the same data for basic odds information as well as the cool prop bets:
FoxBet Projections
We didn’t stop there, Fox Sports and FoxBet teamed up to get really slick with projections. These are ones you throw out there with a “NERD ALERT” before saying it. This is where you get really deep into a game. This information is for users who love making prop bets and is extremely useful for the fan who likes to bet parts of the game, not the game itself.
The Payout
A few from users like you!
“Love the Odds tab · The odds tab is one of the best I’ve seen on any sporting app.“ — by Chi-Zou
“Best sports app in the market! · Innovative, slickly design, personalized, modernized for the sports fan of today. Great gambling information. This is the only sports app you need. Whoever developed this deserves a raise!” — by LADK
“I love this app · Very clean interface nice quick stats and betting lines“ — by ajshbeidif
“Good Stories and Betting info · Fox is an easy to use app that provides interesting articles, good coverage end betting tips in a timely fashion.“ — by Richardbob
Next time you are sitting on the barstool getting ready to watch the big game and your friend asks “who do you like in this game?” Know that the Fox Sports app has you covered. The app is a one-stop-shop for all information in the sporting world. Stick around and watch our app grow to places no other sports app has been. Hopefully you learn something along the way especially since most of the basic information we share with you is behind a paywall in other places.
Don’t forget it is not just for reading. Open the app to catch the game! (if you are logged in with a TV provider carrying the game) Especially for those Yankee fans trying to watch the FS1 broadcast in Boston. Or the Packers fan taking a fall vacation in Tampa Bay.
Lastly, as the kids would say these days, download our app, smash the like button in the App Store and give us 5 stars. Subscribe to all the alerts packages we have inside the app. Please give us any and all feedback. Thank you for being the best sports fans out there.
Start with Fox Sports own odds related content and one spot for all sports at — foxsports.com/odds — or download the app for more!
If you want to be a part of the team who is solving these challenges and pushing the envelope of what is possible in sports media, we’re hiring!
