Selecting a design agency for a professional sports fan app
Many NBA, NFL and MLS team apps run on a vendor’s platform. How a head of digital can judge a design agency on matchday states, live data and a design system that spans every fan product.
A head of digital at an NBA, NFL or MLS team rarely starts a fan app redesign from a blank page. The app already exists, it probably runs on a vendor’s platform, and the league, the ticketing provider and the broadcasters each control part of what fans see. Choosing a design agency means choosing a team that can work inside that arrangement and still make the app better on game day.
So who designs the fan apps for NBA and NFL teams? For many teams, a platform vendor working with the team’s own digital staff. In 2015 the NBA named YinzCam an “Official Team and Arena Mobile App Developer of the NBA” and announced redesigns of 22 team apps that season. YinzCam’s site now says it serves 200+ teams across 7 countries, and its news list includes the Minnesota Vikings app in 2024 and an updated Chicago Fire FC app in 2026. Leagues commission work too: in 2020 the NBA picked Engine Digital to redesign the shared team site platform for desktop and mobile web, working with all 30 teams. An outside design agency usually joins for a redesign or a design system, and that is the decision this guide covers.
Expertise in fan app redesigns
A sports fan app is several products taking turns on one home screen. On a quiet Tuesday it is a news and video app. Two hours before tip-off it tells fans the start time, the lineups and where to watch. At the arena gate it is a ticket wallet, and during the game it has to keep pace with a live stats feed. The NBA’s 2015 announcement already described team apps whose home screen changes with a fan’s location and game status.
An agency that understands fan behavior treats those moments as the structure of the app, not as features to add later. Ask candidates to walk through each one. The worksheet below is illustrative; adapt the moments to your sport and your venue.
| Moment | What the fan needs first | What it depends on | Ask the agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| A day with no game | News, video, the next game, tickets | Content feed, ticketing | What brings a fan back between games? |
| Game day, away from the arena | Start time, how to watch or listen, lineups | Broadcast rights, league stats feed | How does the home screen change by location and game status? |
| Arriving at the arena | Ticket, parking, the right entrance | Ticketing account, league login | What does the fan see if the ticket will not load at the gate? |
| Live game | Score, clock, play-by-play, replays | League stats feed, video rights | What does the screen show when the feed is late? |
| After the game | Result, highlights, the way home | Stats feed, content team, transit | Which screen replaces the live one, and when? |
A strong answer starts with the third column. Live data puts pressure on every screen: the stats feed can lag, a game can be delayed, and a ticket may sit behind a league login. The Vikings app, for example, lets fans link an NFL ID account with Ticketmaster to reach their tickets. A partner who designs only the ideal state of each screen leaves your engineers to decide what fans see when one of those systems is slow.
Check what the platform lets you change
If your app runs on a vendor platform, the redesign happens inside its templates, modules and release cycle. Before you compare agencies, ask the vendor which parts of the app your team can restyle, reorder or replace, and share that list with every candidate. Then ask each agency what it would do with a module it cannot change. An agency that proposes a fully custom app without asking is quoting for a different project.
Ask for fan app work, and ask who designed what
For an MLS club rebuilding its app, look for named fan app work with a clear account of the agency’s role. A logo in a client list does not show who drew the screens. For agencies that publish cases for named sports streaming and live-data products, see the comparison of sports streaming and live-data app design agencies.
Humbleteam publishes this guide, so it should face the same questions. It does not publish a case study for an NBA, NFL or MLS team app. Its sports app work includes the current version of the F1 mobile app and a new vision for fan activations in it, work on the Red Bull TV app for iOS 26, and the NBA 2K23 companion app. That work is shown on request rather than as public cases. Its benchmark of 27 sports apps includes the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS apps, and its sports practice works alongside a club’s own designers and engineers, starting with one flow.
Building scalable design systems for sports
A professional team rarely ships one product. Fans meet the same team in the app, on the website, on arena screens, in ticketing emails and on the lock screen. Different vendors often build those surfaces, and the 2020 NBA project above treated all 30 team websites as one league platform. Without a shared system, every vendor redraws the score card, the player card and the ticket prompt, and fans notice the seams.
A design system for a sports organization fixes this when it records behavior as well as style. A useful one covers:
- Game states: scheduled, delayed, live, halftime, final and postponed, each drawn once so every product shows the same thing at the same moment.
- The split between your brand and what belongs to the league or the platform vendor, so a redesign does not fight the shared templates.
- Sponsor rules: where partner logos and offers may appear, and where they may not. Apple’s Live Activities guidance is plain: “Don’t use a Live Activity to display ads or promotions.”
- Small surfaces. The lock screen, the Dynamic Island, Apple Watch and CarPlay each show a compact version of the live game, and the operating system chooses which presentation appears.
- Handover notes that say what each component is for, which states it covers and what an engineer needs to build it.
Ask each agency who will own the system after launch: your team, the platform vendor or the agency. If nobody can answer, the system will drift by the second season. Sports media companies with a streaming product will find TV and web players covered in the guide to choosing a design partner for a sports streaming app.
Evidence of systems work
Ask to see a system that engineers have built from, not a style guide. Humbleteam’s public FanDuel case shows the kind of evidence to look for: a UI direction and design system for the sportsbook on mobile and desktop, with live, losing, loading and empty states drawn into the language and every pattern annotated for engineers. Its Logitech case shows one system across four surfaces: phone, desktop, the screen on the desk and the admin console. Neither is a team app, but both show a system built to be handed to engineers.
Before you shortlist agencies
- List every product fans use, from the app to arena screens, and who builds each one.
- Ask your platform vendor which parts of the app your team can change, and share the answer with every candidate.
- Fill in the matchday worksheet with your own moments and the data each one depends on.
- Send every agency the same live-game scenario and ask how its screens behave when the feed is late.
- Ask the league and your platform vendor which design changes they must approve, and build that review into the agency’s timeline.
