MSG Varsity is an online high school sports programming service which was also a high school sports television network that focused on the New York metropolitan area, covering schools from Connecticut, New Jersey, Long Island and New York City. MSG Varsity App gives users access to high school sports scores, schedules and video highlights on iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, for much of the New York tristate area. Users can watch MSG Varsity Live and customize for their favorite teams, schools and sports.
In 2010, I first worked with MSG Varsity and Cablevision to bring their online programing to iOS to allow users to customize their content by creating individual sport, school and school sport cards. Seasonal features such as Football Files and The Talent Show gave users instant access and a platform to interact with some of their favorite MSG Varsity Shows.
VERSION 1 / 2010
STRATEGY & UX
In 2014, I worked again with MSG Varsity and Cablevision to update the app with a full redesign and update the UX/UI as well as take advantage of new iOS features. Due to a shift in strategy, MSG Varsity wanted to focus more on new content and on regional sports news, but still allow users the same custom features from version 1. I achieved this by eliminating the individual custom cards and introducing a tile mosaic that used multipurpose tiles to display different types of static and custom APIs.
View Project
DESIGN
Using the tile mosaic as in a responsive approach allowed for the same content to be displayed across all iOS devices and screen sizes. MSG Varsity employs a large number of professional photographers who attend numerous games each night across all sports. Using the newest photos, APIs would update both custom and static seasonal tiles daily. All typography was updated and a UI overhaul with a focus on the main slide-out menu was introduced.
DESIGN
The Watch MSG Varsity section of the app introduced new features, primarily allowing users to switch between multiple live game streaming games. Users could also surf through previous games, shows and highlights. Creating a simple UI that gave the users the ability to filter by region and sport by using xCode’s new Popover content views gave users more UI options in a self-contained modal view.
