Sports Web Sites

[Mac the Knife]

Guys,

I'm in the preliminary stages of figuring out how my amateur sports organization's web presence should be modified/updated/overhauled for 2008, and thought I'd ask all you sports junkies what sports web sites you thought were best designed - not the best content, or your favorite team or what not; just which one you think is the best one you've seen in terms of things such as:

- General Appearance and Layout

- Navigation Ability

- Load Speed

- Graphics

- Any other attributes you think are important

Our current web presence is only a year old (ifflfootball.com to look at our flag football area) but I'm already unhappy with it and have decided to make a change in favor of a simpler, non-ASP site (I hate ASP). When I receive your feedback I'll take a look at whatever site(s) you recommend. Maybe it'll give me and our web design team (okay, its the two of our members who've agreed to do it for free) some ideas.

Thanks in advance for whatever suggestions you make!

[CJR]

I won't speak to design, since I only pretend to be a designer, but since I'm a developer/programmer I am interested in hearing why you want to move away from ASP.

I've got my language preferences but it's rare (to me, at least) to see a non-developer have reason to pick one over another.

[Mac the Knife]

In my case, Yzer, its a problem with my inability to adapt to the Visual Web Developer interface rather than ASP itself. The member who revamped our site, once he learned what all we wanted, said, "you can't do it in .HTML, but I can do it in ASP." Not knowing any better and figuring I could pick up editing pages easily enough to make content changes, I consented to it.

Unfortunately, I've futzed with it for a year and can't seem to break my MSFP/HTML ways. Rather than adapt to it as I normally (or at least eventually) do with every other software product that does things differently than I'm accustomed, I reached a frustration point where I just stopped updating the damned site instead. So I'm heading back to what I know essentially.

I trust your judgment on site design though - you're a better site designer than I am, so that automatically makes you qualified to give an opinion on this in my book!

[CJR]

I wondered if that might be the case. You're manually editing pages then, there's no CMS involved? Not knowing the details of the original project, it seems like using ASP (ASP.NET, it looks like) could have been overkill.

That said, I'd try to get people away from using Frontpage, too.

As for comments on the actual design... I don't know exactly what you're looking for but I can see some things that just look a little sloppy to me. A couple graphics that should be GIFs instead of JPEGs, a few places here and there where things seem to not line up quite right.

But if you're looking to change things completely, that doesn't matter.

[Mac the Knife]

Manually editing, exactly. Major PITA, particularly with tables, which we under normal circumstances would incorporate into the site quite a bit.

I'm not a big fan of FP either, but the organization doesn't have the jack to buy Dreamweaver and the member who's doing the site for free doesn't either. Having in the past spent thousands to have the site professionally done, this time around we're kind of going "on the cheap" and simplifying things, and buying Dreamweaver, either for him or me, isn't part of the plan.

We're going to do a complete overhaul, or at least as complete as we can reasonably do. I won't go so far as to say the site will have entirely new graphics, but I'm pretty much committed to that anyway.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for either, which is why I posted this thread: I thought if the guys here at the CCSLC knew of any sports-related sites that they really liked the look of, they'd post them here. From there I'd take a look and see what general look we should take in approaching our new site design.

[nyjet88]

Are you looking for examples of sites?

[logodawg]

One thing I will suggest to you is to use a CMS. I think the best one for you would be CMS Made Simple and it's free. It does use CSS instead of HTML, but anyone with a good understanding of HTML should be able to figure out how to customize it in an afternoon. Plus on it's website there is a message board where you can get help if you need it.

[SDX]

One thing I will suggest to you is to use a CMS. I think the best one for you would be CMS Made Simple and it's free. It does use CSS instead of HTML, but anyone with a good understanding of HTML should be able to figure out how to customize it in an afternoon. Plus on it's website there is a message board where you can get help if you need it.

That is great advice. I switched my site over to Joomla last season and its made it much easier to run.

[Mac the Knife]

Are you looking for examples of sites?

YES, THANK YOU! Someone who understood my rambling!

I'm not looking for suggestions on design. I'm simply looking for examples of sites that you think are well presented. That's all I'm asking for.

[nyjet88]

No problem. Any certain sports? Football, baseball, hockey?

[SDX]

Like

Evertonfc.com - Got everything and nice layout

http://www.manutd.com/ - like the layout

http://www.chelseafc.com/xxchelsea180706/index.html#thewall Not sure if i like it, its just different

http://www.fcporto.pt/English/Index_eng.asp - Nice and simple

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/index.html?WT.svl=HOMEPAGE

http://www.toffeeweb.com/

Dislike

Any of the "world" site like http://www.stockportcounty.premiumtv.co.uk...,,10419,00.html

http://www.mfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/0,,1,00.html

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/ - To busy

nfl.com - looks dated

http://www.steelers.com/

http://www.manchesterphoenix.co.uk/ - Layout good, content styling poor.

[CJR]

I can definitely throw some dislikes out there.

Steelers.com is just plain awful. So is DetroitRedWings.com (and their hideous, evil pay site, which I won't even link to).

Simple is better, and simple doesn't have to be boring.

[beansdooma]

http://www.buccaneers.com/

[Mac the Knife]

No problem. Any certain sports? Football, baseball, hockey?

Nope. We're a multi-sport organization, and again I'm just looking for ideas anyway.

I appreciate your URL's, and please - keep 'em coming - both good and bad. The good ones will give me some ideas in what direction we should take... and the bad ones will help me avoid going in certain directions.

[KevinMcD]

Horrible: www.buffalobills.com & www.nhl.com

[quantum]

It seems that with all the site construction tools available that sites would start to look better over time. I somehow remember steelers.com not looking so horrendous. I remember the pittsburgh penguins site being better with flash than the text OD look it has now. Maybe if broadband was more ubiquitous with internet users, sites would be more interesting design-wise. Instead, all too often the site has to be designed for dial-up customers.

The point? I don't think there is one sports site that I would pick as being outstanding.

[FloPoErich]

mvn.com

[Mac the Knife]

I guess we can close out this thread. The guy who was going to spearhead this project just advised me that he's taking a job with Microsoft and moving to Redmond. $#!+. I'm happy for him of course, but this derails pretty much everything.