Case Study · FanDuel Sports Network
Designing for
the Fan Already
Watching
How I led bet tracking inside a live sports broadcast — and held a coherent design direction while leadership kept shifting the success metric.
+31%
Sportsbook crossover engagement
SENIOR PRODUCT DESIGNER
TV + MOBILE
0 > 1
01 · The Hard Part
Two weeks in.
New platform.
Same deadline.
We were briefed to design mobile-first. Two weeks in — wireframes done, component logic mapped, entry point validated — leadership changed direction. TV was now the priority surface. Mobile would follow.
TV isn't a responsive breakpoint. It's a different design problem entirely: 10-foot viewing distance, no touch input, a user whose attention is already on the game. The mobile work couldn't carry over directly.
I pushed back on throwing it out. The mobile wireframes had surfaced real decisions about information hierarchy and the entry point model — decisions that would have to be made again for TV anyway. I negotiated to preserve that structural thinking while rebuilding the interaction model from scratch for the new surface.
TV shipped. Mobile is still in progress — but the foundation is there because we didn't treat the pivot as a reset.
"
We reframed the problem around the broadcast fan and not the sportsbook user. That single shift became the alignment point leadership had been missing."
THE DECISION THAT UNLOCKED THE PROJECT
02 · Before the Pivot
Two weeks of mobile work.
Then everything changed.
This is what existed when leadership shifted the platform to TV-first. Not a rough concept — component logic mapped, entry points validated, interaction model defined. The question became: how much of this carries over?
The information hierarchy and entry point model from this work survived the pivot. The interaction layer — touch, scroll, mobile gestures — did not. What came next was rebuilding for a surface where the user never touches the screen.
-- TV DESIGN NEXT
03 · MVP → Evidence
Why the scorebug,
not the betslip
Early wireframes tested the scorebug as the anchor point for bet tracking — not the bet slip UI imported from the sportsbook app. That single decision kept the experience native to broadcast rather than bolted on. Each iteration was pressure-tested against one constraint: does this work if the user never looks away from the game?
Wireframe · Account Linking · Empty State
When a user initiates the bet tracking feature the first crucial step is for them to link their FanDuel Sportsbook account in order to view their bets on the TV experience.
Wireframe · Account Linked · Empty State
After a user has linked their account, what state do they see. How do we provide guidance if there are no bets placed for this game and drive engagement?
Visual Explorations · Bet Cards
For the TV experience in order to provide the lean back experience we worked closely with FanDuel Partnership team to refine the bet cards and pinpoint which information is most important for a bettor at a glance. From a bet that is Open, Won, Lost, Bet type, Player Bet, and Team associated.
04 · The TV Pivot
Same data.
Completely different problem.
Expanding to TV wasn't phase two — it introduced a fundamentally different design problem. No touch input. Longer viewing distance. A user whose hands are full and attention is split three ways. We rebuilt the interaction model from scratch for a 10-foot UI using the same bet data piped into a new visual language.
Final UI · Bet Tracking
Empty State · link your account
account linking · tv settings
Account linking · web companion
No touch input
Every interaction had to work with a remote. No tap targets, no swipe gestures — focus states and d-pad navigation only.
10-foot viewing distance
Type sizes, contrast, and information density all recalibrated for a viewer sitting across the room — not holding the screen.
Split attention
The game is always the hero. Bet tracking had to live in the periphery — present enough to be useful, invisible enough not to compete.
05 · Handoff Quality
Spec that could
ship without me
Shipping required eng to build against a moving spec as compliance requirements came in late. I documented edge states, fallback behaviors, and live-edge logic in enough detail that the team could make calls without pulling me into every decision.
On a project this turbulent, spec quality was a product decision — not a delivery formality.
Documentation · Bet Tracking
Bet Tracking · Variation Matrix
Bet Cards · Variation Matrix
06 · Results
Validated the
core hypothesis
In-context tracking converts fans who are watching into fans who are betting. The feature launched across the FanDuel Sports Network live broadcast experience on both mobile and TV.
Crossover
Engagement
Among live broadcast viewers — validating the bet-in-context hypothesis over the sportsbook-first model.
Mobile + TV
A single design system serving two fundamentally different interaction models and viewing distances.
Surface
Built from Scratch
No prior bet tracking existed inside the broadcast. This defined the pattern for all future gambling integrations.
Selected Works
