Before I say what I’m going to say, I just want to make it clear I have nothing against NBC Sports. They employ Dan Patrick and Bob Costas, two of my favorite sports personalities, and they consistently provide good sports programming.
But NBC Sports Mobile, an iPhone app, is an absolute mess. Content-wise, this is an elite app with enough information to blow similar sports apps out of the water. Design-wise, it is awful.
The free app is comparable to Sportacular and Sports Illustrated in that it has news, stats and scores for multiple sports. But unlike those apps, NBC Sports Mobile has an extensive collection of videos and fantasy sports news from Rotoworld.com – the best fantasy sports news sites. Those incredible features are, in part, what make navigating around the app so disappointing. Just about every page is wall-to-wall text and graphics, and there are unnecessary arrows to scroll through headers and videos. There is too much stuff going on.
In many ways, NBC Sports Mobile feels like a website design ‘shrunk’ to iPhone proportions. I appreciate the wealth of information here, but simpler would be better.
Similarly, I love that NBC packed a bunch of features into a free app, but even this is problematic. The longer you spend in the app, it bogs down and gets slower as you navigate between sections.
If you want a Rotoworld app, give NBC Sports Mobile a try. Otherwise, there is too drastic of a difference in ease of use and design between this app and its competitors.
