RENTON, Wash. – Sounders FC announced today the launch of the first fully responsive website in Major League Soccer, designed to deliver a consistent, seamless experience across desktop, tablet and mobile devices.
“We discovered nearly 60% of the team’s website visitors were accessing the site on their mobile/tablet devices,” said Bart Wiley, Sounders FC VP of Business Operations. “The redesign ensures compatibility with all devices as requested by many of our fans.”
In addition to the mobile optimized design, the new website features enhanced videos in high definition, larger/higher quality photos and updated information organized to be more user friendly.
The site was developed in partnership with the MLS Digital group and Sounders FC is the first club to launch on MLS Digital’s updated v7 CMS. The latest version of the content management system is a customized version of Drupal 7 and takes advantage of innovation created by MLS Digital to deliver news, video, stats, and social content to supporters and fans. In addition, the new site makes extensive use of cloud hosting technology to automatically scale based on demand from Sounders fans.
“MLS fans are the most likely to use smartphones and mobile technology,” said Chris Schlosser, vice president, MLS Digital. “We worked closely with the Sounders to ensure that their fans would have a great experience on any device. Fifty-two percent of consumption by MLS fans last year came on a mobile device. We truly are mobile first when it comes to new product development.”
With the re-launch of SoundersFC.com, all 19 MLS Clubs are now using MLS Digital’s centralized CMS platform, this platform allows MLS to collectively invest in digital technology while allowing each club the flexibility to manage content and editorial from a local perspective.
Since its launch in February 2009, SoundersFC.com has had more than 28 million visitors from 211 countries and 71 million page views. The club boasts one of the largest social media followings in Major League Soccer with over 373,000 fans on Facebook, 263,000 followers on Google+, 99,000 followers on Twitter and 28,000 followers on Instagram.
