The NFL Draft is always an exciting time for clubs, with a new infusion of talent joining the roster and a renewed feeling of excitement.

After going 2-15 during the 2023 season, the Panthers desperately needed both.

To capitalize on this, I created an innovative app experience that would bring fans the content they craved about each Carolina draft pick to their devices almost immediately. I made several API connections to an outside CMS (Contentful) that would update pick information in real time. Upon selection, the home screen of the experience auto-updated to the pick name, round and position, and then took users to a secondary screen that pulled in an action shot, quick bio information and links to corresponding feature article and photo gallery.

This proved to be very successful in the Panthers case, as the team initially didn’t have a first-round selection but traded to get back into the first round and then made a flurry of second-day trades to move around the board.

The experience garnered 86K views and 31K button taps (showing that fans were interacting with it). View examples of the Panthers 2024 Draft experience below: