The potential for ESPN’s mobile content has always been enormous. But the network’s disparate apps (ScoreCenter, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, etc.), while each one effective in its own way, haven’t quite managed to synthesize ESPN’s best features into a cohesive experience. As ESPN’s SVP of product development Ryan Spoon said in a statement last week, the challenge in creating that cohesion is “taking all of the content that only ESPN can produce and making it simple and easy for fans to find what’s important to them on a mobile screen.”

Spoon’s words came in advance of SportsCenter, ESPN’s new app that, in taking on the network’s flagship show’s brand name, makes a statement that mobile content (as it should) has become a top priority.

A re-imagining of the ScoreCenter app, SportsCenter still opens onto an endlessly updating feed of scores, as ScoreCenter did, only now the user can customize the scores so their favorite teams show up first. From there, a swipe of the thumb pulls the News tab onto the screen, where a similar scroll of customizable stories streams past. The user can select one of the stories to see a related video clip as well as read in-depth news and analysis that ESPN is famous for.

In addition to merging video, text and statistics into an appealing, easy-to-navigate format, SportsCenter’s Now tab offers that must-have real-time social conversation via the Twitter feeds of ESPN properties and personalities. And a clever “Inbox” feature, when pressed, doles out top news based on the user’s preferences and viewing history. The cumulative results distill virtually all the show “SportsCenter” has to offer into app form, while offering “functionality that is true to the device but also consistent across devices with the familiar look and feel of ESPN and SportsCenter,” said Spoon. SportsCenter may not have all the content ESPN has to offer, but it has a lot of it, and perhaps most importantly, what it does have of it is whatever you want to see of it.

[Image courtesy of ESPN.]

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