When it comes to pro-sports, a Website that portrays energy, enthusiasm, and innovation is crucial. Acknowledging this, the Houston Texans organization sought to create a new online presence — one that would place it among the elite in all of professional sports. To accomplish this goal, the Texans chose to partner with Americaneagle.com given the firm's many years of experience developing Websites for professional athletic organizations.
In an effort to provide the Houston Texans with an unrivaled Website, Americaneagle.com created a brand centric design with a strong focus on the user experience. Indeed, HoustonTexans.com now provides fans with an exciting, interactive presence that makes many efforts to mimic the in-game experience. The site is loaded with dynamic functionality, such as the use of Flash video in the master header. When fans visit the site, the header plays the online version of the highly energetic pre-game video that plays on the stadium's Jumbo-Tron before the Texans rush the field.
While HoustonTexans.com was designed to increase fan loyalty, the site also streamlines operations for the Texans staff. A fully customized Content Management System (CMS) was implemented to simply site maintenace in many ways. Indeed, the CMS provides indexing or tagging of content keywords, saving time on the update process and allowing users to obtain consistent information on the front end of the site. Furthermore, the Content Management System allows the Texans to change the skin or color palette of their site at any time to reflect an upcoming game or event. By selecting one of three color options (red, blue or white), fans will be able to easily distinguish whether the Texans will be participating in a home game, away game or special event. With the ability to manipulate the site's colors, the Texans can align their Website with their offline branding for a more cohesive and compelling identity.
In the near future, Texans fans will be able to signup for the "Red Zone". This area of the site will be a personalized portal that will allow fans to create email accounts via the site with an @ImaTexan.com extension, subscribe to RSS feeds, upload personal videos and images, comment and rate stories, and more. In addition, Americaneagle.com will also be launching several other features that have never been done before on any Sports team site. This includes: Player intros with Flash video on Bio pages (ex. "Hi, I'm Ron Dayne from the University of Wisconsin"), player 360 degree rotations so users can spin and view the player from all angles, Flash interactive videos for high profile players in which they will spin the ball on their finger or catch a pass. The site will also be using Flash video for all the new video going forward on their site, including the addition of streaming LIVE Flash video, which will be launching at the start of the Texans season.
Flash video and other interactive features found on the site all contribute to a significantly improved Web presence for Texans fans — a presence that brings the life of the game closer than ever to the online environment. This real-time online experience wouldn't be possible without the sophisticated tools of the Content Management System which allows the Texans staff to keep the site up to date with every touchdown, every injury report, and every press conference.