Sling TV noticed a worrying trend: viewer engagement sharply tapered off once the playoffs ended. Despite a diverse content catalog, the enthusiasm of sports fans was fleeting. To retain this valuable audience segment, Sling enlisted TribalScale to understand fan behaviors deeply and craft a future roadmap that would keep them engaged year-round. The project focused on transforming insights into tangible product strategies.
Impact Delivered
Challenge
Sling faced a critical—and all-too-common—problem in sports streaming: high engagement during key events that evaporated during downtime. This posed multiple risks:
Retention gaps — casual sports fans disengaged post-playoff, creating viewership valleys.
Misaligned product offerings — the platform lacked features that could extend engagement beyond marquee events.
Uncertain motivations — without clear insight into what kept fans watching, Sling struggled to meaningfully innovate.
Solution
We partnered with Sling to dig into user psychology—not just how they watched, but why they tuned in.
TribalScale ran a three-tiered research approach:
User Cohort Interviews — spanning current sports fans, lapsed users, and sports fans on other platforms—to isolate patterns in engagement and pain points.
Affinity Mapping & Journey Mapping — to uncover emotional states tied to watching playoff games and beyond, identifying inflection points that mattered.
Persona & Feature Roadmap Creation — synthesizing insights into actionable user profiles and a prioritized set of features aimed at retention and re-engagement.
We intentionally shifted the conversation from Sling’s features to the fans’ experiences, ensuring product decisions were grounded in real behavior— not assumptions.
Research Methods & Frameworks
User interviews (qualitative insight)
Affinity mapping (pattern identification)
Journey mapping (emotional states and behaviours)
Persona creation (audience segmentation)
Feature roadmapping (strategic prioritization)
Outcome
While the project was research-first, it planted the seeds for enriched feature development and audience-centric innovation. Sporting content became less event-driven and more seamless—mirroring fan habits, not just schedules. TribalScale helped Sling shift from reactive retention strategies (run new events) to proactive engagement design.
Why It Matters
In sports streaming, spikes in fandom come and go. The real value lies in uncovering why users stick around and lending purpose to that attention. TribalScale's work helped Sling move from building content bundles to building emotional bonds—so fans stay, even between seasons.