BasketNews: from a fantasy game to a fan engagement platform

BasketNews is a basketball media platform with a large, highly engaged community of fans. It began as a news website and has grown into a multi-product platform that combines editorial content with interactive, gamified products. These products let fans engage with the sport beyond reading articles, and the platform now monetises them directly through a paid subscription tier and advertising partnerships.

BasketNews already had a fantasy basketball game in which users manage their own teams and earn points based on real games in competitions such as the EuroLeague, the FIBA Champions League and the Lithuanian Basketball League. The concept worked and things had to be updated. The interface was outdated and the design made the game hard to enjoy.

Civitta was brought in to modernise the product. The timeline was tight: roughly two months to go from concept to a live, redesigned game ahead of the new basketball season.

Civitta led the redesign and then built two further products for BasketNews, turning a single game into a connected suite of fan engagement tools.

• Research-led redesign
  We benchmarked leading Fantasy sports products across other sports. Fantasy is a well-established format globally, but one BasketNews had not kept pace with. We aligned with the client on the new direction before design work began.
• Mobile-first design and development
  Most usage happens on mobile, so we designed mobile-first and built the product with a React front end and a Node.js back end. The redesigned Fantasy game went live at the end of August 2025.

With the redesigned game live and the community growing, BasketNews extended the platform with two new products:

• Expanding into prediction
  Built from scratch by the same core team, Prediction lets users guess the score margin of upcoming games. Engagement is particularly high during major championships. It launched in January/February 2026.
• Expanding into quiz
  Quiz gives users five basketball questions a day to test their knowledge, with daily streaks and daily, monthly and all-time leaderboards. It launched in September 2026.

Usage grew by an estimated 30% following the Fantasy redesign. Together, the three products have deepened BasketNews’s shift from a pure news site into a genuine community platform.

More than 10,000 users now pay for the premium BN+ tier, and the platform generates significant advertising revenue from partners in the gambling industry, who are drawn to its engaged sports audience.

Civitta continues to work closely with BasketNews on further products built on this foundation.

1. A strong gamification concept can still fail on execution. Fantasy sports is a proven format, but an outdated, hard-to-use interface undermines even a solid idea. Modernising the design and UX unlocked engagement that was already latent in the product.
2. One good gamified product can become a platform. Fantasy was the entry point, but it opened the door to Prediction and Quiz. Each reinforces the others and turns a news site into a daily habit for its most engaged users.
3. Gamification drives monetisation, not just engagement. Daily habits such as streaks and leaderboards translated directly into a paid base of more than 10,000 subscribers and stronger advertiser interest. Engagement features can be a real revenue lever, not just a retention extra.