Website Watch: Sky Sports
The UK Sky Sports network is renowned for its sporting television channels but how well does it do as a sports website? We have a look and are surprised at what we find.
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What a feast of sport! If there is any UK sport you like from darts, right through to rugby, cricket and soccer, all the way to American football then you will find it here.
The Sky Sports website comes literally bursting to the touchline with sports, sports and then more sports – so full, in fact, you’ll need an afternoon to get through it all!
Take a look at the sections accessible from the top navigation menu and see the quality and quantity of the content. For each of the main sports there is a big selection of videos, photos and audio available to complement each page.
Then, under the main menu item for a page, there is a secondary navigation menu which offers access to more content, much of which provides comprehensive statistics and the latest results along with statistics and links to other relevant pages.
As you would expect from a Sky website, the main content is good, presenting well written authoritative articles that are well designed and supplemented by an excellent selection of photographs.
If simply looking at sport is not enough then you can choose ‘Opinion’ from the menu to take you to a host of both expert and blog content and then to the Sky Sports experts for pages and pages of well crafted expert opinion and advice.
It’s hard to single out a particular section but if you want a quick way to get up to speed on the site then choose the ‘Tennis’ section. This contained on the main page links to an incredible amount of news and comment and this format is reflected in all the sports covered from the main menu.
Remembering that this is a TV channel, the ‘Shows’ menu reveals links to most of the Sky Sports shows, each page of which offers further details and then even more content.
But the main menu is not the end of the content so be sure to click on the word ‘More’ at the end of the main navigation bar to see a long list of further pages which includes, among others, links to the photo galleries, message boards (always worth a read) and competitions. From this menu, too, choose ‘Fun and Games’ for a little pleasant relaxation.
So far as we could judge, the content was well up to date and seemed to cover almost all the main sporting events that we could think of.
There are adverts on the pages but the advertising is unobtrusive and, when we looked, tasteful which makes the viewing experience all the better and helps to give a quality feel to whole site.
Accessibility is catered for and details are found from the menu item at the bottom of each page. Also here are links to the Privacy Statement, the Terms and Conditions and a link to contact the site. Usefully, there is a link to both the Facebook and the Twitter pages on the web.
This is a site that you really have to visit to appreciate both the scope and depth but, overall, the feeling is one of quality both in design and in written content and particularly in the quality of the video and photographs. Definitely, one for the favourites list!
