Athletes
The visible center of the experience.
Athletes were the reason games were recorded and watched, but they were only one part of the larger product ecosystem.
2019
Families Behind the Athletes
How Research Reshaped BallerTV's Mission
Empowering Our Users was a generative research initiative designed to better understand the families using BallerTV and the role the platform played in their lives. While the company was originally positioned around athlete exposure and recruiting, interviews revealed a different story. Parents, grandparents, siblings, and extended family members relied on BallerTV to stay connected when they couldn't attend games in person. For many travel teams, only one parent attended tournaments while the rest of the family watched remotely. Through interviews, synthesis, and journey mapping, the research uncovered that connection, pride, and shared experiences were often more meaningful than recruiting opportunities. These findings ultimately helped influence a shift in company messaging and mission—from athlete exposure and recruiting toward connecting families and communities through live sports.
Context
BallerTV needed to understand who the product was really serving.
BallerTV streamed youth sports, but the product’s value extended beyond the athlete on the court. Parents were often the people watching, paying, sharing, supporting, and staying emotionally connected through the platform.
Parents
The emotional and financial center.
Parents were deeply invested in the athlete’s progress, effort, milestones, and memories.
BallerTV
A platform with a broader role.
The research helped reveal that BallerTV was not just delivering video. It was helping families stay connected through live sports.
Key Insight
Parents were not secondary viewers — they were central to the product’s value.
The research showed that parents used BallerTV to feel present in an athlete’s journey. Watching was a way to support, remember, share, and stay connected — especially when they could not be there in person.
Watching was a form of support
Parents were not passively consuming sports footage. They were showing up, following progress, and staying emotionally involved.
Games became family memories
The moments captured through BallerTV represented effort, growth, pride, and milestones families wanted to preserve.
The platform connected communities
BallerTV served athletes, parents, extended family, teams, and local sports communities through shared access to live games.
Why This Research Mattered
The business started with athlete exposure, but the research revealed a deeper family motivation.
BallerTV’s early value proposition was tied to helping athletes get visibility through game footage — especially for recruiting, sponsorship, and college opportunities. This study explored whether that was the full story, or whether families were finding value in the platform for different reasons.
The original value was athlete advancement
Game footage gave athletes a way to be seen beyond the event itself, supporting recruitment, exposure, and future sports opportunities.
Parents were driving much of the emotional value
Parents used BallerTV to stay connected to the athlete’s journey, watch remotely, revisit important moments, and share games with family.
The product meaning expanded beyond recruiting
The research showed that BallerTV was not only a tool for athlete visibility. It was also a way for families and communities to participate in live sports together.
Research Approach
The research moved from parent stories to strategic product insight.
Interviews and synthesis methods helped uncover the emotional and practical role parents played in youth sports. The goal was to understand why people valued the platform, not only how they used it.
Interviewed parents
The study gathered stories about supporting athletes, attending games, watching remotely, and staying connected across distance.
Synthesized patterns
Affinity mapping helped organize recurring behaviors, emotions, needs, and values across parent interviews.
Mapped the experience
Personas, journey maps, and empathy maps helped translate parent stories into usable product and strategy insights.
Connected findings to company direction
The research helped reframe BallerTV’s value around family connection, community, and the role of live sports in people’s lives.
Research Artifacts
The artifacts helped organize the parent experience into patterns the team could use.
Instead of treating each artifact as a separate deliverable, the research used them together to understand motivations, journeys, values, and opportunities across the parent-athlete relationship.
Method 01
Affinity Diagram
Grouped interview observations into themes around parent motivation, connection, support, pride, and access.
Method 02
Parent Archetypes
Translated research patterns into parent types with different needs, motivations, and relationships to the athlete experience.
Method 03
User Journey
Mapped how parents moved through the athlete experience, from preparation and game-day support to watching, sharing, and remembering.
Method 04
Customer Journey
Connected parent needs to BallerTV touchpoints, helping identify where the platform could create more emotional and practical value.
Analysis
The deeper question became: what values sit underneath parent behavior?
The analysis moved beyond what parents did and focused on why those behaviors mattered. The frameworks helped uncover what parents were trying to protect, support, remember, and share through youth sports.
Analysis
Empathy Map
Captured what parents said, thought, felt, and did while supporting an athlete.
Framework
A+I POEMS
Examined the people, environments, objects, messages, and services surrounding the youth sports experience.
Framework
Ethnographer’s Questions
Explored rituals, meanings, social dynamics, and emotional context in the parent-athlete relationship.
Strategic Findings
BallerTV’s value was connection, not just coverage.
The research reframed the product from a sports streaming tool into a way for families and communities to stay connected to athletes through live sports.
Access helped parents feel present
BallerTV gave parents and family members a way to stay involved even when they could not physically attend a game.
Live sports carried emotional meaning
Games represented progress, effort, pride, and memories — not just competition or final scores.
The product served a larger ecosystem
The platform connected athletes, parents, extended families, teams, and communities around shared sports experiences.
Mission Shift
The research helped reframe BallerTV’s mission around families and communities.
The findings shifted the company story from streaming games to connecting the people behind youth sports.
“BallerTV is on a mission to connect families and communities through the power of live sports everywhere.”
Outcome
The research gave BallerTV a clearer product and positioning foundation.
By studying parents, the team uncovered a deeper emotional layer of the product. The work helped show that BallerTV was not only helping people watch games — it was helping families stay connected to athletes, milestones, and communities.
Research
Turned parent stories into strategic insight.
The study translated interviews and synthesis into themes the team could use beyond the research phase.
Product
Expanded the definition of the user.
The work showed that athletes were only one part of the experience. Parents and families were central to the platform’s value.
Strategy
Influenced company positioning.
The findings supported a mission statement centered on families, communities, and the connective power of live sports.
Reflection
This project showed how research can change the way a company understands its product.
The most valuable insight was not a new feature idea. It was a clearer understanding of why the product mattered. By looking at parents as core users, the research helped reveal BallerTV’s deeper value: connection, presence, and community through live sports.