STAGE 01
PRE-LAUNCH
Pulls out phone, taps League Pass icon. Splash screen appears.
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Five user journeys. Three home-screen states (J1–J3) — including the new-user onboarding-to-paywall arc — and two cross-surface flows (J4–J5). Mapping the current League Pass experience against the proposed Video-First + Connected Devices product — the primary recommendation from our prioritization matrix.
"The app sits unused 80% of the time. League Pass doesn't give me scores, news, or community."
Lifelong Heat fan who moved to Houston for work. Multi-tab social viewer — game on screen, r/NBA, X, family group chat all running. Wants live streaming + integrated social + reasons to open the app between games.
It's Wednesday at 8:05 PM. The Heat tip off vs. the Bulls in 25 minutes. Harry sits down on the couch, family group chat already pinging about Tyler Herro's pre-game warmup. He pulls out his phone to open League Pass.
"League Pass sits unused 80% of the time, weakening my connection to the product and making renewal feel less essential each year."
Tuesday at 7:45 AM. No Heat game tonight — they're on an off day. Harry is drinking coffee and scrolling his phone for an NBA fix. Currently he reflexively opens ESPN, Google, or r/NBA — never League Pass.
This is the journey that earns the entire video-first redesign its retention claim. The MRD says 96% of subscribers only use League Pass for live games. The slides say going from 1-2 to 3-4 weekly opens makes a subscriber 3x more likely to re-subscribe. This is where those weekly opens have to come from.
"It doesn't seem worth it to me. I think I know what League Pass gets you, I just don't need every game. If it was cheaper I might."
Lakers fan, lives in SF. Watches via parents' YouTube TV + Reddit + Instagram. Real interview signal from your research. Defects to illegal streams when his team isn't on national TV. Represents the non-subscriber archetype that Journey 03's onboarding flow is built to convert.
Friday 10:15 PM. Lakers vs. Nuggets is tipping off, Michael's group chat is hyped, his parents' YouTube TV doesn't carry it. Michael's already signed in to nba.com browsing the Lakers page when the LP entry surfaces. Instead of a cold paywall, he confirms 5 quick setup steps (his profile pre-filled from NBA ID), opts to skip subscription, and gets a 5-minute free preview of the live game. The paywall lands at peak engagement — mid-Q3 — with the personalization he just built reflected back to him.
"I get an alert when something's happening, but by the time I find the game on my TV, the moment's already over."
Same Harry, new context. He's at home but not watching. A close-game alert pushes him toward the TV — but the friction between "I want to watch" and "I'm watching" is what kills the moment. Standard subscription rule: one device at a time.
It's 9:42 PM. Heat are down 3 to the Bulls with 2:11 left. Harry's phone buzzes with a close-game alert. He walks to the living room with the TV remote in his pocket and a phone in his hand. Today this takes 5 minutes and he misses the moment. The proposed flow takes under a minute and lands him in the broadcast with full personalization.
"I keep the game open in a tab while I work. By the time I notice something happened, Twitter's already spoiled it."
Same Harry, daytime context. Working from home, game playing in a desktop tab while he answers emails. The PRD calls this the "ambient stream" pattern — high-frequency opens, low-attention. The challenge: how do we make the game pull Harry back at exactly the right moments without spamming him.
It's Wednesday at 1:30 PM. Heat-Bulls is on early. Harry has the LP tab open on his second monitor with sound on, but he's deep in Gmail. He never wants to not have the game on — but he can't watch every second. Today he misses the big plays and finds out from Twitter. The proposed flow earns its way back to his attention without spamming him.