Major League Show Jumping

Case Study 04

Partner

Four disciplines. One question each.

Catalina Florea · Design

What was the actual tension in this brief?

Everyone kept asking for heritage or bold. Nobody asked for both until MLSJ did.

Ben Dalziel · Product

What was the thing you refused to over-simplify?

The collectible had to mean something after the season ended, not just during it.

Luke Wojewoda · Frontend

What broke first when you tried to make live data feel instant?

Standings that update mid-round look easy until a few thousand people are refreshing at once.

Shawn Robinson · Backend

What's the mechanic doing that a login screen couldn't?

A username doesn't remember your first event. The card does.

Where it stood

MLSJ had built a real league. It hadn't decided what that league looked like yet.

Since 2021, MLSJ built a real CSI5* circuit — eight to ten events, $12M in prize money, bigger events chosen over more of them. What hadn't caught up was everything fans and sponsors actually see: a site and app built strictly for people who already knew the sport, in the same saturated blue worn by every other major series. Correct on paper. Invisible next to competitors wearing the same color.

The part everyone skips

The obvious fix was to pick a side. Heritage, or disruptor. MLSJ needed to be both at once.

Lean into the sport's existing codes and the brand disappears into a category of old money and longer histories. Lean all the way modern and it risks losing the luxury credibility sponsors expect — tacky instead of premium. MLSJ was direct about which it wanted: a fearless innovator, edgy, elegantly bold — not conventional, bland, a dull traditionalist. That's not a color brief. That's asking one brand to be elite and inclusive, for an audience running from a rider's grandmother to her seven-year-old grandkid at the rail.

The idea we brought

Stop choosing between elite and inclusive. Build a brand confident enough to hold both.

Every other series in the sport picked a lane — heritage or spectacle, blue or nothing. MLSJ, pulling $12M in prize money and premier-caliber riders, didn't need to: it needed an identity elegant enough for the sponsors it has, bold enough for the fans it doesn't have yet — and confident enough to finally monetize, connect, and grow because of it, not despite it.

What we built

Three things, brought level with each other.

01 · Brand + site/app

A look and a live feed that finally match "premier"

Off the industry's default blue, without losing the luxury cues sponsors expect — paired with a live data feed fast enough for a rail-side crowd that spans a seven-year-old and their grandmother.

02 · Collectible rosette cards

One rosette, every event, never the same twice

Rosettes already mean pride, place, and memory in this sport. Each competition gets its own collectible card designed as a custom rosette — unique to its location in color, pattern, and detail.

03 · Profile card

Initials at the center, framed like a crest

A rider, staff, or fan's initials at the center, framed by jump poles or laurels — a badge-like mark of identity pulled from classic equestrian crests and monograms.

04 · Data pipeline

Event entry sheets turned into stats the league didn't have before

Organized dispersed data sources into a usable structure. We built the pipeline that parses it, adds the derived stats MLSJ didn't have yet, and writes all of it into the database that runs standings and results. As part of this work, we learned how a show jumping event is actually scored.

05 · Real-time stats

Live scores that know who's up next, not just who's ahead

Live standings, derived stats, and the order riders enter the ring, pulled from the new data platform and updated live as a round happens. Working out who's up next and making the fan experience feel interactive took as much work as past results, the difference between updating and feeling alive from outside the rail.

01/05

The mechanic

Most collectibles are souvenirs. This one was built to become a record.

01 · Sign up

The profile card is why a fan makes an account at all.

A personalized mark of identity from the first visit, not a username.

02 · Collect

The rosettes give the card somewhere to go.

Custom to its location every time, so three events followed means three genuinely different rosettes, not the same one three times.

03 · Compound

Which is why a season becomes a record, not just a login.

Competed, supported, or followed from afar — the collection becomes a personal record of the journey, the same way a rosette means more the longer it's hung on the wall.

01/03

The result

Real traction, fast.

Mobile · share of visits

36.8%

Fans carrying the league with them, not just clicking a link

Fans · registered

21.47K

Made an account, since launch.

Visits · lifetime

107.9K

Across web and app, since launch

Culture, not audience

A league doesn't get to skip earning its fans just because the sport is real.

MLSJ didn't need to convince anyone the sport was worth watching. It needed a brand that made new fans feel like they'd arrived somewhere established, not somewhere still finding its footing. Same throughline as Williams: fandom isn't a feature you bolt on.

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