North Carolina State University Athletics
GoPack.com Relaunches With Enhanced Features
7/28/2010 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
July 28, 2010
Editor's note: Because the new site will be located on a new host server, it may take up to 24 hours for users to access the new GoPack.com. Fans who have bookmarked the site may also want to delete it from their list of favorites and save there once they can access the new site.
RALEIGH, N.C. - The newest version of GoPack.com, unveiled today by the NC State athletics department and Wolfpack Sports Marketing, continues to be the premier site for all things related to Wolfpack athletics.
The new site, hosted by CBSSports.com College Network, also offers many enhanced features that will provide a more user-friendly experience for fans and give in-depth information on every varsity sport.
"We want GoPack.com to be our fans primary outlet for information about all Wolfpack sports," said Deborah A. Yow, NC State's new athletics director.
The redesign is the result of a year-long evaluation of GoPack.com by a website committee composed of members of the NC State athletics marketing, media relations and administrative staff, as well as representatives of Wolfpack Sports Marketing, a division of Capitol Broadcasting Inc. that handles corporate sponsorship sales for NC State athletics and produces the Wolfpack Sports Network.
Chris Alston, NC State assistant athletics director for marketing and web operations, chaired the committee and facilitated the implementation of the new site with Wolfpack Sports Marketing general manager Brian Asbill, other members of the committee and a design team from CBSSports.com.
"We believe the new GoPack will offer our fans a more rewarding experience, as they search for the most up-to-date information available about NC State athletics," Alston said. "We have carefully considered many suggestions we have received over the last year and integrated them into the site.
"At the same time, we will continue to work with Wolfpack Sports Marketing and CBSSports.com to roll out more new features, more content and more enhancements in the coming months."
Fans will also have a direct line to the NC State athletics administration, as Yow promised during her introductory press conference in late June. Fans can ask questions of the athletics staff, offer feedback on their experiences at games and get information about various aspects of the department by clicking on the "Wolfpack Unlimited" button on the "Contact Us" tab on the right side of the navigation menu.
The streamlined design will also offer easier-to-use drop-down menus for such things as varsity sport pages, on-line ticket and sidebar tabs dedicated to featured events, like NCAA championships hosted at NC State facilities.
The new site will continue updating and implementing its content changes throughout the remainder of the week, but will be fully functional during its upgrades. Much of the written content will be provided by the NC State media relations office, but three veteran columnists will also offer unparalleled coverage to Wolfpack athletics.
GoPack.com managing editor Tim Peeler, author of three books about NC State athletics, will continue to write game stories, features, analyses and stories about NC State's rich athletic tradition. A.J. Carr, one of North Carolina's most respected newspaper reporters for more than four decades, will contribute where-are-they-now features about the many Wolfpack athletes he covered during his award-winning newspaper career. And radio analyst Tony Haynes of the Wolfpack Sports Network will provide expert pregame break-down of football and men's basketball games.
Haynes, veteran sportscaster Don Shea and producer Jon Pharr will produce at least three "Inside Wolfpack Sports" video features per week on the site, including video features and highlight packages. The click-to-play videos will be accessible among the top six rotating stories on the front page of the site. Archived free and premium content will be archived on the media player accessible from the audio/video tab in the center of the page.
The GoPack.com Official On-line Store will also offer a wide array of NC State apparel and merchandise, similar to the content available at the GoPack Store in Raleigh's Ridgewood Shopping Center.
A new feature of the site is constant updates for all 23 varsity sports via the popular social media site Twitter. Each sport will have an account that deal specifically with that sport; all updates, including breaking news, will feed directly into one location in the middle of the front page of GoPack.com.
Current subscribers to the old PackPass premium service will receive an e-mail shortly with directions on how to convert their accounts to the new premium service, GoPack All-Access. It will continue to offer subscribers live audio coverage of football, men's and women's basketball and baseball games.
Wolfpack fans can also take a stroll down memory lane thanks to GoPack.com's partnership with WRAL-TV. The WRAL Video Vault will release 4 weekly retro highlights from great moment's in NC State history. Check it out by clicking on the WRAL Video Archives graphic in the "Slider" section at the bottom of the main page.
When teams begin competing in August, fans can follow games live on the industry-leading GameTracker, a live statistics monitoring service for most Wolfpack sports.
A new mobile site, accessible from any web-enabled mobile device, is also part of the redesign. An upgraded mobile site is scheduled to come on-line in September. CBSSports.com is also developing an iPhone application that will be available later this fall.
Fans are encouraged to navigate around the new GoPack.com. And if you have questions, ideas or feedback, a staff member is always monitoring "Wolfpack Unlimited."
