Sporting Life Website "Upgrade"

Been trying for three days atr and sporting life,only time I got them was on chrome earlier and then there was no sound still nothing on atr..
 
Last edited:
TheBear said:
Where?
Click to expand...

Click on the race you're interested in, in the horse's form, then scroll right down to the bottom for video replay; it won't work unless you're already logged in.
Works fine for me on Firefox.
No replays from ATR tracks yet, but they're freely available on their own website.
 
It's hard to believe the extent to which they have ruined the entire site, not just the racing section.

It used to be my go-to site for football and rugby fixtures and results but that's all disappeared. Is it to save money or is it sabotage? It's gone beyond mere incompetence.
 
reet hard said:
Click on the race you're interested in, in the horse's form, then scroll right down to the bottom for video replay; it won't work unless you're already logged in.
Works fine for me on Firefox.
No replays from ATR tracks yet, but they're freely available on their own website.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had that method already but it's a lot more difficult than the old date search function. Where's that gone?
 
The Profile Search going is a huge pain, plus you used to be able to 'hover' over the name of a horse in a racecard and see the breeding. That no longer works and if you click into the horse's names, it is so slow, it's painful.
The majority of the ages of the horses are also wrong.
PS They still haven't answered my email either. Previously they always responded. If they were busy fixing it I wouldn't mind so much.
 
Finally received a reply ( of sorts) to an email: ( the functionality to hover over horse names is still not there which is very annoying and very time consuming when trying to check pedigrees)

"Good afternoon,

First of all thanks for all the feedback following the relaunch of the Sporting Life website.

We continue to act on it and are pleased to confirm a number of features have been restored to the site recently.

These include future entries on profiles, a comprehensive search facility on racing, At The Races video replays on desktop, racecards retained rather than switching to full results, full match clocks on all football matches, a permanent goings and non-runner page, easily-accessed Paper Talk via football navigation and more.

It's an ongoing project and in the coming weeks we hope to add fast, printable racecards and an ABC Guide.

Statistics will return and be bigger and better than before and a host of other enhancements across racing, football and all other sports are in the pipeline moving forward.

We''ll keep you posted as and when they become available but thanks again for all the feedback and your patience since the relaunch. We are working to keep improving the product so please continue to send us your comments to feedback@sportinglife.com.

Kind Regards"
 
This used to be my go to website, but it's so bad now I have found alternatives and permanently given up on it. What the Racing Post have done to their website is poor, but the Sportinglife is the worst change of a website I've ever seen. Somebody/people need firing, as it is truly awful to the point that I genuinely found myself getting wound up trying to use it.
 
Maruco said:
This used to be my go to website, but it's so bad now I have found alternatives and permanently given up on it. What the Racing Post have done to their website is poor, but the Sportinglife is the worst change of a website I've ever seen. Somebody/people need firing, as it is truly awful to the point that I genuinely found myself getting wound up trying to use it.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with that.
 
It beggars belief that both the SL and the RP started to mess round with their sites just before the biggest racing Festival of the Winter game, one wonders what their motives were.
 
I suspect they were vain enough to believe that what they've done are improvements, and that the busiest time of the horseracing calendar was the best time to relaunch.

The truth is they've achieved the opposite. I've completely abandoned Sportinglife, and I only use Racing Post for what I absolutely have to. Certainly from my own group of friends they feel exactly the same, and from everything I read on here it seems it's widely true.

The problem they have is after scoring such an awful own goal, getting people back will be difficult with the amount of information now widely available elsewhere. People are creatures of habit. That's if they're smart enough to even try of course, which from the correspondence I've seen so far seems highly unlikely.

I reckon any of the others that were smart enough to speak to the right people to get the content and format absolutely right would corner the market. The truth is not one of the sites available get it 100% right, but the rest are currently easily better than these two. When you think RP and SL were clearly first and second for most racing fans, it's not difficult to see that their online platform and content is being run by clueless idiots, and their senior people are either too lazy or web incompetent otherwise it could have never happened.

One thing for sure is that there's a window of opportunity for someone right now.
 
I wouldn't give the fart from my rear-end to cool Bruce Millington's soup, hence I've never bothered singing-up for their membership nonsense........and Hell will freeze-over before I do.

Being a leech who gets what he needs from their form database (when it's working), and who has many other sites he can go to for news, I'm not one to really crab the site (beyond pointing-out its self-evident, all-round shittiness)..........but there are almost certainly people on here who fork-out real money, for the privilege of viewing whatever mince they hide behind their little magic 'member' shield. Are any TH/RP members inclined to bin their payments, due to the execrable nature of their online offering?

Tinpot outfits like the Post likely don't give a toss about customer opinion, until they start to feel it in their pockets.
 
Last edited:
Yes me. I held on until the final upgrade, and now they can go and screw themselves. They should be paying me to use it.
 
Maruco said:
I suspect they were vain enough to believe that what they've done are improvements, and that the busiest time of the horseracing calendar was the best time to relaunch.

The truth is they've achieved the opposite. I've completely abandoned Sportinglife, and I only use Racing Post for what I absolutely have to. Certainly from my own group of friends they feel exactly the same, and from everything I read on here it seems it's widely true.

The problem they have is after scoring such an awful own goal, getting people back will be difficult with the amount of information now widely available elsewhere. People are creatures of habit. That's if they're smart enough to even try of course, which from the correspondence I've seen so far seems highly unlikely.

I reckon any of the others that were smart enough to speak to the right people to get the content and format absolutely right would corner the market. The truth is not one of the sites available get it 100% right, but the rest are currently easily better than these two. When you think RP and SL were clearly first and second for most racing fans, it's not difficult to see that their online platform and content is being run by clueless idiots, and their senior people are either too lazy or web incompetent otherwise it could have never happened.

One thing for sure is that there's a window of opportunity for someone right now.
Click to expand...

I told them pretty much the same thing but was less polite about it.

I also wrote a letter last year to the Weekender telling them that whoever was responsible for deciding the information published was out of touch with the needs of punters. They weren't happy with that but it's the truth. Nothing else can explain some of their decisions.

As for the new RP site, whoever constructed it is only interested in colours, size of text and bookies. It's like someone with poor eyesight designed a car from scratch and including mica paint, automatic transmission, sat-nav, 'connectability', heated seats, etc but put them in the boot and forgot to put in an engine and prop shaft.
 
Last edited:
Grasshopper said:
I wouldn't give the fart from my rear-end to cool Bruce Millington's soup, hence I've never bothered singing-up for their membership nonsense........and Hell will freeze-over before I do.

Being a leech who gets what he needs from their form database (when it's working), and who has many other sites he can go to for news, I'm not one to really crab the site (beyond pointing-out its self-evident, all-round shittiness)..........but there are almost certainly people on here who fork-out real money, for the privilege of viewing whatever mince they hide behind their little magic 'member' shield. Are any TH/RP members inclined to bin their payments, due to the execrable nature of their online offering?

Tinpot outfits like the Post likely don't give a toss about customer opinion, until they start to feel it in their pockets.
Click to expand...

Yup, I'm cancelling my RP membership. It was an indulgence anyway as I'm not really a punter (I was using it for bloodline research) but between the lousy redesign and the fact that being an Essential member is no longer enough but increasing amounts of content are hidden behind the Ultimate membership level, it's an indulgence I neither can nor want to justify any longer.
 
I probably will too. I'm going to give it a few more days to see can I get used to the changes but I'm not optimistic.
 
Cruella said:
Yup, I'm cancelling my RP membership. It was an indulgence anyway as I'm not really a punter (I was using it for bloodline research) but between the lousy redesign and the fact that being an Essential member is no longer enough but increasing amounts of content are hidden behind the Ultimate membership level, it's an indulgence I neither can nor want to justify any longer.
Click to expand...

Yes, me too. My membership expires at the end of April and I've told them if the site doesn't improve drastically by then I won't be renewing. They don't seem to be listening to the feedback they've been asking for.

What they really need to do is launch some kind of whingebin for customers just to unload all their grief about the new site and act on it without taking offence at it. We punters know a lot more what we want than some teenage techie anorak who doesn't understand substance.
 
I pay enough for the paper (£2.70 on Sunday!!) but refuse to join their club. I discovered the ATR website when the SL first started messing around and will never go back to either of them
 
Echo all the comments on here, used to use sporting life to look at the cards and study form. The easiest I've found as an alternative is at the races but it isn't as good. Beggars belief what they've done
 
Back
Top