Sector(s)

Team Members

kunal_sahu, aneesa_khanam

Project Team

  • 2 Drupal Developers – backend and integration development

  • 2 React Developers – front-end and UI component development

  • 1 Project Manager – coordination, sprint management, and delivery oversight

Visit the site

Visit the site

Organizations Involved

Community contributions

During the project, the team actively contributed to the Drupal ecosystem by:

  • Developing and maintaining the Event to Calendar module.

  • Fixing multiple core-level issues discovered during implementation.

  • Contributing improvements and patches to Owl Carousel navigation.

  • Participating in QA testing and reporting of performance-related module issues.

Sun Devil Athletics is the official athletics website of Arizona State University (ASU), serving as the central digital hub for one of the nation’s most dynamic collegiate sports programs. The platform unites news coverage, live scores, athlete profiles, schedules, photo galleries, and ticket purchasing into a seamless digital experience that reflects ASU’s energy, brand, and community spirit.

Built on Drupal 10 with React integrations, the new site delivers an engaging, data-rich, and highly performant experience for fans, students, alumni, and media. Beyond content delivery, the platform was designed to drive measurable outcomes—supporting advertising growth, user engagement, and real-time updates across multiple sports.

Following the migration from Sidearm to Drupal, the site recorded a 75% improvement in performance and a dramatic rise in user engagement and ad impressions, reaching over 12 million projected impressions annually, up from fewer than 3 million previously. The new instance of Ad Manager integrated within Drupal and Acquia infrastructure has also positioned ASU to meet and exceed advertiser commitments, reinforcing the site’s value as a sustainable digital property for the athletics department.

Key features include real-time sports data integration, Ticketmaster connectivity for event sales, Salesforce for marketing alignment, social media feeds (Instagram, YouTube, and others), and enhanced analytics and advertising visibility through Google Analytics, GTM, and Ad Manager.

The project was completed within three months, showcasing close collaboration between Drupal and React teams and demonstrating Drupal’s ability to deliver at scale, both technically and strategically. The redesign also earned Best of 2025 Spectrum Award from the American Marketing Association.

About the project

The project aimed to rebuild the Sun Devil Athletics website to meet modern digital expectations in performance, design, and editorial control.

Primary Goals

  • Improve site performance and stability.

  • Deliver a visually modern and interactive user experience.

  • Enhance editorial workflows and publishing efficiency.

  • Integrate real-time sports data and live scores.

  • Unify ticketing, marketing, and engagement systems under one platform.

  • Support scalable ad management and analytics for revenue growth.

Execution

The project was executed with a lean and agile team—consisting of 2 Drupal developers, 2 React developers, and 1 project manager—working closely with ASU stakeholders.

Using iterative sprints and CI/CD pipelines, the new site was built, tested, and deployed in just three months, marking one of the fastest enterprise-scale turnarounds in ASU’s digital network.

Why Drupal was chosen

Drupal was selected for its flexibility, scalability, and true open-source foundation—qualities essential for powering a high-traffic, content-driven site like Sun Devil Athletics. The previous platform, hosted on Sidearm, suffered from performance bottlenecks, limited editorial control, and design rigidity, which restricted both creativity and content velocity.

By adopting Drupal 10, ASU gained access to a modern, API-first architecture capable of supporting a loosely coupled integration with React. This allowed the development team to create a dynamic, high-performing site that could deliver live sports updates, integrate multiple data sources, and remain easy for content editors to manage.

A key factor in the decision was Drupal’s native compatibility with Webspark — ASU’s internally developed Drupal distribution that provides a standardized framework for design, branding, and accessibility across the university’s digital ecosystem. Leveraging Webspark ensured that Sun Devil Athletics remained consistent with ASU’s institutional web standards while still allowing for deep customization and extended functionality.

The choice was further reinforced by Drupal’s strengths in:

  • Enterprise-grade content management and workflow control.

  • Security, stability, and maintainability, backed by one of the largest open-source communities.

  • The ability to extend and customize through contributed modules and custom REST endpoints.

  • Long-term sustainability and interoperability within ASU’s broader Drupal-based infrastructure.

This foundation made Drupal not just a CMS, but a strategic platform that could evolve with ASU’s digital goals and continue supporting innovation across its academic and athletics web properties.

Technical Specifications

Drupal version: