Sports Predictions Platform: An 8-Year Case Study with 3M Monthly Visits

Some projects end. Others reach a point where you realize: this isn't a project anymore. It's part of how you work.

Stavka.tv is a sports media platform built around predictions, rankings, and a gamification system for the betting audience. We've been working with it since 2017. In that time, the platform has grown from a modest product into one of the leaders in its niche — over 3 million monthly visits, a proprietary typeface, a design system with 3,500+ components, and three complete versions of the product.

This is an article about eight years of real work: pivots, decisions to bury two years of effort, late-night fixes before a World Cup, and a relationship that long ago outgrew the "client–contractor" model.

Where It All Started

First contact: 2017. Stavka was considerably simpler then — a basic logo, a rudimentary color system, an interface without a clear design language.

In 2019, we had an in-person meeting with Stavka.tv founder Viktor Titov. We were drawing on a whiteboard — sketching a concept for a platform that builds a community around sport and betting, rather than just aggregating predictions. That's where the idea for version 2.0 first took shape: an ambitious full redesign that would change everything.

We didn't know then that we'd still be working on it six years later.

The Rebrand: 10 Months and 20+ Touchpoints

Before touching the interface, we started with the foundation — the brand.

February 2020. Stavka overtakes its main competitor, Rating Bukmekerov, in traffic for the first time: 1.81M visits vs. 1.70M. The product had outgrown its old identity, and the brand needed to reflect that. The rebrand began.

Ten months of work. Moving away from red in favor of dark blue as the base color. Nine-plus logo variants, an internal team vote. The custom Stavka BoldItalic typeface — designed by our brand designer Maria Solovyova, later extended with Latin characters. A logo with the distinctive split between the С and Т in the word СТАВКА.

And most importantly: a brand system that lives simultaneously on the website, in the app, on YouTube, in Telegram, in push notifications, in ad materials for 22 bookmaker partners, and on a corporate football kit — with a custom pattern and player numbering set in Stavka BoldItalic at 120mm.

All of it one coherent whole. And each element working independently in its own environment.

More in the article Rebranding a Sports Platform: How We Built a Brand System Across 10+ Touchpoints.

Two Years of Work — and the Decision to Start Over

Throughout 2021, we were deep in building and reviewing version 2.0. A massive system: every screen thought through to the component level, every scenario — from first login to complex filters — mapped in detail.

And in December 2021, it became clear: this couldn't be launched. We'd built too much — and while we were building it, the product and the audience had moved on.

Our UX lead Andriy Zolotukhin had seen the problem earlier, but at the time we were too absorbed in the complexity of the system to hear him. The pivot came later, when it could no longer be ignored.

The decision: instead of a revolutionary 2.0 — an evolutionary 2.1. Rebuild what already exists, but correctly. Preserve SEO rankings. Ship within a realistic timeline. Meet the audience where they already are.

Viktor Titov wrote about this a year after launch:

"A year ago, you supported us in the decision to change direction — to build 2.1 instead of 2.0. I can imagine how professionally difficult it was to put aside something you'd worked on for two years, but you understood our reasoning and within a few days were already showing sketches of 2.1."

More in the article From 2.0 to 2.1: How We Rewrote Two Years of Work Without Losing the Client.

The Launch: Three Waves Instead of One Day

August–October 2022. Version 2.1 goes live — but not in a single day.

We broke the launch into three phases.

1. First, 2% of the most active users — "Pros" and "Experts" — got access to new.stavka.tv with noindex. No risk to Google, no hit to traffic. Just feedback from the people who understood the product better than anyone.
2. Then 100% of registered users. ‍
3. Then, on October 19, 2022, the new version became the main domain. The old site moved to old.stavka.tv and stayed there as a parachute for a few more weeks.

The reason for moving faster: exactly one month remained until the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Launching mid-tournament would mean burning the most valuable traffic window on users adjusting to a new interface. Better to ship everything first.

The forecast: a 25–50% traffic drop, a month to recover. The reality: almost no drop at all, and within a week the numbers were back to baseline.

More in the article Phased Migration: How to Launch a Redesign Without Losing Traffic.

The Numbers After Launch

October 2022 — a record month in the platform's history:

Bounce rate dropped. Time on site grew by 21 seconds. Pages per visit up 12%. Profile visits doubled: the social mechanic worked exactly as intended — people started visiting each other's profiles on their own.

"And in October we broke the record for visits (3M) and unique users (900K)." — Viktor Titov, 31.10.2022

How the Work Itself Changed

Early on, we'd get tasks in the format "design screen X." You receive a brief, execute, deliver. Over time the format shifted: "there's a problem Y — propose a solution." That simple change reflects something deeper — when a team is trusted to think about the product, not just draw it.

Viktor put it this way:

"At some point we started giving you tasks in the format 'we need to solve problem X' — and you'd come back with a solution that was often better than what we'd imagined in the first place."

But partnership is more than tasks and solutions. Over eight years we've had in-person meetings, dinners, conversations that went far beyond design. We played FIFA and Monopoly together. Talked about business, the market, teams, plans. All of that helps you understand the person you're working with. And when you understand the person, you understand the product better. You understand why a certain decision matters, when to push for more, and when to leave something alone.

The tools evolved too. From Abstract to Figma. From email to Slack as the primary channel. From occasional reviews to regular Tuesday syncs. The design system became a shared language between the studio and the dev team — Anton Galatanov and his team read components in Figma Inspect instead of asking us about every detail.

What's Next

Eight years in — and the product keeps growing. No longer just as a single site.

Alongside Stavka.tv, we're currently developing MVPs for several adjacent products: Bettors: Scores & Predictions, ComboBet: Generator & Prediction, and Tips Generator. Each is its own product with its own audience and mechanics, but all of them are built on the same design experience and system we've developed over eight years with Stavka.tv. Each is being developed through Post-MVP Evolution — when an MVP already exists but the product needs to reach the state where it actually grows.

A separate direction: an English-language version of Stavka for international markets. A different audience, different competitors, different SEO logic. We're hoping to launch before the end of 2026 — and plan to write a dedicated article about that experience.

Q3 2026 is the target for launching dark mode on the main product. We built dark mode support into the design system when we constructed 2.1 — because the right token architecture makes it nearly free.

What Real Partnership Looks Like

The Stavka.tv case covers more than design.

It's about what happens when a team becomes part of a product. When designers think about metrics alongside the client. When you can say "this shouldn't be launched" — and be heard. When the pivot from 2.0 to 2.1 gets made as a shared decision.

This way of working has a name: Design Unit — a dedicated product team that integrates into your process and works alongside your team, bringing its own workflows, tools, and experience across dozens of products. No starting from scratch with every brief. No months of onboarding. A team that knows your product as well as your own does.

Stavka.tv is the longest and most complete example of what that looks like in practice.

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If you're building a product that's growing and feel it's time to move from one-off tasks to ongoing design partnership — let's talk.

Articles in the Series

→ Rebranding a Sports Platform: How We Built a Brand System Across 10+ Touchpoints

→ From 2.0 to 2.1: How We Rewrote Two Years of Work Without Losing the Client

→ Promo for Bookmakers: Why Headers Convert at Zero and Popups Actually Work

→ Design Systems for Complex Products: Why It's an Investment, Not an Expense

→ Phased Migration: How to Launch a Redesign Without Losing Traffic