Global Sports Digital Platform

Overview

A global sports organization was preparing for a major international event expected to attract millions of concurrent visitors. Their existing platform suffered from slow page loads, frequent crashes during traffic spikes, and poor mobile performance. The platform needed to deliver a flawless experience to a worldwide audience under extreme load.

We completely re-architected the platform with performance as the primary focus. This included implementing edge caching, optimizing asset delivery, database query optimization, and building a resilient infrastructure that could auto-scale to meet demand. Special attention was paid to mobile performance, as over 70% of traffic came from mobile devices.

The platform successfully handled peak traffic of 2+ million concurrent users during the event, with dramatically improved performance metrics and zero downtime throughout the competition.

Objectives

Reduce page load time by at least 50%
Support 2+ million concurrent users during peak events
Achieve 90+ Lighthouse performance scores
Implement global CDN for worldwide audience
Ensure zero downtime during high-traffic events

Challenges & Approach

Challenge

Optimizing database queries for real-time score updates

Solution

Implemented materialized views, query optimization, and Redis caching layer for frequently accessed data

Challenge

Delivering fast page loads to global audience

Solution

Deployed edge CDN with intelligent caching, image optimization, and static asset pre-compression

Challenge

Handling traffic spikes during key moments

Solution

Built auto-scaling infrastructure with pre-warming capabilities and intelligent load distribution

Challenge

Optimizing mobile performance on slow networks

Solution

Implemented progressive loading, critical CSS inlining, and aggressive code splitting for faster TTI

Outcomes & Impact

60% reduction in average page load time (3.2s to 1.3s)

Successfully served 2.1M concurrent users at peak

Lighthouse performance score improved from 45 to 94

99.99% uptime during entire event period

40% reduction in infrastructure costs through optimization

Key Learnings

Performance optimization is about making smart tradeoffs at every layer of the stack. We learned that edge caching and CDN strategy have the biggest impact on perceived performance for global audiences. However, cache invalidation strategies need careful planning—we implemented a hierarchical caching approach with different TTLs for different data types.

Database optimization was critical but often overlooked. Simple query optimizations and proper indexing provided massive improvements. We also learned that auto-scaling needs to be proactive, not reactive—by the time metrics trigger scaling, you're already experiencing degradation. Pre-warming instances before anticipated traffic spikes proved essential for maintaining performance.