In 2020, ESPN was releasing their much anticipated docu-series about Michael Jordan and his final season with the 1998 Chicago Bulls. Fans were already buzzing about the series and the nostalgia surrounding 1998, and ESPN wanted to get fans closer to this era of basketball and pop culture they loved… keeping them engaged before, during, and after each episode.

Along with basketball, the show was full of footage that highlighted the aesthetic and technology of the era… for example, Michael Jordan sitting on the bus listening to his CD walkman. So, we set out to give fans an authentic 1998 website experience for The Last Dance, no dial-up modem required.

We created House of 98, a website that promoted The Last Dance and helped drive viewership of the show by giving fans access to even more content beyond what they saw in the documentary, from music and videos to exclusive ESPN archival features. And it was all designed to recreate the experience of browsing websites in 1998. It was a time capsule in a website, right down to the banner ads we designed as easter egg nods to scenes from the documentary. We also turned House of 98 into a virtual gathering place on social before episodes, with live musical performances from A$AP Ferg, BJ The Chicago Kid, Jadakiss, and Lupe Fiasco as well as interviews with ESPN personalities.

Whether it was a love of Michael Jordan, The Bulls, the music, the big suits, or anything else 1998, House of 98 brought fans together for it all.

Since the show was rolling out over multiple weeks, House of 98 was created to fill the gaps between episodes. Rather than recycle what fans were seeing in the show, we expanded on the stories and narratives by opening up ESPN’s archives. While fans were getting access to exclusive footage in each episode, House of 98 gave them access to the 1998 Chicago Bulls in different ways… like a virtual magazine stand with issues of ESPN The Magazine from 1998 that were made available for reading online.

The Last Dance documentary went beyond basketball as well, so we partnered with The Undefeated’s editorial team to feature retrospective articles about the music, movies, parties, and celebrities of 1998. No matter what piqued your interest about the show, House of 98 had content that took The Last Dance well beyond each week’s episode drop.

To get the look, feel, and functionality right and authentic for a late-90’s website, we researched the popular aesthetics and design features pre-Y2K. We leaned into nuances from the early days of the internet, like simple drop down menus for navigation and GIF icons for each section of the site. We built parodies of the wide, single-frame, static banner ads and advertising found on websites from 1998. Except we turned ours into easter eggs with references to the world of 1998 that fans were seeing in the Last Dance… like ads for oversized suits in a nod to Michael Jordan, or hair dye in a nod to Dennis Rodman. We also crafted each page’s background to fit popular design trends from the late-90s.

The goal of House of 98 was twofold - keep fans engaged between episode drops and increase viewership of episode premiers that happened every Sunday from April 19 to May 17, 2020. In total, fans spent over 19 days browsing House Of 98, engaging with a variety of content including live performances that got over 200k views and 1998 themed embedded Spotify playlists that got over 50 million impressions. The website component of the 1998 themed series helped drive 5.6 million average viewers per episode, making the Last Dance the most viewed ESPN documentary in history.