Apple Sports App Adds New Leagues, Features in 2.0 Update

Ahead of the NFL and college football seasons, Apple has made several changes to the mobile sports scores app it launched earlier this year.

Among the announced improvements are a new way to view the status of a football drive, check scores on iPhone lock screens or Apple Watches, and jump more quickly between leagues in the app’s interface (coming later this year). Apple also said it would add Champions League and Europa League soccer action to the platform in September.

The app still does not offer updates on individual sports—golf, tennis, NASCAR, etc.—or college sports beyond football and basketball. Over the summer, users noted the lack of information about the Euro 2024 competition or the Olympics. But the latest changes point towards continued development.

“Obviously, we want to add more leagues, want to add more sports, but we never said that [doing so would take] a matter of months or quarters,” Apple VP of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Sports and Beats Oliver Schusser said in an interview. “It’s going to be quite some time, because there are so many sports out there. And if you want to deliver the data in a clean, simple and fast way, it’s not as trivial as it seems.”

For now, Apple continues to emphasize its focus on speed and simplicity, offering only select data. Users are still initially greeted with just three views in the app—Yesterday, Today and Upcoming. There are no team schedule pages, individual player game logs or advanced box scores. Information on how to watch games remains in Apple’s TV app, while further team coverage sits within Apple News. Apple’s exclusive sports programming includes MLS and MLB games. 

Betting data, one of the more talked-about elements of the Sports app at launch, remains front and center on game pages. Those numbers come from DraftKings. 

More than 28,000 users have rated the app with an average score of 4.44 out of 5, according to Sensor Tower data.

“We’re all huge sports fans, so we use it ourselves,” Schusser said of the app’s overseers. “We didn’t think there was one place that combined all your favorite sports in a simple, easy and fast way.”

Parts of the new Apple Sports experience are timed to the upcoming launch of iOS 18, slated to become publicly available in September. On Sept. 9, Apple is hosting a press event at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., where it is expected to introduce the iPhone 16 product line. 

The company has put an emphasis on AI-branded features this year, unveiling “Apple Intelligence” at its developer conference in June. Among many potential implementations across platforms, product leaders are considering how generative tools—such as computer-generated game previews, recaps and alert blurbs—could improve the Apple Sports offering. 

“We’re super excited with what engineering has come up with, and so of course, Apple Intelligence will play a huge role in this—and already is,” Schusser said.