Downloaded the new Apple Sports app for your iPhone or iPad? The company says you can disable all the sports betting odds and info, but it’s not easy to figure out how! Here’s the secret…
Every so often Apple introduces a new app for the iPhone that is something new and innovative. Other times the company slips in a new mobile application that’s just useful even if it supplants third-party programs offering the same service. One big difference with Apple apps is that they don’t have any advertising, which often is a sufficient reason to switch from an ad-heavy third-party utility. If you’re a sports fan and follow your favorite team, teams, or leagues, you already have a favorite sports app and you’re probably just resigned to the endless ads.
If you’re a sports bettor, you might even just track sports on your favorite sports bet service like DraftKings. But if you love your teams but don’t want to gamble, what are your options? Ads, ads, ads. Until the Apple Sports app, which has zero ads and neatly ties into the overall iOS / iPadOS ecosystem too. Except by default it shows the odds and betting information for matchups, which can be annoying!
HOW TO EXPLORE MATCHES IN APPLE SPORTS
To start out, a quick tour if you haven’t checked out Apple Sports yet. I have a couple of teams already marked as favorites from other Apple apps: The English Premier League soccer team Tottenham Hotspur, and the local Major League Baseball team the Colorado Rockies. Since it’s not quite baseball season yet, my upcoming matches are all about soccer:
Clean, simple, elegant, and easy to check at any point. It also shows the win/lose/draw ratings for each team (notice Aston Villa in the top matchup is 15-4-6, while its opponent, Nottingham Forest, is 6-6-13). Look closely on the top right and you’ll see “Show less“. Useful! A tap on that and each day’s events stack up rather than taking over the screen:
With multiple leagues and sports you’ll see a stack for each league’s matches, a typically elegant Apple solution. You can also see betting information on this view, however. For example, the very top fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest has AVFC (Aston Villa Football Club) favored to win with “-1.5” odds.
Tap on a match to get more information and it suddenly seems like it’s a DraftKings app, not an Apple app at all:
I won’t explain all the odds shown but instead suggest that it’s a great time to try ChatGPT by asking it “explain moneyline in sports betting” or similar. I’m not a gambler, so I would like to have all of this hidden from view. The app allows you to do that, but finding that control is not so easy…
APPLE SPORTS APP SETTINGS
First off, back up to the main view and you’ll notice that the top looks like this:
The Manage button lets you pick your leagues and teams to track (I’ll show that in a little bit!) but as with most of these mobile apps, tapping on the tiny circular profile icon brings up a menu for the app. But there’s not much there:
Notably missing is the ability to hide the betting information. While you’re here I encourage you to enable “Sync My Sports” if it isn’t already enabled by default. As the app explains, “Sports, leagues, teams, and athletes you follow will sync across Apple News, Apple TV, and other Apple apps.” [didja notice that it suggests you’ll be able to track specific athletes at some point? I’ll definitely use that to track Son Heung-min from the Spurs!]
Turns out that there’s a second set of app settings in a reasonably logical place if you remember that all mobile apps have settings buried in the Settings app in addition to those in the individual applications. That’s where we have to travel to find the betting switch.
APPLE SPORTS OPTIONS IN SETTINGS
Go back to the home screen and launch Settings then swipe down until you’re in the right area of the likely rather long list of all your installed apps:
As highlighted, the Sports app shows up in the main app list (not one of the Apple app lists higher up on the screen). Tap on it and you’ll immediately see the desired option:
Enable “Hide Betting Odds” and the app will immediately and forevermore hide all of the sports betting information from view. This nicely unclutters the user experience:
Even better is when you tap to look more closely at a match:
Definitely better. Now, could Apple make it easier to find this control? Yes, and they should. But they should also add more information about a match too; why not starting player lineup, venue, forecast weather, and where to watch the match? Maybe Apple Sports v2.
HOW TO ADD TEAMS AND LEAGUES
While we’re looking at the Apple Sports app, go back to the home screen and tap on “My Leagues” on the top right. Now you’ll see what Apple Sports tracks at this point (Apple has promised more leagues, including NCAA, coming very soon!):
To add or update your list of teams and leagues that you want to follow, simply tap on “Manage” on the top right. Now everything gets a star adjacent:
You can see that I’ve added the Colorado Rapids Major League Soccer team to my favorites list, but only specified I want to follow Major League Baseball (MLB) and Premier League as leagues. You can scroll down to find (and follow) your favorite leagues or tap on the league name to pick one or more of your favorite teams.
Overall, I think this is a great starting point for a consolidated sports tracking program that I’ll definitely use throughout the various seasons. There’s more to come – it feels about 75% complete at this point – but it’ll be fun to see new features show up in the app too. Now I’m most curious about the live game view, but I’ll have to wait a bit to find out.
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing tutorials for the Apple iPhone since it was first released. Please check out my extensive iPhone help area for lots and lots of useful content. Also, Come On You Spurs!