In this guide
There is no single best sports app, and anyone who tells you otherwise follows one league. What you actually need depends on whether you want a score in three seconds, expected-goals maps for every shot, long-form reporting from a beat writer, or live streams of the games themselves. The apps below cover all four, and most of them cost nothing.
This is an updated roundup of the best sports apps for news, scores and updates on Android and iOS, refreshed for 2026 — including what each one now costs, what it actually covers, and which type of fan it suits.
What separates a good sports app from a bad one
Before the list, four things worth checking before you commit to any of them:
- Notification granularity. The difference between a great app and an uninstall is whether you can say “goals and red cards for this one team” instead of receiving every push the app generates.
- Coverage depth versus breadth. A multi-sport app that carries 25 sports will rarely match a football-only app on lineup and stat detail. Pick for the way you actually watch.
- Widgets and Live Activities. Being able to pin a live scoreboard to your lock screen or home screen removes most of the reason to open the app at all.
- Free versus subscription. Scores and news are almost always free. Live video and long-form analysis are almost always not.
1. ESPN
ESPN remains the default for American sports, and the app changed significantly in August 2025 when ESPN launched its direct-to-consumer streaming service and rebuilt the app around it. Scores, standings, alerts and written news are still free — you only pay if you want the live video.
Two paid tiers sit inside the app. ESPN Select is $11.99/month or $119.99/year and carries roughly 32,000 live events. ESPN Unlimited is $29.99/month or $299.99/year and adds ESPN’s full linear line-up — ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS and ESPN Deportes — plus ESPN on ABC, ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+ and ACCNX, covering around 47,000 events. Bundles with Disney+ and Hulu are available at a discount.
Best for: NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and college sports fans who want news and streaming in one place.
Download: iOS | Android
2. The Athletic
The Athletic is the opposite proposition to a live-score app: it is a newsroom. Owned by The New York Times since 2022, it employs hundreds of full-time writers assigned to individual teams and leagues, and its value is in the reporting, tactical analysis and podcasts rather than the scoreboard.
It is a paid subscription, though it is frequently bundled with an NYT All Access plan, and it now includes live score and match pages so you are not forced to run a second app alongside it. If you follow one team obsessively and want to read something longer than a headline, nothing else on this list competes.
Best for: readers who want depth, not alerts.
Download: iOS | Android
3. Sofascore
Sofascore is the strongest all-round multi-sport tracker available free. It covers 25 sports and more than 5,000 leagues and tournaments — football, basketball, tennis, cricket, rugby, and a long tail of competitions most rivals ignore entirely.
Its signature features are live player ratings updated during play and “attack momentum”, a rolling graph showing which side is applying pressure. For the 2026 World Cup it built a dedicated national-team hub with live scores, schedules, standings and knockout brackets. If you follow several sports and want real statistical depth in all of them without paying, start here.
Best for: multi-sport fans who want stats, not just scores.
Download: iOS | Android
4. FotMob
FotMob is football-first and unapologetic about it. It covers more than 400 competitions — the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, MLS, the Champions League, Liga MX, the FA Women’s Super League, the Eredivisie and the 2026 World Cup among them — and layers on the analytical detail serious fans want: expected goals (xG), shot maps, lineups, heat maps and player ratings.
Home-screen widgets for live matches and news, plus fast goal notifications, make it one of the few apps you rarely need to open. The core experience is free, with an optional subscription that removes ads and adds deeper stats.
Best for: football fans who read the xG before the scoreline.
Download: iOS | Android
5. Forza Football
Forza Football has quietly expanded from 560 leagues to more than 1,450 leagues and cups, and it is still the fastest of the football apps at pushing a goal notification. Its distinguishing feature remains the fan polls: before and during matches you are asked to vote on team selections, refereeing decisions and predictions, then shown how supporters worldwide answered.
Recent versions added a World Cup 2026 hub and an interactive prediction game. It is free on both platforms.
Best for: fans who want speed and a sense of the crowd.
Download: iOS | Android
6. 365Scores
365Scores covers 10 sports across more than 2,000 competitions and is built around a single idea: you tell it which teams, leagues and players you care about, and everything else gets out of the way. Live scores, in-game stats, schedules and a curated news feed all filter down to your selections, and the notification controls are among the most granular here.
It remains under active development and is free, with ads. If Sofascore feels too dense, this is the friendlier version of the same idea.
Best for: fans who follow a handful of teams across different sports.
Download: iOS | Android
7. theScore
theScore is the cleanest scoreboard on this list. Its Favorites system builds a personalised feed of scores, breaking news and video around the teams, leagues and players you add, and its alerts are configurable down to individual scoring plays.
The most useful recent addition is Live Activities on both iOS and Android, which pins a live box score to your lock screen so you can follow a game without unlocking the phone. Note that theScore Bet is a separate sportsbook app — the main theScore app is a free news and scores product.
Best for: North American fans who follow a lot of teams at once.
Download: iOS | Android
8. Apple Sports
Apple’s own sports app is free, ad-free and deliberately minimal: scores, stats, standings, play-by-play, box scores, lineups and odds, with almost no editorial layer. Launched in 2024, it expanded to more than 90 additional countries and regions in May 2026 and is now available in over 170 markets.
Coverage spans the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, the Premier League, F1, NASCAR, PGA, LPGA, men’s and women’s tennis and NCAA basketball and football, and a July 2026 update added several more European and Asian football leagues including the Eredivisie, the Scottish Premiership, Denmark’s Superliga, Belgium’s Pro League, Poland’s Ekstraklasa, Japan’s J1 League and the Swiss Super League. It requires an iPhone running iOS 17.2 or later, and there is no Android version.
Best for: iPhone users who want scores with zero clutter.
Download: iOS
9. Yahoo Sports
Yahoo Sports is the pick if fantasy is part of how you follow sport. Scores, news and highlights sit alongside direct access to Yahoo Fantasy leagues, so your lineup and the live game are in the same app rather than two. Coverage is strongest across the major North American leagues, and the core app is free.
Best for: fantasy players.
Download: iOS | Android
10. Feedly
Feedly is not a sports app, which is exactly why it earns a place. Every dedicated app above decides for you which stories matter. Feedly is an RSS reader: you subscribe to the specific beat writers, club blogs, tactical sites and independent newsletters you trust, and get their output in publication order with no algorithm in between.
For anyone who follows a lower-league club, a niche sport, or two or three writers in particular, it fills the gap the mainstream apps never will. The free tier covers a modest number of sources and folders, which is enough for most people.
Best for: building a sports feed nobody else curates.
Download: iOS | Android
Which sports app should you install?
- Football, and you care about the numbers: FotMob
- Several sports, deep stats, still free: Sofascore
- US leagues plus live streaming: ESPN
- Reading and analysis over alerts: The Athletic
- Fastest goal alerts: Forza Football
- Lock-screen scores on an iPhone: Apple Sports or theScore
- Fantasy leagues: Yahoo Sports
- Niche clubs and specific writers: Feedly
Two is usually the right number: one fast score-and-alert app, and one you read. Installing five means five sets of notifications for the same goal.
Stop sports apps from wrecking your battery and your notifications
- Turn off “all matches” alerts on day one. Nearly every app defaults to broader notifications than you want. Restrict them to your teams and to the events you care about — goals, final scores, red cards — rather than every kick-off and half-time.
- Use widgets and Live Activities instead of push. A glanceable scoreboard beats a stream of banners and wakes the screen far less often.
- Limit background refresh for the app you use least. Two apps polling live data all afternoon is a measurable battery cost.
- Set up a Focus or Do Not Disturb schedule that allows sports alerts during matches and silences them overnight — especially if you follow leagues in other time zones.
FAQs
What is the best free sports app?
For breadth, Sofascore — 25 sports and over 5,000 competitions with genuine statistical depth, at no cost. For football specifically, FotMob. On iPhone, Apple Sports is the cleanest free option if all you want is the score.
Do I need an ESPN subscription to check scores?
No. Scores, standings, alerts and written articles remain free in the ESPN app. The ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited subscriptions are for live video.
Which app has the fastest live scores?
Forza Football and FotMob are consistently among the quickest for football goal alerts. Speed varies by competition, though — the underlying data feed matters more than the app, so a top-tier league will always update faster than a lower division.
What is the best sports app for cricket, rugby or tennis?
Sofascore, which covers all three alongside 22 other sports. The football-first apps like FotMob and Forza Football won’t help you here, and ESPN’s coverage of these sports varies considerably by region.
Is there a good sports app for Android users who want Apple Sports?
Apple Sports is iPhone-only. The closest equivalents on Android for a clean, free, score-focused experience are theScore and 365Scores.
The bottom line
The sports app landscape has shifted meaningfully since this list was first published. ESPN turned itself into a streaming service, Apple entered the category with a free app that does one thing well, and Sofascore and FotMob have grown into the most capable free trackers available — none of which existed in their current form when the original six were picked.
Pick one fast app for alerts and one you actually read, spend five minutes trimming the notification settings, and you will miss less while looking at your phone considerably less. Got a favourite that should be on this list? Tell us in the comments.
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