If not, don’t feel bad.
I know a lot of people who watch sports, and I know a lot of people who spend time thinking about Apple and Apple products, and almost none of them ever mention the Apple Sports app, which launched in February.
And among the few people I know who do talk about the Apple Sports app, the conversation goes something like this: “WTF is with this app? Why does it exist?”
That’s because the Apple Sports app is the most bare-bones app you’ve ever seen. It has some — not all, not by a long shot — sports scores, and some sports betting odds, and… that’s it. That’s the whole thing.
The reason some of us are talking about it today, again, is that Apple has put out a press release reminding us that the Apple Sports app exists, and that you’ll be able to use it to find the scores of college football and NFL games this fall. It will also add some features like in-game stats.
Again, this is all very weird. If you are at all interested in sports, you know that one of the things the internet is very, very good at is giving you sports scores. It’s a core competency, going back to the Netscape days, along with porn and recipes.
You can get scores via apps like ESPN’s, or from gambling apps, or you can just go the super basic route and Google them. It’s almost harder to not get sports scores. So why does Apple have a scores app and why did it launch one in 2024?
The standard line that accompanies any Apple product launch is that Apple isn’t first in any category, but when it shows up, it does it best. But that’s not the case here — it’s not better than the lowest of low-end options like Google, and it doesn’t have any of the bells and whistles you find in bulkier solutions like ESPN. And in many cases, it’s far inferior since Apple’s app didn’t include sports like Europe’s Champions League soccer tournament in the spring or the Paris Olympics this summer.
This has led professional Apple watchers to tie themselves in knots trying to explain the app’s existence.
In February, for instance, Jason Snell quoted Eddy Cue, Apple’s services boss and mega sports fan (look for him courtside at any Golden State Warriors game) explaining that the app was super-bare bones because Cue wanted a super-bare bones app. But that’s the kind of rationale an Apple exec should use for painting his office walls — not pushing a $3 trillion company to roll out new software.
Other rationales include Apple’s slow push into TV sports licensing deals or perhaps an interest in sports betting.
Those don’t make sense to me, either. Whether Apple ends up splashing a lot of money on a big sports deal (and no, Major League Soccer and a few Major League Baseball games don’t count) has nothing to do with whether it has a sports score app, and Apple has already been doing “push” alerts for games it doesn’t broadcast for years.
And I don’t think Apple wants any direct participation in sports betting, which has very limited upside (for a company Apple’s size) and some real downsides (for a company with Apple’s squeaky-clean branding).
So, that leaves us with… what? The fact that Apple has rolled out an app that few people seem to need isn’t unheard of (Google “iTunes Ping”, for starters.) It’s also, to be clear, not remotely important for Apple — this is no Apple Vision Pro. But it’s odd. Right?
I asked Apple about this, but I don’t expect to get an answer since they haven’t responded to the questions I sent them about the app back in February. If you’ve got any bright ideas, let me know.
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