In the ongoing negotiation between attention and awareness, Apple has quietly introduced a feature that lets sports fans remain present in their lives while staying tethered to the games they love. Live Activities, built into iOS 16, transforms the iPhone lockscreen into a living scoreboard — a persistent, refreshing window into the unfolding drama of a season, requiring no tap, no search, no interruption. It is a small technological gesture toward a larger human desire: to be in two places at once without fully abandoning either.
Track Live Sports Scores on Your iPhone Lockscreen With Live Activities
The score sits there, updated as the game unfolds
Mark
So Live Activities is just another way to get notifications, right?
Mimi
Not quite. A notification pops up and disappears. Live Activities sits on your lockscreen and stays there, updating in real time. It's persistent—you can glance at it whenever you want without the app sending you alerts.
Luke
But you have to enable it first. It's not automatic. And it only works if the app developer built it in. Not every sports app supports it.
Mark
Got it. So I need to turn it on in Settings, and then what?
Mimi
Then you pick which teams or leagues you want to follow. You can do that through Apple Sports or, on older iOS versions, through Apple TV. Once you follow a team, their games show up on your lockscreen automatically.
Luke
On newer iPhones—14 Pro and up—you also get it in the Dynamic Island. That's the pill-shaped notch at the top. But older phones just get it on the lockscreen itself.
Mark
Does it drain battery?
Mimi
It can, especially if you turn on More Frequent Updates. That setting makes the score refresh more often so you see changes faster.
Luke
The source doesn't say how much battery it actually uses, though. That's something you'd have to test yourself.
Mark
What sports can I follow?
Mimi
Right now, MLB, NBA, and Premier League through Apple TV. Apple Sports might have more, but the article doesn't specify.
Luke
And Apple TV doesn't require a subscription to Apple TV Plus. That's important—you're not paying for the feature.
Mark
So if I'm on iOS 18, I use Apple Sports. If I'm on an older version, I use Apple TV.
Mimi
Exactly. Apple removed the Live Activities feature from Apple TV starting with iOS 18, so they moved everything to the dedicated Sports app.
Luke
Which means if you're on an older iOS, you should know that feature might disappear when you update.
Il Polso
- Sports fans face a familiar tension — following a 162-game baseball season or a live match demands constant attention that daily life simply cannot afford.
- Apple's Live Activities feature disrupts the old pattern of app-opening and score-checking by embedding real-time updates directly onto the lockscreen and, for newer iPhones, into the Dynamic Island pill at the top of the screen.
- Users must first unlock the feature through Settings, then choose their path — either the newer Apple Sports app for iOS 18 or the Apple TV app for older systems — selecting teams to follow with a few deliberate taps.
- A hidden setting allows more frequent score refreshes for those tracking a close game, though the trade-off is accelerated battery drain — a small but real cost to staying informed.
- The feature is currently landing as a quiet but meaningful shift in how fans experience sports passively, with MLB, NBA, and Premier League games already supported through Apple TV's Live Sports section.
In the ongoing negotiation between attention and awareness, Apple has quietly introduced a feature that lets sports fans remain present in their lives while staying tethered to the games they love. Live Activities, built into iOS 16, transforms the iPhone lockscreen into a living scoreboard — a persistent, refreshing window into the unfolding drama of a season, requiring no tap, no search, no interruption. It is a small technological gesture toward a larger human desire: to be in two places at once without fully abandoning either.
Apple built Live Activities into iOS 16 as something between a notification and a widget — a persistent presence on your lockscreen that refreshes in real time without demanding your full attention. For sports fans navigating long seasons and busy lives, it means a glance at the score replaces the ritual of opening an app.
On iPhone 14 Pro models and newer, the feature becomes more elegant still. The Dynamic Island — the pill-shaped cutout at the top of the screen — doubles as a live scoreboard, showing team logos and updating scores as the game unfolds. A long press reveals the last play.
Setup begins in Settings under Face ID & Passcode, where toggling Live Activities on grants apps permission to place information on your lockscreen. From there, users choose between two paths: the Apple Sports app, available with iOS 18, lets you search for and star specific teams or leagues, after which their games surface automatically in the Dynamic Island and lockscreen. The Apple TV app, which works on older iOS versions, offers a second route — no subscription required — through its Live Sports section, where a Follow button on any live game activates the same score display. Apple TV currently supports MLB, NBA, and Premier League games this way.
For those who want the freshest possible numbers, a buried setting inside Apple TV's Live Activities menu enables more frequent updates — faster scores, but at a cost to battery life. It's a trade-off each fan must weigh against how long their phone needs to last and how closely they're watching the game unfold.
Apple built a feature into iOS 16 called Live Activities that sits somewhere between a notification and a widget—a persistent bubble on your lockscreen that refreshes in real time without demanding your full attention. For sports fans, this means you can glance at a score without opening an app, which matters when a baseball team plays 162 games a season and you can't afford to miss the moment something shifts.
If you own an iPhone 14 Pro, 14 Pro Max, or anything newer, the feature gets even more useful. The Dynamic Island—that pill-shaped cutout at the top of the screen—becomes a live scoreboard. The scores sit there, updated as the game unfolds, with team logos flanking the numbers. Long-press it and you see the last play. It's designed for exactly this: following a game while your phone does other things.
Getting started takes just a few taps. First, you need to unlock the feature itself. Go to Settings, find Face ID & Passcode, enter your code, scroll down, and toggle Live Activities on. That's the permission layer—telling your phone it's okay for apps to put information on your lockscreen. Without this step, nothing else works.
Once that's done, you have two paths. The first is Apple Sports, which launched with iOS 18. Download it from the App Store if you don't have it. Tap the menu icon in the upper right, hit Edit, and search for the teams or leagues you want to follow. Tap the star icon next to each one. The app will then show you games in Yesterday, Today, and Upcoming tabs. By default, games for your teams will push to the Dynamic Island and lockscreen, but you can toggle this on or off per team through the settings menu if you want to be selective.
The second path is Apple TV, which still works on older versions of iOS but lost this capability starting with iOS 18. If you're running an older system, open the Apple TV app—it comes pre-installed on most iPhones—and you don't need a paid subscription to use it. Tap Watch Now at the bottom, scroll to Live Sports, find your game, and tap it. If the game is live, you'll see a Follow button. Tap it. The score will appear on your lockscreen and in the Dynamic Island, updating as the game progresses. Apple TV currently supports MLB, NBA, and Premier League games through this method.
There's one more setting worth knowing about. If you want the most current scores possible, go to Settings, find Apple TV, tap Live Activities, and toggle on More Frequent Updates. This keeps your lockscreen refreshing more often, which means you'll see changes faster—but it will drain your battery more quickly. It's a trade-off worth considering depending on how closely you're following the game and how long your phone needs to last that day.
The whole system is designed around a simple idea: you shouldn't have to choose between staying informed and staying present. The score is there if you want it, updated without you asking, visible without you opening anything. It's a small feature, but for anyone who's ever tried to follow a game while doing something else, it's the difference between knowing what happened and actually watching it unfold.
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