iOS 16.5 gives Apple News sports section a dedicated tab

See sports news for the teams, leagues, and athletes you follow in a new tab at the bottom of the Apple News app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

• What’s happening? Apple’s upcoming iOS 16.5 software better displays sports content via a dedicated tab at the bottom of the stock News app.
• Why care? Prior to this change, sports articles were available alongside other content in the Today and Next views, which wasn’t ideal.
• What to do? Update to iOS 16.5 when it launches publicly.

Apple News sports section gets its own tab in iOS 16.5

The sports section of Apple News has been moved to a dedicated tab at the bottom of the app in the upcoming iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, and macOS Ventura 13.4 updates. It’s more of a layout and visual change meant to make sports content easier to discover in the News app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The Sports tab displays the results and schedules of the teams you follow. It also shows highlights, allows you to find and read sports coverage, and so on. Once you’ve set up your preferred leagues and favorite teams, the News app will display relevant news articles about those leagues and teams.

Apple’s description of My Sports:

The News app lets you follow sports, teams, leagues, and athletes, get news from top sports publications and local newspapers, access results, schedules, and standings for top professional and college leagues, and watch highlights.

How to get Apple News in unsupported countries

The News app is currently limited to the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK, according to Apple’s iOS feature availability webpage.

However, you can cheat by setting your device’s regional settings to the United States through the Settings app, allowing you to access services like Apple News that haven’t arrived in your country yet. For step-by-step instructions, check out our guide that explains how to get Apple News even if it’s not available in your country.

Oh no, another tab!

Actually, no. The number of tabs in the News app didn’t change because of the Sports tab because Apple merged the Subscriptions and Search sections into one.

As a result, the News app has this layout structure in iOS 16.5 from left to right: Today, News+, Sports, Audio, and Subscriptions. So, instead of looking for the Search tab, tap on the Subscriptions tab and use the search field at the top.

But why change?

In September 2022, Apple began hosting sports-related content in its News app. This section called “My Sports”was accessible through the “Today”and “Subscription”tabs.

The Today section provides recommendations, while the Subscriptions tab provides you with new content from the publications you follow. Since these tabs are already pretty busy serving their core content, the sports articles haven’t really come into their own.

Apple probably decided it was best to move the My Sports section to a dedicated tab. This is a change for the better. If you’re into sports, you can now find all the important sports news in a dedicated tab instead of scrolling through the Today and Subscriptions tabs like an animal.

When will Apple publicly release iOS 16?

Apple is currently testing updates for iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, and macOS Ventura 13.4. There must be about half a dozen beta releases before the updates are ready for public use. These will likely be Apple’s last major updates to current operating systems before the company unveils iOS 17, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS 14.0 at WWDC in June.

Sports content on the TV app

Apple has also been providing sports content in the TV app since 2018. Live sports, live news and subscription content are easily accessible from the TV app on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Recently, the TV app began hosting MLB Friday Night Baseball and MLS Season Pass baseball games. For those interested, we have a tutorial that shows you how to watch sports and get live scores on the Apple TV app.