Apple Sports is Hiding a 2026 World Cup Surprise

Apple Sports may be one of the company’s most aggressively updated apps in the company’s history. While built-in apps like Mail and Calendar only get refreshed during iOS updates, Apple’s standalone apps can receive updates as often as the company wants to push them out. While that sadly hasn’t always been the case, Apple Sports is a standout exception to that rule.

It’s been just over two years since Apple released Apple Sports in February 2024, and in that time it’s received over two dozen updates — an average of one per month. Much of that stems from the need to add support for new leagues, but Apple has also added plenty of new features, like support for Live Activities, shareable live game score cards, and Home Screen widgets.

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In the same time, it’s expanded from its humble beginnings when it was limited to major leagues like MLB, MLS, NBA, and NHL through NCAA basketball, NFL and college football, and really every European football league. Apple has also reworked the app to support Formula 1, NASCAR, tennis, and golf, all of which require an entirely different approach to tracking scores and stats than traditional team-based leagues.

Last week, Apple released Apple Sports 3.9, an update that lists the probable starting pitchers for each MLB game in advance, and adds car numbers to NASCAR leaderboards to ensure you can keep up with your favorite driver while a race is on. However, it seems that Apple had another update in the works to add complete FIFA World Cup tournament groupings.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is being held in North America this time around, and is set to kick off on June 11 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. It’s also notably the first time there’s been a 48-team World Cup, which adds an extra wrinkle into the mix.

The Apple Sports app update was first spotted by MacRumors and confirmed by 9to5Mac, although it appears to be unavailable on the App Store as of this writing, suggesting Apple may have pulled the build shortly after release — a frustrating, if classic, move that usually precedes a quick “point-one” bug fix.

In the newer version, Apple Sports reportedly includes a “FIFA World Cup 2026” section that lists all the participating countries. This doesn’t appear as a separate league in Apple Sports 3.9, although a search for “World Cup” will show the list of countries — and even allow you to select your favorites — suggesting it’s able to pull the data from Apple’s back-end servers, but lacks the UI elements that are likely only present in the updated app.

Regardless, there’s still plenty of time for Apple to re-issue the update before the 2026 World Cup kicks off, since the first match doesn’t happen until June 11 — ironically right at the end of Apple’s 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). When it does arrive, fans can expect the same features they’ve enjoyed for other leagues, including Live Activities with real-time information about ongoing games and the ability to follow the groups and playoffs as the tournament progresses through to its final match on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.