{"id":563376,"date":"2026-03-25T13:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563376\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T13:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:10:08","slug":"how-to-avoid-spoilers-while-streaming-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563376\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Avoid Spoilers While Streaming Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBefore Apple<\/a> Sports launched, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue reportedly tested the app\u2019s speed from his courtside seat at Golden State Warriors games, comparing the scores on his phone with those on the jumbotron overhead. The app operates roughly 10 seconds behind live games, and often runs 10 seconds ahead of its competitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you use the app,\u201d Cue\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Sportico\u00a0when it launched, \u201cmost times it\u2019s faster than what you\u2019re seeing on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an impressive feat of engineering, helping the app garner a 4.7-star rating on iOS. But for some people, that speed also poses problems. Reviewers have picked nits with the fact that the app will spoil action before it plays out on TV. \u201cI would love to be able to look at game stats but have to be careful to close the app after to prevent the spoilers,\u201d one user wrote. A one-star review kept things simpler with a single-word title: SPOILERS!<\/p>\n

\n\tApple\u2019s recommended solve is for the user to disable notifications while watching a game, with other features in development.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpoilers, once the domain of scripted entertainment, have become commonplace in sports, now that fans watch games at different times. Some might start an hour late to fly through commercials. Others might merely be 30 seconds or a minute behind based on their streaming<\/a> platform of choice. Even more could be catching up the following morning. In each case, a well-meaning notification threatens to ruin the experience entirely. Sports app makers, almost always fans themselves, are well aware of the risks.<\/p>\n

\n\tRoughly 70% of fans using MLB<\/a>\u2019s app to track scores say that\u2019s the only way they\u2019re following a given game, according to league SVP for product Josh Frost. In those cases, there\u2019s no reason to hold back. \u201cWe never want to slow that down,\u201d he said. And yet, Frost himself \u201ccan\u2019t tell you how frustrated even I get when a push notification just totally beats what I\u2019m watching live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMLB has a hidden option for \u201cDelayed Gameday Notifications\u201d that slows down push alerts by 30 seconds to avoid ruining the action. The league has previously tested a more customizable delay and using TV audio signatures to perfectly sync mobile results. But the simple 30-second pause method continues to do the job, Frost said. A \u201cHide Scores\u201d option is also there for those who want to watch a game later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis season, some pitch data will also be delayed a handful of seconds to prevent it becoming a factor in teams\u00a0challenging<\/a>\u00a0ball or strike calls. Digital data delivery is so fast now that it has the power to foretell what will happen in real life, in this case the result of a challenge.<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery app seems to handle the spoiler challenge slightly differently.<\/p>\n

\n\tFans logged into the ESPN<\/a> app on their TV and their phone can now safely dive into a box score in their hand. ESPN recently updated its app to pick up the time of the game on-screen and show stats based on that point in the game. The ESPN app also contains a toggle within its video settings that turns off live scores from the games carousel to increase suspense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the NBA\u2019s app, a slider at the top of the Games page hides all scores. Fans can watch recaps stretching from three-minute versions to the full contest, with a \u201cSpoilers Ahead\u201d warning blurring out each box score as those videos play.<\/p>\n

\n\tTennisTV, meanwhile, has added the ability for the length of a broadcast to be hidden as a spoiler-prevention technique. Seeing that there are only five minutes left in a replay as a match point approaches would significantly change the viewing experience. F1 TV has won praise from fans for its ability to hide telling information, understanding that even diehards might not have stayed up through the night to watch a race live from the other side of the world.\u00a0Apple adopted many of those techniques now that it streams the events.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite apps\u2019 best efforts, spoilers still seep in. Sometimes it\u2019s a still image of a team celebrating used as a thumbnail on a game replay video. Or a score along the ticker during a separate broadcast. An exposed team record can be just as telling for a committed fan as a full play-by-play dump.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen there\u2019s social media, where spoilers fly free. The dream feature would be a sync slider on ESPN, Instagram or X, so that a feed could be filtered on a 30-second delay, or even eight hours in the past for someone wanting to \u201cfollow along\u201d while watching the next morning. Being able to pause a social media feed would be revolutionary. But for now, the best bet remains intricately established mute filters and prayer.<\/p>\n

\n\tActually, there is one tried-and-true method for spoiler reduction. You can put your phone away.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Apple Sports launched, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue reportedly tested the app\u2019s speed from his courtside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[1337,64,63,794,591,85,2708],"class_list":["post-563376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-apple","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-streaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}