Sports

The Sports screen

Click Sports in the side menu, or press Ctrl 6.

• Live now shows the games on right now, with the score, the game clock and how many feeds carry each one. A game leaves as soon as it ends. Replays, talk shows and old channel names for games the schedule doesn’t list stay out of Live now. Games with a score come first.
• Later today lists the rest of today by start time, grouped by league. A league with more than three games folds the rest into one line.
• Tomorrow starts folded into one line. Click it to see the games.

Click a game to open its page.

What the tags mean

A game’s card carries one tag beside its time. On a card with a chip at the top, the chip names the league, or the sport when there’s no league, and Men’s or Women’s stays below it. A row without a chip keeps the sport in its text line.

• Replay is a game Theia knows already finished. It never shows under Live now or with a red dot. It stays in the day’s list instead.
• Replay? is a game that looks like a re-air but isn’t certain.
• Started, no score means the game should be on by its start time, but no scoreboard has confirmed it yet. It shows after the first 30 minutes. A game held up by weather reads Delayed.
• A red dot marks a game that is live now, with a clock from the scoreboard.
• Pay per view appears only on real pay-per-view events.
• Status reads in plain words: Halftime, Full time, Extra time, Penalties, Delayed or Postponed. A game that was called off says so.
• A start Theia had to guess reads About 10:45 AM. A live game says Started and the time, with a score or without.

Times follow your own day and clock, not another time zone’s.

The pills under the search box narrow the lists to one league, with how many games each has today. All shows every league again. When your playlists have a league’s own channels, they sit in a row at the top with what’s on each. Recently watched plays a channel you watched lately in one click.

Search from the box at the top. Type a team the way you’d say it, or something like college football tonight. More in Search.

To have Theia open on Sports, turn on Open Theia on this screen at the top. Turn it off and Theia opens on the screen it opened on before, or Home. Home shows today’s games too, with All games to open Sports.

A game’s page

• Watch on, followed by a channel’s name, plays the best feed full screen. Enter does the same.
• The preview box plays a feed with the sound off. Click it to start, click the speaker to hear it, and double-click it to watch full screen.
• Preview, beside Watch on, gives a remote or the keyboard the same control as clicking the box. It starts the feed, muted, in the preview box. Once a feed is playing, it says Preview next feed and moves to the next one, or, with only one feed, Stop preview. Space does the same as the button.
• On a TV, going back from full screen keeps the feed playing in the preview box when it is one of that game’s feeds. Preview then shows it as it is, instead of opening it again, and it plays only there, not in the corner too.
• Watch 2 feeds side by side opens two feeds in multiview, which is part of Premium with a free daily preview. It shows when the game has more than one feed.
• Remind me, beside Watch on, shows on a game that hasn’t started, even when its feeds already show. See Reminders.

With Preview games automatically on in Settings > Sports, opening a game that’s on, or starts within 15 minutes, plays its best feed in the preview with the sound off. The preview uses one of your provider’s connections, like any stream.

The page also lists other games on at the same time, the next game for each team, and About this game. Esc, or Sports at the top of the page, goes back.

All ways to watch

Every channel in your playlists that carries the game is listed, in groups:

• On and the network’s name: stations for the network the public schedule names. Stations in your home area come first, and stations in other markets are folded away.
• Event channels: channels your provider renamed for this game, found by reading channel names in your playlists.
• Other channels: channels whose guide lists the game.

Best feed marks the one Watch on opens. When the public schedule names the network and a channel in your playlists carries it, that channel leads, and event channels renamed for the game come after it. A feed that played well for you before breaks a tie, and a feed that isn’t opening never leads. The game page, the Watch button and + Multiview all open the same channel.

The dot beside each feed is green when it opened last time, red when it keeps failing, and a hollow ring when it hasn’t been tried. A feed that keeps failing has Retry in place of Watch.

Feeds in your language

Feeds in your language come first. Theia reads a channel’s language from its name, its group, your playlist and the guide, and never guesses. Other languages stay in the list, after yours. Pick the language in Settings > Sports > Preferred feed language. Automatic follows your device. This works on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and TV.

Check feeds opens the top three feeds for a moment on a spare stream, and marks each Works or Not responding. The page of a game that’s on checks by itself after a few seconds, while Check other feeds in the background is on in Settings > Playback. With no spare stream, the button says so.

If a feed keeps freezing in the player, Theia offers another channel carrying the same game. Offer to switch freezing streams in Settings > Playback turns that off.

No feeds yet

When no channel carries a game yet, its page says so, with Remind me before it starts and Search channels for the league.

Many providers post games on event channels close to the start. They usually appear about an hour before, and Theia reads your playlist again every hour while it’s open.

Scores

Live scores come from the public sports schedule. Theia asks only about competitions that have a game on now. Big games update every 30 seconds. College soccer and volleyball scores update every 2 minutes. These are in Settings > Sports:

• Hide scores keeps scores and game clocks out of Sports, Home and search. The Show scores switch at the top of Sports is the same setting. While scores are hidden, the count of games that finished earlier has Show beside it.
• Delay scores to match my stream holds each score change back by 30 seconds to 5 minutes, so scores don’t run ahead of your stream. A game that has ended stays under Live now until the delay catches up.
• Update live scores every sets how often live scores refresh, from 15 seconds to 30 minutes. It starts at 30 seconds. Faster updates may be turned away by the scores service.

The refresh button beside Show scores, and beside a live game’s status on its page, reads the scores again at once. When no game is on the board, it reads the schedule instead. Theia also reads the schedule when you open it if the last read is more than 30 minutes old, and Sports shows Loading games while it reads.

When a score hasn’t updated for a few minutes, the game clock gives way to how long ago it was read, such as Updated 5 min ago. A game past its expected end with no fresh score says Likely over.

Your teams

Follow a team to keep its next game on the Sports screen and put its games first in search.

1. On Windows and Mac, click Your teams at the top of the Sports screen, then Add a team. On a TV, Add a team is under Your teams on the Sports screen. It’s also beside Favorite teams in Settings > Sports.
2. Type a team, city or nickname.
3. Click Follow.

A star marks your teams in the lists on Sports, in search and on Home’s game cards. Your teams shows each one with its next game, or the game it’s playing now with Watch. Click a team to open that game. On Windows and Mac, a red dot on the Your teams button shows how many of your teams are playing now.

To stop following, click Edit under Your teams, then Remove. Remove is beside each team in Settings > Sports too.

Reminders

Remind me sets a reminder for 10 minutes before a game starts. It’s beside each game under Later today and Tomorrow, in search, and on the page of a game that hasn’t started, whether or not its feeds are up yet. The bell beside a team’s next game on a game’s page does the same. The button then says Reminder set. Click it again to cancel.

When the time comes, a note at the bottom of the screen says when the game starts, with Open game and Dismiss. Over the player it shows for 30 seconds, then waits until you leave the player.

A reminder follows its game when the game moves to a new time, and goes away when the game is dropped from the schedule.

Reminders only go off while Theia is open. If it was closed at the time, the reminder shows when you next open Theia, up to 2 hours later.

Where games come from

Theia finds games in three places:

• Event channels. Many providers rename channels for each game, with the teams and a start time. Theia reads those names.
• Your guide. Games listed on any channel with a guide.
• The public sports schedule. Game times, networks and live scores from a public sports scores service, for the major leagues, many more soccer competitions, college basketball, Canadian and Australian football, and rugby. Theia then looks for that network’s stations in your playlists.

Feeds are only ever channels in your own playlists. A game none of them carries still shows, with no feeds.

Games show everywhere games show (Sports, search and Home), even when their channels are in groups you hid. Hidden channels stay out of channel lists, the guide and channel search. Adult channels never show as games. Setup hides groups named for another country or language, and Sports still finds their games.

Public sports schedule in Settings > Sports starts on. Lookups go first to a scoreboard cache on theiaplayer.com, which asks the public scores service on our side and doesn’t record who asked. If the cache isn’t available, Theia asks the scores service directly, and it then sees your IP address, as any website would. Turned off, nothing is fetched from it, and Sports lists only games found in your own channels and guide, with no live scores.

When the schedule can’t be reached, Sports says “Couldn’t update the sports schedule.” with Retry. Games from your own channels and guide still show.

Home area

When a game airs on a broadcast network, your playlists may have that network’s stations from many cities. Home area in Settings > Sports tells Theia which one is yours. Type your city or state and pick it from the list.

Your local station then comes first on a game’s page, which names it as yours. Until you pick an area, no station is called local.

On a TV

• The switch at the top of Sports says Start on Sports.
• After the app has been closed for a while, Sports says Loading games until today’s schedule is in, instead of No games.
• The remote starts on the first game on now, and on a game’s page, on Watch on, with Preview underneath it.
• The league pills sit in one row that scrolls sideways.
• Team names wrap or shorten the way fans say them, and are never cut in the middle of a word. At large sizes a name drops to a smaller size, then to its short form or code. Words like Women and U21 stay on the name.
• A game with no feeds yet says they’re usually up about an hour before it starts.
• Preview games automatically starts off on a TV, so opening a game never opens a stream by itself. Turn it on in Settings > Sports. When a game has more than one feed, Preview next feed starts the preview too.
• Under All ways to watch, OK on a feed watches it.