Google might have killed its sports widget before you got to use it

Summary

• Google’s widgets offer a variety of useful information at a glance, including finance, routines, and weather updates.
• A sports widget was briefly in development, but speculation suggests it may have been permanently shelved because code for it isn’t visible in the Google app anymore.
• Although the widget’s removal may disappoint sports fans, Google often shifts its focus to more impactful features before returning to shelved projects.

There is a plethora of fantastic widgets on Android which offers glanceable information right on your home screen, so you don’t need to open the corresponding app. The Google app also offers a few such widgets, like the Finance watchlist, At a Glance, and a dedicated widget for routines. Late last year, a new sports widget for the app was spotted in the works, but it appears we might have to shelve hopes of ever seeing it again permanently.

The widgets enabled by the Google app cover several subjects ranging from finance to device automation, weather, and making Search more accessible. However, viewers and followers of various physical sports still rely on a few good score tracker apps to monitor games when they aren’t watching the live stream.

In December last year, a new Google widget purpose-built to track the scores of sporting games was spotted in development when 9to5Google went snooping around the code for beta app version 14.49.38.29. The finding was code-based, but the sleuths managed to get it working and share some screenshots. They revealed you could follow teams and the widget would display scores from their games in play. A manual refresh button and dynamic theming support were the cherries on top.

We might see it again

Google hasn’t addressed this widget’s existence officially, but app researcher @AssembleDebug on X (formerly Twitter) shares that the company may never need to do that because the code for it has been removed from version 15.23.33.29.arm64 of the app. The researcher says Google might have killed the widget for good.

Although millions of sports fans using Android devices linked to Google services could have benefitted from this sports widget, there are several reasons why relevant code might be removed from the app. Developers might temporarily remove work-in-progress features to help debug other elements of the app, or to polish said feature to a gleaming shine before its grand unveiling. We also notice this trend in other Google services, such as chrome feature flags.

Although Google is infamous for killing ideas, we’ve seen several hardware and software creations fade in and out of development while companies invest in more pertinent additions to their portfolios. Although the hopes are bleak now, we believe we haven’t seen the last of Google’s sports tracking widget yet.