Best March Madness apps for iPhone and iPad in 2020

Ncaa March Madness IPhone 11 Pro Hero (Image credit: Christine Romero-Chan / iMore)

UPDATE March 12, 2020: NCAA March Madness has been cancelled due to COVID-19 (coronavirus) concerns.

March Madness is here, so you NCAA fans will want to make sure that you're up-to-date with everything that's going on in the brackets. If you aren't aware, Selection Sunday is March 15, 2020, so you'll want to make sure that date is marked on your calendar. But how do you keep tabs on everything that happens? Don't worry, we got you covered with these great apps.

CBS Sports
theScore
Bleacher Report: Sports News
Bleacher Report Live
ESPN Tournament Challenge
NCAA March Madness Live
Get even more March Madness!

CBS Sports

You can always trust iMore. Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. Find out more about how we test.

CBS always airs a ton of sports, and the NCAA March Madness is no exception. With the CBS Sports app, you're able to stream the games live to your device, whether it's on your iPhone or iPad, or you can send it to your Apple TV. You just need to make sure that you have an active cable subscription, since you need to log in with your TV provider first.

The CBS Sports app also has all of the news you can handle, game highlights, expert analysis, streaming radio, and more. You can even create brackets and pools between friends and family.

theScore

If you want a personalized experience, theScore is for you. With this app, you can custom tailor the news you get to just the teams and players that you care about.

theScore lets you follow your favorite teams or players, and you'll get news and notifications relating directly to just them. You'll never miss a moment of your favorites! It also provides a live score feed for every single game at a glance, and it's always updated in real-time. There is also a chat and messaging feature, so you can connect with other sports fans and talk about your favorites.

Bleacher Report: Sports News

Bleacher Report Screens (Image credit: Bleacher Report)

Sports fans in general will want to have Bleacher Report on their devices. It's a fantastic app that lets you follow your favorite teams and get up-to-the-minute notifications for any news and scores in your own personalized streams.

Bleacher Report gathers up the most breaking scores, stories, videos, and pictures from several different sources, like local papers, national websites, blogs, Twitter, and more, all into a single place. It covers NCAA March Madness as well as any other sport you could want.

Bleacher Report Live

While the other Bleacher Report app was just about news and highlights, this one is all about streaming games as they happen live.

With Bleacher Report Live, you're able to stream the games of NCAA's March Madness anywhere, and there are also replays available for those amazing game moments. And if you prefer just following your favorite teams, then Bleacher Report Live lets you do just that. There are also in-app purchases so you can buy pay-per-view games, or even annual passes for your favorite sports. And if your sporting event isn't streaming in this app, it'll point you to where you should go.

ESPN Tournament Challenge

If you're the competitive type, then ESPN Tournament Challenge is perfect for you. With ESPN Tournament Challenge, you're able to compete against your friends and family for the chance of winning cash prizes, or even the chance to go to Hawaii for the 2020 Maui Jim Maui Invitational.

You can create up to 25 brackets in the app, and enter each bracket in up to 10 groups to play against your friends, co-workers, family, and others across the nation. The more brackets you fill out, the greater chances you have of winning. To make it even easier, it supports autofill, or you can go randomly with the Smart Bracket logic algorithm.

NCAA March Madness Live

For those who want a one-stop shop for all their NCAA March Madness needs, then the NCAA March Madness Live app is the one to get. It's all you need, but it's also only available in the U.S., so if you meet that criteria, knock yourselves out!

With the NCAA March Madness Live app, you're able to play the Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge and simultaneously watch every game from a single place. You even get to view on-demand highlights, in-depth analysis, classic games, and much more. The app also provides complete stats of players and teams, has news updates, and insights into each game. If you intend to play the Bracket Challenge, you'll need to lock in your brackets by March 19, 2020.

Get even more March Madness!

These are some pretty general apps for getting your March Madness fix. We also have some other March Madness guides if you are looking for ways to watch the games, figuring out how to make your own bracket with apps, and how to make the perfect bracket, so make sure to give them a look. And don't forget those apps to help you plan your March Madness meetups!

Madness? This. Is. MARCH!!

These are the best apps to help you keep tabs throughout March Madness. Did we miss something? Let us know what your favorite apps are for staying up-to-date with NCAA March Madness by leaving a comment below.

March 2020: Updated for March Madness 2020.

Christine Romero-Chan was formerly a Senior Editor for iMore. She has been writing about technology, specifically Apple, for over a decade at a variety of websites. She is currently part of the Digital Trends team, and has been using Apple’s smartphone since the original iPhone back in 2007. While her main speciality is the iPhone, she also covers Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac when needed.

When she isn’t writing about Apple, Christine can often be found at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, as she is a passholder and obsessed with all things Disney, especially Star Wars. Christine also enjoys coffee, food, photography, mechanical keyboards, and spending as much time with her new daughter as possible.