Top 25 best sports games for iPhone and iPad (iOS)

Be a good sport
Updated on March 8th, 2022: New entries added
Sports and games go together beautifully. In fact, if you take any moderately popular sport, there's probably a simulated take on it somewhere.
Sports games don't necessarily need to be dry simulations, either. Many developers will opt to take the core rulesets of familiar sports and head off on flight of fancy. Others will invent a completely new sport from scratch.
The following list of iOS sports games features something for everyone. We have dedicated sports sims, arcade knockabouts, left-field oddities, and completely made-up future sports.
It doesn't really matter if you're into sport in the real world or not. The very best sports games tend to be fun for everyone, not just die hards.
Have we missed your own personal favourite iOS sports game? Let us know in the comments below.
1
New Star Soccer Manager

New Star Soccer takes a sideways leap into new territory here. This time you're responsible for the running of an entire football club, not just a player, resulting in an even deeper and more enthralling casual simulation of the beautiful game.
2
Pocket-Run Pool
Pocket-Run Pool is as much a brilliant puzzler as it is a brilliant sports game. That's because of the extreme liberties it takes with the rules of pool, including an ingenious rotating score-multiplier system.
3
Football Manager 2022 Mobile
A genuine, bone fide version of Football Manager right here on our iPads. Football Manager 2022 Mobile is one of the deepest portable games of any genre.
4
New Star Soccer

If you've never really gotten along with classic footy games on mobile, New Star Soccer shows that there's another way. This is a proper native mobile football game, and it's brilliant.
5
Table Tennis Touch

Table Tennis Touch has it all - slick graphics, superb ball physics, and a swipey control system that could well lead to blisters. It's worth it.
6
Grand Mountain Adventure

An exquisite free-roaming skiing and snowboarding game that sees you slicing serenely across a beautiful range of peaks and slopes.
7
Golf Blitz

The maker of Stickman Golf takes those proven arcade-golf mechanics and funnels them into an online multiplayer putt-off. It's a madcap delight.
8
Golf Impact
Balancing arcade golf trappings with more advanced mechanics and an agreeably competitive edge, Golf Impact is a finely poised PvP package.
9
Touchgrind BMX 2
Touchgrind BMX 2 takes a decidedly mobile-centric approach to the extreme sports genre. You slide and flick your two fingers on the screen to initiate tricks and flips, making for a trickily engrossing sports game.
10
Super Stickman Golf 3

Okay, so Super Stickman Golf 3 is closer to crazy golf than proper golf. But is there a better game off putting a ball into a hole on the App Store? Probably not.
11
Pixel Pro Golf
A brilliant retro-tinged golf game that steers clear of tiresome realism without sacrificing depth.
12
Bottom of the 9th

Playing a game of baseball with dice rolls might sound like the driest, most boring game ever, but Bottom of the 9th is nothing of the sort thanks to a streamlined ruleset and charming presentation.
13
Skate City
A laid back skating simulator with a side-on perspective and bags of tricks and flips to perform with a simple swipe control system. This being an Apple Arcade game, it's as slick as anything.
14
Retro Bowl

Retro Bowl is essentially New Star American Football, offering a familiar blend of light management and tactile phase-based minigames come game day.
15
What the Golf?
What The Golf is a golf game in the loosest sense of the word. Or perhaps it's the ultimate golf game. This, after all, is a game where the identity of the ball, club and hole will differ drastically from one hole to the next.
16
Dinkigolf
Can we take another zany casual golf game on mobile? When it's as good as Dinkigolf, you'd better believe we can. Featuring a pleasingly bonkers edge and sprawling, twisting levels, it's great fun.
17
8 Ball Pool

By the definition, pool is a sport. Also, this is one of the most popular iOS sports games for the iPhone at the moment. It's easy to see why. Gameplay is rather simple, yet very interesting, and you can easily challenge a friend to a pool game.
18
Motorball
Essentially Rocket League on your phone, Motorball switches to a simple top-down perspective and scales things back to condensed, moreish 1v1 face-offs.
19
Clap Hanz Golf
To all intents and purposes, Clap Hanz Golf is the legendary Everybody's Golf series come to iOS. This is no lazy port or half-baked mobile spinoff, however, but rather a fully featured 3D golf game with a rethought touchscreen control system.
20
Skiing Yeti Mountain

This deeply daft casual game somehow nails the rhythm and momentum of downhill skiing with a simple touch and swipe control system.
21
Charrua Soccer

This Apple Arcade effort is from the makes of Pixel Cup Soccer, and while it doesn't have the same pixel art charm, its 3D arcade footy action is difficult to resist.
22
Touchdowners
Another gem from Colin Lane. Like Wrassling and Dunkers, Touchdowners only superficially resembles its host sport, but trying to get the ball into the end zone is a madcap treat nonetheless.
23
Flick Kick Football
The original and, we would suggest, still the best ball flicker on the App Store. PikPok's swipe-to-kick mechanics are just spot-on, and the escalating challenge of the core game never grows old.
24
Tennis Champs
Harkening back to a time when simplistic 16-bit graphics disguised sports games of deceptive depth, Tennis Champs: Returns is far trickier and more involved a tennis sim than it initially seems.