Hate Watch / Rival alerts

How rival alerts work

A rival alert is a notification about something going wrong for a team or athlete you chose on purpose, because you root against them. Hate Watch sends one the moment it happens, not when the highlights get posted.

You pick who to hate

Search for any team or athlete in the nine leagues Hate Watch covers and tap Track. There is no account and nothing to fill in. Each team and athlete shows how many other people are tracking them, so you can see who you are in good company with.

Two kinds of alert

Things that happen during a game. A quarterback throws an interception, a batter strikes out for the third time, a point guard turns it over, a goalie gets pulled. Each of these is a separate alert type that you can switch on or off, and each one is about either a specific player or a whole team.

What happens when the game ends. The big one is the loss alert, which Hate Watch calls a Successful Hate Watch. When a team you track loses, it says so, and then adds how they lost, as extra lines on the same alert:

• they lost at the last second, such as a walk-off in baseball or a go-ahead score in the final seconds of a basketball game;
• they blew a big lead;
• they lost as the favorite, going by the betting line before the game;
• they were shut out;
• they were swept in a series;
• they lost to a team with a much worse record;
• the loss dropped them below .500.

There are also standings alerts (dropping in the standings, a long losing streak, a rival clinching the division, being eliminated from the playoffs) and, for athletes, news such as injuries, fines and suspensions.

Push, feed only, or off

Every alert type has one of three settings. Push sends a notification to your phone. Feed only adds it to your feed in the app without buzzing you. Off never shows it. Each type starts with a sensible default, so the alerts most worth interrupting you for (an interception, a lost game) push, and the minor ones (a missed free throw, a sack) go to the feed.

You change these per league in Settings, and you can override them for one team or one player. That is how you keep every strikeout alert for the slugger you can't stand and turn them off for everyone else.

One moment is one alert

A single play can be several things at once: a turnover that is also a foul, or a touchdown wiped out by a penalty. Hate Watch combines alerts about the same moment into one, with the extra detail as lines, instead of sending five notifications for one play. If the data provider later corrects a play, the existing alert gets a line rather than a second buzz.

Where the information comes from

Scores and plays come from public sports data, read every couple of seconds while a game is live. That means an alert can be delayed or occasionally wrong, and Hate Watch is not affiliated with or endorsed by any league, team or player.

Alerts by league

• NFL: interceptions, sacks, turnovers on downs and empty red-zone trips
• NBA: blocks, bricks, technical fouls and the opponent's star going off
• MLB: strikeouts, errors, blown saves and the NOBLETIGER
• WNBA: blocks, bricks, foul-outs and blown leads
• NHL: pulled goalies, penalties, fights and dead power plays
• College football: turnovers, upsets and AP poll drops
• Premier League: red cards, own goals, VAR and late goals
• Formula 1: retirements, lost places, lapped cars and no-points weekends
• UFC: knockdowns, losses and upsets

Curious who people root against most? See the most hated teams and athletes.

Free. No account. Push alerts need the iPhone or Android app.