Less than ten minutes, once. Install the app, approve a short code from your phone, choose your teams — and the TV shows live scores, standings and everything else you switch on until you turn it off.
Three steps, and two of them happen on your phone — typing a password with a TV remote is nobody’s idea of a good time.
Open the Play Store on the TV, search for TickrDash and install it. You can also open the listing on your phone or computer — the badge below goes straight to it.
The TV shows a short code and a QR code. On your phone, scan it or open tickrdash.com/link, sign in, and enter the code. The TV signs in on its own — you never type a password with the remote.
Open the control panel and turn on the leagues you follow, the teams you care about, and the extras you want between games: conference and division standings, weather by ZIP code, stock quotes and market indices, golf leaderboards, tennis and F1. The TV updates as soon as you save — nothing to restart, and no need to get up.
That is the whole install. From here the TV looks after itself: it cycles the slides you enabled and refreshes scores while games are live, typically within a minute of the action. Come back to the control panel only when you want to change what it shows.
While the ticker is displayed, TickrDash asks the TV to keep the screen awake, so it should not dim or drop into a screensaver in the middle of the fourth quarter.
If the screen still goes dark, something on the device is overriding the app. Two things are worth checking in the TV’s own settings: the screensaver or ambient-mode timer, which starts a slideshow after a set idle period, and any power-saving option that switches the panel off on a timer. A streaming stick can also have a sleep timer of its own, separate from the television it is plugged into.
The same is true on every device, not just a TV — on a tablet it is the battery saver that usually wins the argument. The iPad guide has the iOS version of this, where Auto-Lock is the setting that matters.
A TV is the one screen you read from across the room, so it suits the two densest layouts in the app.
Regular game cards show one game at a time. The Smart Scoreboard is a high-density slide showing up to eight games from a league at once, which is what you want when a dozen of them start together. Scope it to every game, to just the teams you follow, or — for college sports — to ranked Top 25 matchups, so a crowded Saturday stays readable instead of running to twenty slides.
When it is your team playing, the full-screen game card is the better view: one game, big type, score and clock legible from the sofa, plus the live detail the league provides. Follow a handful of teams and the rotation keeps coming back to them between the wider boards.
Two switches change the character of the board. Today Only limits the rotation to today’s games, hiding yesterday’s finals and next week’s fixtures. Live Only goes further and shows only games in progress — ideal during a slate, and the reason the board can look empty at breakfast. You can also pause on a slide by tapping the slide counter at the bottom of the screen, and move between slides from the left and right edges. The live demo runs the same layouts if you want to try them before you commit.
Which of the two layouts earns the screen depends on the league. The NFL scoreboard guide covers a Sunday where eight games start at once, and the college football guide covers a Saturday too big for any board to show whole, which is what the Top 25 scopes are for. The league hub collects the guides for the leagues that have one.
League and competition names are used here only to describe what the app shows. TickrDash is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any league, team or governing body.
Check the two display filters first. “Live Only” shows nothing at all when no game is currently in progress, and “Today Only” hides recent finals and upcoming matchups. Turn both off and the rotation goes back to everything in your window: recent finals, live games and what is coming up. If a whole league is missing, confirm it is switched on in the control panel and that the TV is signed in to the same account.
That is close to expected. Scores refresh continuously while games are live — typically within a minute of the action — and the ticker stays connected in real time, so updates appear without any interaction from you. If the TV has been showing the same score for a lot longer than that, it has most likely lost the network; restore the connection and the board catches up on its own.
Your teams, layouts and subscription are tied to your email address rather than to a device, so a TV signed in with a different provider on a different address looks like a brand new account. Sign in again — from your phone at tickrdash.com/link, or directly on the TV — with the same account you use on your phone, and your setup comes with it.
Still stuck? The support page covers sign-in, billing and the rest of the settings. Setting up a second screen while you are at it: the iPad guide covers tablets and phones, and the setup hub lists every screen TickrDash runs on. Plans and the free first month are on the pricing page, and if you came here from shopping for a wall-mounted strip, the LED ticker alternative comparison is worth a read.
See it running before you sign up — the demo is the real product (with non-live data).