Verithiathe honest score on any app
Updated July 2026 · real, multi-region App Store reviews
Head-to-head

The Athletic vs WFAA

The Athletic 4.8★ · Free + IAP 70
Winner The Athletic
WFAA 4.8★ · Free to download 55

The Athletic is better for in-depth sports journalism and broad coverage, while WFAA excels as a local news and weather source, though recent updates have negatively impacted its weather features.

Full reviews: The Athletic · WFAA

The Athletic offers extensive sports journalism, but users report issues with notifications, ads for subscribers, and app stability. WFAA provides local news and weather, but recent updates have led to significant problems with radar functionality, app crashes, and a perceived decrease in usability.

Head to head

Content & Coverage edge: The AthleticR2R4R7R11
The Athletic The Athletic is praised for its impressive and consistent sports journalism, offering in-depth insights into various sports, especially soccer and Premier League R11. However, some users desire broader coverage, such as tennis majors or rugby R2, and others criticize it for including too much political content or 'clickbait' over in-depth articles R4R7.
WFAA WFAA is highly valued for its local news and weather coverage, with specific praise for its reporters and weather personnel, particularly Pete Delkus . However, some users find the news content to be repetitive or politically biased , and recent updates have made it difficult to find news stories or view previous newscasts .
Ease of Use & Features tieR5R6R15R18
The Athletic The Athletic is generally considered easy to use with good organization . Users appreciate features like live activities R5 and the ability to follow favorite teams . However, there are significant complaints about the inability to comment R15, missing features like searching by columnist or adding events to a calendar , and issues with live score updates R18R43. Some users also report difficulty excluding subscriber-only articles or accessing free articles R6.
WFAA WFAA's app was previously a go-to for many users , but recent updates have made it hard to use and navigate . Users report difficulty finding specific segments, a lack of dark mode R70, and issues with the interactive radar and weather section R69R73.
Reliability & Performance tieR8R10R33R43
The Athletic The Athletic experiences frequent crashes and freezing, especially when writing comments or loading content R8R33. Some users report slow performance and issues with videos autoplaying despite settings R10R43. Podcast playback can also be unstable .
WFAA WFAA users report numerous bugs and errors, particularly with recent updates R69. The app frequently freezes, crashes, or closes completely R64R69. Loading times for forecasts can be slow , and the weather page often fails to load .
Notifications & Ads edge: The AthleticR1R12R13R19
The Athletic The Athletic is criticized for intrusive and excessive push notifications, even when users have customized settings R1R13R19R49. Notification badges often appear without clear ways to clear them . Many paying subscribers are frustrated by the presence of ads, despite the expectation of an ad-free experience R12R28R39R44. Notifications for comments and replies are also unreliable .
WFAA WFAA users complain about too many push notifications for random news items, even when they only want severe weather alerts . The app also features numerous ads and pop-up boxes, which users find disruptive and agonizing to wait through for content .
Customer Support tieR34R40R49
The Athletic The Athletic users report difficulty accessing customer support, with some encountering errors when trying to reach a help center R34R40. Attempts to contact customer service for notification issues sometimes lead to an AI chatbot that fails to resolve the problem or connect to a human R49.
WFAA There is no specific feedback on WFAA's customer support in the provided reviews.
Pick The Athletic if

You are a sports fanatic looking for in-depth journalism and broad coverage across many sports, and you are willing to tolerate some app stability issues and ads even with a subscription R11.

Pick WFAA if

You primarily seek local news and weather updates for the North Texas area, especially if you value specific WFAA personalities, and you are hopeful that recent app issues will be resolved .

Evidence note: WFAA's reviews are heavily skewed by recent negative updates, particularly regarding weather features, which may not reflect its long-term user satisfaction. The Athletic's reviews show a consistent pattern of complaints regarding notifications and ads for paying subscribers.

Frequently asked

Does The Athletic have ads for subscribers?
Yes, many paying subscribers to The Athletic report being frustrated by the presence of ads, with some stating that they were promised an ad-free experience when they subscribed R12R28R39R44.
What are the main issues with the WFAA app?
The main issues with the WFAA app, especially after recent updates, include frequent crashes and freezing, problems with the weather radar and weather page not loading, a lack of dark mode, and an overwhelming number of ads and push notifications R64R69R70R73.

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

  1. [R2] The Athletic 4/5 · US Wimbledon: Great app but shocked there’s no Wimbledon coverage. It’s not even listened in scores. Went to check when some of the matches were and couldn’t find it. I would suggest adding tennis for the 4 major events. Otherwise great overall coverage.
  2. [R4] The Athletic 1/5 · US Biased Reporting: Includes too much liberal leaning politics into sports stories. Useful only if you follow a few big city franchises.
  3. [R7] The Athletic 2/5 · US Great Idea Ruined By Laziness: The Athletic is a great idea. In depth sport journalism for the sports fanatic. Unfortunately now over two different subscriptions, it’d abundantly clear that all the NYT/The Athletic care about is low hanging fruit/clickbait “journalism.” This a subscriber based app, yet they still have a “one off” journalism/editorial strategy of focusing on hot takes over in depth
  4. [R11] The Athletic 5/5 · US Impressive Coverage: Consistent and always current, love them.
  5. [R5] The Athletic 4/5 · US What happened to Live Activities on lock screen and dynamic island?: It was displaying Paraguay France World Cup live activities on the lock screen then stopped. what happened? how do you control this feature from within the app? it looked NICE. i want to turn it on but there’s no control that i can find in app. i have live activities both switched on for the app in system settings.
  6. [R6] The Athletic 3/5 · US Can’t exclude articles that are subscriber only & free article links don’t return an open article: Wish I could exclude articles that are subscriber only instead of having to click and be disappointed. Also, articles that come through in notification emails as available for free aren’t available when I click on the link. Another waste of time.
  7. [R15] The Athletic 3/5 · US Cannot comment: The content is good but I’m unable to comment on anything
  8. [R18] The Athletic 3/5 · US Live scores suck: The app is fast and works fine, but even when you choose your favorite leagues and teams, it fails to provide live updates.
  9. [R8] The Athletic 4/5 · US Great app but crashes all the time: I like the app but I hate the fact that it often freezes when I’m in the middle of writing a comment.
  10. [R10] The Athletic 1/5 · US Videos autoplay regardless of settings: I turned off video autoplay and am constantly having video ads auto playing. Means the app is entirely unusable when not on WiFi for those of us without unlimited data.
  11. [R33] The Athletic 3/5 · US Crashes often: Increasingly this app seems to bog down loading content. Scrolling gets jerky, then app crash/quits. iOS 26.3/iPhone 13 mini.
  12. [R43] The Athletic 1/5 · US Slow: Come on, you’re in the prime time of digital age yet The Athletic apps is slow and not updating World Cup latest scores and standings. 👎👎
  13. [R1] The Athletic 1/5 · US Spam: Get off my phone
  14. [R12] The Athletic 3/5 · US Fine: Love the content, but I should have ads in app behind a pay wall that I’ve already paid. They need to be taken out if I pay for a subscription. Or add a “no ad subscription”
  15. [R13] The Athletic 1/5 · US Intrusive: Constantly trying to force new notifications on me, making me have to constantly turn them off.
  16. [R19] The Athletic 1/5 · US Your app with FIFA taking over my phone: Awful
  17. [R34] The Athletic 1/5 · US Help Center doesn’t exist?: So I’m having a problem with the app where it won’t show any comments and I went to contact support and got an error saying that help center doesn’t exist. How does one get help?
  18. [R40] The Athletic 1/5 · US Customer Support: Can’t find anyway to access customer support #
  19. [R49] The Athletic 1/5 · US Endless Push Notifications: I have turned off all push notifications other than the 3 teams I follow. Regardless, the app continues to send constant push notifications about the World Cup, nba draft, any random story, etc. I attempted to reach out to customer service and was directed to an AI chatbot for the New York Times. It failed to ever connect me to a real human and shockingly failed to un
  20. [R28] The Athletic 2/5 · US Now with invasive advertising: They added advertising after I paid for a subscription that they said was ad free. Will they lower the price now that ads are making the experience worse? I doubt it.
  21. [R39] The Athletic 3/5 · GB Too many ads: The app is perfect for football news and offers a refreshing switch up from what I was previously using (Twitter/X - filled with unwanted content). However very disappointed that despite paying for a membership there are still an awful lot of ads. At times taking up the whole screen! Close to being the perfect sport news app but slightly out of touch in that aspect.
  22. [R44] The Athletic 5/5 · US I’d give it a zero if I could: The whole thing here was “pay for it, no advertising”. Well, no. It’s now plastered with ads. I’m paying way too much to also put up with this nonsense.
  23. [R64] WFAA 2/5 · US Radar crashes a lot: Recent updates make app crash almost every time I open radar. Two year old iPhone with newest software and plenty of memory. Deleted/Reinstalled five times. Same issue each time.
  24. [R69] WFAA 3/5 · US Changes not good: Recent (last few months) have made the app almost unusable. Everything freezes. Weather is lost somewhere and radars are no where to be found. I have watched WFAA my entire life and used the AP as long as it has existed but can’t anymore.
  25. [R70] WFAA 1/5 · US Restore dark mode: Restore dark mode
  26. [R73] WFAA 1/5 · US Fix Radar: Radar is on a constant loop so we can’t see ahead. Please fix

Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store