VAR Is Only 6% More Popular Than an Own Goal
Apple Search Ads reviewed “VAR” and awarded the decision to three weather apps and a Wi-Fi analyser…
VAR was introduced to help football avoid obvious mistakes. Unfortunately, nobody appears to have explained that to the US App Store.
Fresh APPlyzer data for the US iPhone App Store shows that “VAR” currently generates up to 224 estimated daily impressions, compared with 211 for “own goal.”
That means VAR is only around 6% more popular than accidentally scoring against your own team.
Given how much time, money and debate has gone into VAR over the years, that feels like a fairly underwhelming result.
It is close enough that we probably need another review.
Apple’s decision: check the weather
APPlyzer detected four Apple Search Ads appearing for “VAR” in the US App Store:
Weather Screen–Widget & Radar
Speed Test & Wi-Fi Analyzer +
Live Weather App by WeatherGo
Rainbow AI: Weather Radar
So Apple Search Ads reviewed “VAR” and awarded the decision to three weather apps and a Wi-Fi analyser.
Not one of the detected advertisers was football-related.
Perhaps Apple thinks people are checking whether poor visibility affected the referee’s decision. Or perhaps this is simply one of the more accurate recreations of the VAR experience: several systems review the same information and return a result nobody expected.
“Own goal” performs rather better.
The five Apple Search Ad advertisers detected against that search were:
Polymarket: Trade Soccer
Fanarchy: Follow Your MLB Team
Recapp Sports Highlights
SportsHL: Soccer Highlights
Ultimate Sports Tickets
They are all at least sports-related, with several directly connected to football.
So the App Store’s advertising system appears to understand “own goal” much better than the technology designed to identify one.
Organic search is not much clearer
The organic results for “VAR” are equally confused.
The first result is VAR Player – Unlock Your World, followed by Varo Bank: Online Banking.
The first clearly relevant football app is VAR Plus – Football Expert, which ranks third.
After that, Apple seems to decide that anyone typing “VAR” probably meant “car.” The results quickly fill up with driving simulators, racing games, traffic games and car-parking apps.
Apparently, the difference between football officiating and an open-world driving simulator is one letter, and Apple is not prepared to make a firm decision...
The “own goal” results go in a different direction.
Rather than football mistakes, Apple serves apps about setting goals, tracking habits, improving productivity and generally becoming a better person.
The number-one result is Goal Tracker & Daily Planner.
Of the first 30 organic results for “own goal,” only one is categorised as Sports: OwnUrGoal, which appears in position 22.
That means just 3.3% of the first 30 results are sports apps.
Even that app is a sports-management platform rather than an app about defenders putting the ball into their own net.
Search for an own goal and the App Store effectively tells you to move on, organise your life and learn from the experience.
It may be the most emotionally supportive search result in football.
Penalties are much easier for Apple to understand
The confusion disappears when users search for “penalty shootout.”
APPlyzer estimates up to 530 daily impressions for that term, giving it:
2.4 times the demand of “VAR”
2.5 times the demand of “own goal”
2.8 times the demand of “red card”
The organic results are also highly relevant.
Football Strike, Penalty Shootouts, Perfect Kick, Pro Kick Soccer and several other penalty games all feature prominently.
The App Store understands penalties perfectly. It just needs another look at VAR.
That may be because penalties are easier to turn into an app. Users can take virtual spot kicks, try to save them and recreate the stress themselves.
A realistic VAR app would presumably make users watch the same clip repeatedly, wait several minutes and then receive a decision with very little explanation.
That might be too close to the real thing.
Adding “football” helps
There is some positive news for users who give Apple a bit more context.
“Football VAR” currently generates up to 270 estimated daily impressions, around 21% more than “VAR” alone.
It also has a higher search score:
“Football VAR”: 9
“VAR”: 6
The organic results become much more relevant as well.
Soccer Referee Simulator 2026 ranks first, while apps including EA SPORTS FC Soccer Mobile 26, FotMob, eFootball and BeSoccer also appear prominently.
So the App Store can understand VAR. It just needs users to complete the referee’s report first.
The full term “video assistant referee” generates about the same number of daily impressions as “own goal.”
Its results include referee apps, FIFA, UEFA and other football products, although the search score remains fairly low at 5.
From an ASO perspective, “football VAR” is therefore the stronger and clearer phrase.
From a comedy perspective, “VAR” is much more useful ;-)
There is a genuine ASO point here
This is obviously a fairly small search market, but it provides a useful example of how event-led language can create problems for both organic discovery and paid acquisition.
Football fans tend to use short, widely understood terms such as VAR.
The App Store then has to decide whether that means:
video assistant referee
a banking brand
a video player
or a spelling mistake for “car”
Apple Search Ads can run into the same issue. Broad matching and automated targeting can help advertisers appear against relevant searches, but they can also send weather apps into the middle of a football controversy.
For sports publishers, the lesson is fairly simple.
“VAR” on its own is ambiguous. “Football VAR” has higher estimated demand and produces a much more relevant set of results.
During a major tournament, pairing event-specific language with clear football terminology is likely to be far more effective than relying on an acronym alone.
The more entertaining conclusion is this:
VAR is only 6% more popular than an own goal in the US iPhone App Store.
When Apple Search Ads reviewed the evidence, it recommended checking the weather and restarting the router.
No further action was required.
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Data source: APPlyzer snapshot of the US Apple App Store for iPhone, using the en-US storefront on 1 July 2026. Impression figures are maximum estimated daily impressions and may change as tournament interest and App Store activity develops.