Live Scores on a Second Monitor: A Workday Setup

October 7, 2026

To keep live scores on a second monitor while you work, run a scrolling ticker in a browser window. Size it to a thin strip along one edge of the screen, show only the games you follow, and leave it there. You won't need to refresh a tab, and you won't pick up your phone and lose ten minutes. The scores sit where your peripheral vision can catch them, and the rest of the monitor stays free for your work. This article covers how to size the strip, what to put on it, and how to keep it from taking over your attention.

Why a second monitor suits live scores

There are two common ways to follow a game during the workday, and both cost you something:

• A browser tab. You have to leave what you're doing to check it, and a scoreboard page that refreshes itself tends to keep you there.
• A phone. It's in your hand and then the apps are open. A phone asks for your full attention every time you look at it.

A second monitor fixes this because looking at it doesn't mean leaving your work. A glance to the side tells you whether anything has changed, and most of the time nothing has. A ticker fits the job because it carries the score, the inning or the clock, and nothing else.

Setting up the screen

Choose a strip or a whole screen

You can lay it out two ways.

1. A strip. Resize a browser window into a long, short bar and park it at the top or bottom of the second monitor. The rest of that screen stays free for chat, notes or a reference document. This layout is for people whose second monitor already has a job.
2. The whole screen. If the second monitor (or an old laptop next to your main one) has no other job, give the ticker all of it. You can read it from across the desk, and it works well on a screen set back a little from the one you type on.

Put it at the edge

Keep the strip at the edge of the screen farthest from your main monitor, or along the top. Motion in the middle of your field of view is hard to ignore. Motion at the edge is easy to ignore until you want it.

Make the text readable at a glance

If you have to lean in to read a score, the strip will pull you out of your work more often than you meant. Make the text as big as the window allows, so one glance is enough.

Deciding what goes on it

A ticker that carries every league is a ticker you'll end up staring at. While you work, cut it down:

• Your teams first. If you follow two teams, a strip that shows only those two is quiet most of the day. That's what you want.
• Live games over finished ones. A final from last night is fine at breakfast. At two in the afternoon it's just more to scroll past.
• Today, not the week ahead. Upcoming games are useful, but a schedule that reaches days ahead takes up space on the strip.
• One row per kind of thing. If you also keep an eye on prices or headlines, give each its own row so a score never gets lost between them.

Keeping it from taking over your workday

The point is to know the score without watching the game. A few habits help:

• Slow it down. A slower scroll is easier to read in one glance and less likely to pull your eye.
• Turn off the animations. Celebration graphics are fun on a TV and distracting at a desk.
• Give it hours. Morning work rarely needs scores, and an evening game does. If the ticker only shows sports when games are likely to be on, a quiet strip doesn't tempt you to check on nothing.
• Stop it when you want to read. A strip you can freeze is one you never have to chase.

A note on timing

Scores on any ticker come from data feeds, and those usually run a little behind a live broadcast. If a friend texts you about a home run before your strip shows it, that's normal.

How GridTicker helps with this

GridTicker is a ticker made for this setup. It runs in "Any modern browser, on Windows, macOS, Linux or a Raspberry Pi," and "There is nothing to install." It runs full screen or in a window, and "It fits the space it is given - a bar across the top of a monitor, or a whole screen of its own."

These are the controls that matter at a desk, all described in the guide:

• Fit text to the screen sizes the text to the window's height, so a thin strip across a monitor still gets text it can hold.
• Pause on hover stops the strip while the mouse is over it, "so you can read a score without chasing it."
• Stack tickers in rows gives each ticker its own row, so scores, stocks and headlines don't share one strip. Each ticker also has its own speed, in pixels a second.
• Score celebrations turns the big moments on or off. If you turn them off, scores show up without a two-minute graphic at your elbow.
• Live, Upcoming and Final decide which games appear, and Upcoming reaches can be set to today only. Favorites only shows only the teams you've starred, league by league. Favorites first puts them ahead of the rest.
• When each ticker appears sets hours for each ticker on each screen, such as "stocks while the market is open, scores in the evening." A ticker with no windows shows at all times.
• The Single line layout puts the whole game on one line, like the original broadcast crawl. That suits a very thin strip.

A live game shows a red dot with the inning, or the clock and the period, beside it. In football, the down and distance turn red when a team is inside its opponent's 20, so you can see the moment worth stopping for without reading a play-by-play. Your settings follow your account, so the ticker looks the same at the office and on the spare screen at home.

For more on following many games at once, see Livescore Ticker: Every Game You Follow on One Screen. If you want the classic broadcast look, see An ESPN BottomLine Ticker for Any Device, in Your Browser.

To put your own scores on your second monitor, set up a strip at https://app.gridticker.com/signup.