Apple Sports - Live Activities Not Starting Automatically

The issue that I experience is that for the Apple Sports app, what’s supposed to happen is my "favorite teams" should automatically pop up via Live Activity when the game starts; however, no matter what I do, be it uninstall the app, reinstall the app, unfollow and re-follow teams, etc., nothing seems to solve the problem.

The clock widget even shows that I'm "following" the event before the start of the game for my Favorite Teams. What's even stranger is when I select (click the clock in the right-hand corner) any other team before the game starts, they do automatically show up when the game starts, so there seems to be an issue specifically with the teams I follow as part of the app.

Does anyone else experienced this? I see there have been other posts but looks like they "died on the vine" months ago.

Thanks!