I shoot a lot of sports and in most cases, available light is a critical limiting factor. So typically your lens needs to be wide open (lowest aperture number) to let in as much light as possible. 1/500 is about as slow as you can go for most sports and that is sub-optimal. I like to stay at 1/800 minimum and I always go higher where light level permits.
With those criteria in mind, I shoot in manual mode with aperture wide open, shutter speed of at least 1/500, and ISO set to auto and the file type set to RAW. My rationale is low light forces you to typically use your lens at its widest setting and if shutter speed is too low then you will get motion blur. Noise from increased ISO can be somewhat reduced in post but motion blur in the image will stay with the image through processing.
If available light forces you below 1/500 with the lens you are using in order to keep ISO reasonable, then you will have to slow the shutter speed and concentrate on catching slower action.
Location is critical and if you are forced to a higher ISO and also have to crop excessively, then the images will be poor. Shoot in RAW because this gives you the best ability to recover from poor shooting conditions and allows white balance to be properly addressed in post.
Focus should be set to servo AF. I have never used your camera model but if available, the center point with expansion is likely to be the best AF array setup to use.
Rodger
EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video
