NCAA API - College Sports Data

The most comprehensive NCAA data actor on Apify. 8 sports, 25+ tasks, betting odds with arbitrage detection, live score polling, recruiting rankings, bracket projections, and CSV export. Powered by ESPN + The Odds API.

Sports Covered

Basketball, Football, Baseball, Hockey, Lacrosse, Volleyball, Softball, Soccer — men's and women's.

All Tasks

Core Data (all sports)

Task Pattern	Example	What It Returns
{sport}_teams	basketball_teams	All teams with IDs, conference, logo
{sport}_scores	football_scores	Live and final scores
{sport}_standings	baseball_standings	Conference standings
{sport}_rankings	basketball_rankings	AP/Coaches Poll rankings
{sport}_schedule	football_schedule	Game schedules with TV info

Team & Player

Task	Requires
team_roster	teamId
player_stats	playerId
injury_report	—
conference_teams	conference
team_schedule	teamId
head_to_head	teamId + teamId2

Betting & Arbitrage

Task	Requires
betting_odds	oddsApiKey
betting_odds_history	oddsApiKey + oddsGameId
arbitrage_finder	oddsApiKey

Live & Alerts

Task	Requires
live_scores	webhookUrl
alerts	webhookUrl (+ oddsApiKey for odds alerts)

Recruiting & Brackets

Task
recruiting_rankings
bracket_projections

Pricing

You pay Apify's actor start fee per run (see the Pricing tab), plus these per-task events:

Event	When it is charged	Price
Actor start	Once when the run starts, one event per GB of memory (minimum one). At the default 1 GB of memory that is $0.10 per run	$0.10 per GB
NCAA Basketball Teams	Fetch Division I basketball teams	$0.001
NCAA Basketball Rankings	Get AP Top 25 and other polls	$0.002
NCAA Basketball Schedule	Fetch games for a specific date	$0.002
NCAA Basketball Standings	Get conference standings	$0.002
NCAA Football Teams	Fetch FBS football teams	$0.001
NCAA Football Rankings	Get CFP rankings and polls	$0.002
NCAA Football Schedule	Fetch games by week	$0.002
NCAA Football Standings	Get conference standings	$0.002
NCAA Team Roster	Get roster for a specific team	$0.002
NCAA Player Stats	Fetch player statistics	$0.002
Result	Each item written to the default dataset	$0.00001

All other tasks have no per-task charge. Each dataset row costs $0.00001. Demo mode is free.

Seasons

Leave season empty to get the current season (recommended). ESPN numbers basketball and other winter sports by the year the season ends: 2027 = 2026-27, 2026 = 2025-26. Football uses the year it is played: 2026 = the 2026 season. Roster rows include a seasonLabel field (for example 2026-27) so you can confirm which season you got.

Output layout

By default every record is its own dataset row (one row per player, team or game), so table, CSV and Excel exports show everything. Each row repeats the request context (task, sport, teamId, season). Set datasetLayout to single_item for the older shape: one row per task with all records nested in data.

Examples

Get Basketball Rankings

{ "task": "basketball_rankings", "demoMode": false }

Multi-Task Batch (one run, multiple results)

{ "tasks": ["basketball_rankings", "basketball_scores", "football_standings"], "demoMode": false }

Get All SEC Football Teams

{ "task": "conference_teams", "sport": "football", "conference": "SEC", "demoMode": false }

Head-to-Head: Duke vs UNC

{ "task": "head_to_head", "sport": "basketball", "teamId": "150", "teamId2": "153", "demoMode": false }

Returns series record, win counts, and all games between the two teams this season.

Baseball Scores

{ "task": "baseball_scores", "demoMode": false }

Women's Volleyball Teams

{ "task": "volleyball_teams", "gender": "womens", "demoMode": false }

Betting Odds with Best Lines

{ "task": "betting_odds", "sport": "basketball", "oddsApiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "demoMode": false }

Every game includes bestLines — the best spread, moneyline, and total across DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, etc.

Filter Odds by Team

{ "task": "betting_odds", "oddsApiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "oddsTeamFilter": "Duke", "demoMode": false }

Arbitrage Finder

{ "task": "arbitrage_finder", "sport": "basketball", "oddsApiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "demoMode": false }

Scans all games across all bookmakers. Returns profitable arb opportunities sorted by profit %, with exact stake percentages:

{
  "type": "moneyline",
  "game": "Duke vs Houston",
  "profitPercent": 1.23,
  "legs": [
    { "team": "Duke", "odds": -145, "bookmaker": "FanDuel", "stakePercent": 52.3 },
    { "team": "Houston", "odds": 155, "bookmaker": "DraftKings", "stakePercent": 47.7 }
  ]
}

Checks moneylines, spreads, AND totals for arb opportunities.

Live Score Polling

{
  "task": "live_scores", "sport": "basketball",
  "webhookUrl": "https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/123/abc/",
  "livePollingSeconds": 30, "liveMaxDuration": 600,
  "demoMode": false
}

Alerts: Odds Movement

{
  "task": "alerts", "sport": "basketball",
  "oddsApiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
  "webhookUrl": "https://your-webhook.com/alerts",
  "alertType": "odds_movement", "alertThreshold": 2,
  "alertPollingSeconds": 60, "alertMaxDuration": 600,
  "demoMode": false
}

Monitors spread changes. When a spread moves 2+ points, pushes alert to your webhook.

Alerts: Upset Detection

{
  "task": "alerts", "sport": "basketball",
  "webhookUrl": "https://your-webhook.com/alerts",
  "alertType": "upset",
  "demoMode": false
}

Recruiting Rankings

Best results with a Firecrawl key (scrapes 247Sports for detailed data):

{ "task": "recruiting_rankings", "sport": "football", "season": 2026, "firecrawlApiKey": "fc-YOUR_KEY", "demoMode": false }

Without Firecrawl, falls back to ESPN's talent composite (less detailed):

{ "task": "recruiting_rankings", "sport": "football", "season": 2026, "demoMode": false }

Bracket Projections

{ "task": "bracket_projections", "sport": "basketball", "demoMode": false }

Returns NET rankings (bracket indicator) during March Madness, CFP rankings during football season.

CSV Export

{ "task": "basketball_rankings", "outputFormat": "csv", "demoMode": false }

CSV files are saved to the actor's Key-Value Store as {task}.csv. JSON results are always in the dataset.

Performance & Reliability

• 15-min cache on ESPN responses via Apify KV Store. Identical requests within 15 min hit cache instantly. Betting odds and live scores always fetch fresh data.
• Rate limiting — 200ms delay between ESPN API calls when running batched tasks. This keeps us under ESPN's rate limits and prevents your runs from getting throttled. You'll see "Rate limiting: 200ms between tasks" in the logs.
• Batching — run multiple tasks in one actor call to save on Apify platform startup costs.
• CSV export — set outputFormat: "csv" and CSV files are saved to the Key-Value Store alongside JSON.
• Conference fallback — ESPN's API doesn't always return conference data. We hardcode D1 basketball and football conference-to-team mappings as a fallback so conference filtering works reliably.

Data Sources

Source	Used For	Auth	Notes
ESPN (site.api.espn.com)	All sports data	None needed	Public API, no key required
The Odds API (api.the-odds-api.com)	Betting odds, arbitrage	Free key (500 req/month)	Used by betting_odds, betting_odds_history, arbitrage_finder
247Sports (via Firecrawl)	Recruiting rankings	Optional Firecrawl key	Used by recruiting_rankings for detailed team recruiting class data. Without it, falls back to ESPN (less detailed). Free key at firecrawl.dev.

FAQ

Why does team_roster show last season's players? It no longer does: with season empty you get ESPN's current roster. If you set season, remember basketball uses the year the season ends (2027 for 2026-27).

Why does soccer_teams / lacrosse_teams / softball_teams return 0? ESPN's team listing API doesn't serve data for these three sports. However, *_scores tasks for these sports DO work during their active seasons (ESPN has scoreboard data even without team listings). Full team listing support for these sports is on our roadmap — we plan to build it by extracting team data from scoreboards and caching it.

How do I use conference filters? Both abbreviations and full names work: "ACC", "SEC", "Big Ten", "Mountain West", "Atlantic Coast Conference" — all valid. We map 35+ conference abbreviations to full names automatically.

How do bracket projections work? Best with a firecrawlApiKey — we scrape ESPN's Bracketology page for real seed projections during March Madness, and CFP rankings during football season. Without Firecrawl, we fall back to ESPN's rankings API (AP/Coaches polls only, no bracket-specific data).

How do recruiting rankings work? Best with a firecrawlApiKey — we scrape 247Sports for composite team recruiting class data (commits, points, 5-stars). Without Firecrawl, we fall back to ESPN which has limited recruiting data.

Roadmap

• Soccer, lacrosse, softball team listings — extract from scoreboard data during active seasons
• Transfer portal data — player transfer tracker
• Historical game results — multi-season archives

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Built by John Rippy | Actor Arsenal