Academy Sports Scraper

Scrape Academy Sports + Outdoors — one of the largest US sporting goods retailers (950,000+ products). Search by keyword, browse curated categories (fishing, hunting, footwear, clothing, camping, fitness, team sports, fan shop…), or fetch product pages by URL. Get product names, brands, prices, was-prices, ratings, review counts, long descriptions, specs, images, availability and item numbers. Pure JSON API — no login, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: search, browseByCategory, byUrl
• Full product detail: name, brand, price, was-price, rating, review count, long description, specs, feature benefits, what's-in-the-box
• Rich filters: brands, price range, minimum rating, keyword, deal type (clearance, hot deal, price drop…), six sort orders
• Curated dropdowns: 50 category paths and 60 top brands
• Clearance & deals: filter by Clearance, Hot Deal, Online Only, New, Price Drop, Everyday Value, Ships to Store
• Availability: online stock, buy-online-pick-up-in-store, ship-to-store, same-day delivery flags
• Empty fields are omitted

Output per product

• productId, partNumber, catentryId, uniqueId, upc — Academy item numbers
• name, brand, shortDescription, description
• price, wasPrice, priceMax — was-price appears only when a real discount exists
• rating, reviewCount, orderCount
• specifications (size, capacity, color, material…), featureBenefits[], whatsInTheBox[]
• imageUrls[] — scene7 CDN images (main + per-color)
• availability (In Stock / Out of stock), sellable, buyOnlinePickUpInStore, shipToStore, sameDayDelivery, whiteGloveDelivery
• categoryPath, categories[]
• deals[], clearance, customBadges[]
• sourceUrl, recordType: "product", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / browseByCategory / byUrl
searchQuery	string	nike running shoes	Free-text query (mode=search)
categoryPath	string	outdoors > fishing	Curated category (mode=browseByCategory)
urls	array	–	Product page URLs (mode=byUrl)
brand	array	–	Keep only these brands
dealType	string	–	Clearance / Hot Deal / Online Only / New / Price Drop / Everyday Value / Ships to Store
minPrice	number	–	Minimum starting price in USD
maxPrice	number	–	Maximum price in USD
minRating	number	–	Minimum review rating (1–5)
containsKeyword	string	–	Keep products whose name/description contains this text
sortBy	string	relevance	relevance / priceAsc / priceDesc / topRated / topSeller / newArrival
maxItems	int	50	Hard cap (1–1000)

Example: search with filters

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "fishing rod",
  "brand": ["Penn", "Shakespeare"],
  "minPrice": 30,
  "maxPrice": 200,
  "minRating": 4,
  "sortBy": "topRated",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: browse a category

{
  "mode": "browseByCategory",
  "categoryPath": "outdoors > fishing",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: clearance products

{
  "mode": "browseByCategory",
  "categoryPath": "mens > mens-apparel",
  "dealType": "Clearance",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: fetch specific product pages

{
  "mode": "byUrl",
  "urls": [
    "https://www.academy.com/p/yeti-roadie-8-hard-cooler",
    "https://www.academy.com/p/nike-mens-revolution-7-road-running-shoes"
  ]
}

Data source and limitations

• Data source: Academy's public product search index (Algolia) — the same service that powers the site's own search (www.academy.com). No login, cookies or proxy required.
• Currency & market: all prices are in USD from the US site. Academy operates in the US only.
• Category paths: categoryPath values are curated against Academy's live category facet. Deeper sub-categories exist on the site but are only exposed if you use a deeper curated path.
• Search + category: categoryPath applies in browseByCategory mode only; in search mode the keyword drives the results (combining both would empty the result set).
• Anti-bot: the search API is Algolia's public endpoint and tolerates high query volume. The site's own pages sit behind a PerimeterX challenge for datacenter IPs; this actor reads the JSON index directly and never depends on those challenge-gated pages.
• Not affiliated: this actor is a third-party tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Academy Sports + Outdoors.

Use cases

• Price monitoring — track price, was-price and clearance movements across 950k products
• Outdoor & sporting goods research — ratings, review counts and specs at scale
• Competitor assortment analysis — compare Academy's fishing, hunting, footwear and fan-shop ranges
• Deal & clearance tracking — monitor Hot Deal, Price Drop and Clearance tagging
• Product feed building — rich retail feeds for analytics and enrichment

FAQ

What is the data source? Academy's public product search index (Algolia, the same service that powers the site's own search). No login, cookies or proxy required. This is a third-party tool and is not affiliated with Academy Sports + Outdoors.

What currency and market are supported? USD and the US site (www.academy.com). Academy operates in the US only.

What does wasPrice mean? The regular (pre-discount) price. It appears only when it genuinely differs from the current price — i.e. a real discount. price is always what you would pay now.

What is priceMax? Products sold in multiple sizes/configurations carry a price range; priceMax is the top of the range when it differs from the starting price.

How fresh is the data? The product index is re-built daily by Academy; prices, deals and availability update continuously.

Why are some fields missing on some products? Products without ratings, specs or deals simply omit those fields — no placeholder values are emitted.

Are there rate limits? The Algolia search service is designed for high query volume. The actor uses polite paging with small delays and retries on throttling or server errors.

What is buyOnlinePickUpInStore? Academy's BOPIS flag — whether the product can be bought online and picked up at a local store. shipToStore and sameDayDelivery are related fulfilment flags.