TheSportsDB Multi-Sport API Wrapper

Fetch leagues, teams, players, and match events from TheSportsDB — the free multi-sport metadata API covering soccer, basketball, baseball, American football, ice hockey, and dozens more sports worldwide.

What You Get

Each run returns one of five data types:

Data Type	Description	Sample Fields
leagues	All leagues worldwide	league_id, league_name, sport
teams	All teams in a named league	team_id, team_name, team_stadium, team_country
players	Player search by name	player_id, player_name, player_position, player_nationality
events	Past match results for a league	event_id, event_name, home_team, away_team, home_score, away_score, season
seasons	Seasons available for a league	season, league_id, league_name

All records include a record_type field, plus sport and league context where available.

Input

Field	Required	Default	Description
apiKey	No	3	TheSportsDB API key. The free key 3 works for testing (~30 req/min). Get a Patreon key at https://www.patreon.com/thesportsdb for higher limits.
dataType	Yes	leagues	Which data to fetch: leagues, teams, players, events, or seasons.
leagueName	Conditional	—	Required when dataType is teams, events, or seasons. Example: English Premier League.
playerSearch	Conditional	—	Required when dataType is players. Example: Ronaldo.
maxItems	No	100	Maximum records to return. Set to 0 for no limit.

Examples

Fetch all leagues

{
  "apiKey": "3",
  "dataType": "leagues",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Sample output:

{
  "record_type": "league",
  "league_id": "4328",
  "league_name": "English Premier League",
  "sport": "Soccer"
}

Fetch teams in the NBA

{
  "apiKey": "3",
  "dataType": "teams",
  "leagueName": "NBA",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Search players

{
  "apiKey": "3",
  "dataType": "players",
  "playerSearch": "Ronaldo",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Sample output:

{
  "record_type": "player",
  "player_id": "34145937",
  "player_name": "Cristiano Ronaldo",
  "player_team": "Al-Nassr",
  "sport": "Soccer",
  "player_nationality": "Portugal",
  "player_position": "Forward"
}

Fetch past match results

{
  "apiKey": "3",
  "dataType": "events",
  "leagueName": "English Premier League",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Sample output:

{
  "record_type": "event",
  "event_id": "1116564",
  "event_name": "Arsenal vs Chelsea",
  "event_date": "2024-04-23",
  "sport": "Soccer",
  "league_name": "English Premier League",
  "home_team": "Arsenal",
  "away_team": "Chelsea",
  "home_score": "5",
  "away_score": "0",
  "season": "2023-2024"
}

API Key

The free demo key 3 is rate-limited to approximately 30 requests per minute and is suitable for small-volume lookups. For higher throughput or access to premium V2 endpoints, obtain a Patreon key from https://www.patreon.com/thesportsdb.

Notes

• This actor uses the TheSportsDB v1 API, which is publicly available with the free key.
• All data is fetched in a single API call per run — no pagination required.
• The free key returns up to 10 results per endpoint. A Patreon key returns full datasets.
• Results are schema-normalised with consistent field names across all data types.

Output

Results are saved to the Apify dataset. Each item has a record_type field (league, team, player, event, or season) plus the relevant metadata fields. Null/missing fields are omitted from the output.