ESPN Scraper & API: Scores, Box Scores, Standings, Schedules

ESPN Sports Data: Scores, Box Scores, Standings & Schedules API

ESPN scores, results, schedules, box scores, standings and news for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, WNBA, college football and basketball, MLS, the Premier League and other soccer leagues, as JSON from ESPN's public endpoints. $0.001 per game, $0.003 with a box score, $0.0005 per standings row or headline, plus $0.0001 per run.

One Actor has five modes: a scoreboard by date, box scores for given games, standings, team schedules and news. A monitor mode returns only games that have finished since the last run, so an hourly schedule becomes a results feed. It reads the same JSON espn.com loads: no browser, no proxy, no HTML parsing.

What you get

Every record has a type: game, standing or article. The dataset has Games, Standings and News views.

Game

{
  "type": "game",
  "league": "nfl",
  "leagueName": "NFL",
  "sport": "football",
  "gameId": "401873037",
  "name": "Jacksonville Jaguars at Baltimore Ravens",
  "shortName": "JAX @ BAL",
  "startTime": "2026-11-06T01:15Z",
  "seasonYear": 2026,
  "seasonType": "regular-season",
  "week": 9,
  "status": { "state": "post", "completed": true, "description": "Final", "detail": "Final", "period": 4, "clock": "0:00" },
  "venue": { "name": "M&T Bank Stadium", "city": "Baltimore", "state": "MD", "country": "USA" },
  "attendance": 70007,
  "neutralSite": false,
  "broadcasts": ["Prime Video"],
  "home": { "id": "33", "name": "Baltimore Ravens", "shortName": "Ravens", "abbreviation": "BAL", "score": 10, "winner": false, "record": "4-5", "linescores": [3, 0, 0, 7], "logo": "https://a.espncdn.com/i/teamlogos/nfl/500/scoreboard/bal.png" },
  "away": { "id": "30", "name": "Jacksonville Jaguars", "abbreviation": "JAX", "score": 24, "winner": true, "record": "6-3", "linescores": [7, 10, 0, 7] },
  "result": "away",
  "gameUrl": "https://www.espn.com/nfl/game/_/gameId/401873037/jaguars-ravens"
}

With Add box scores (includeDetails), or in gameDetails mode, each played game also has a details object:

• teamStats: per team, every stat ESPN shows, as displayed (for example "1st Downs", "Total Yards", "FG", "Rebounds", "Corner Kicks").
• playerStats: one line per player per category, with labelled stats ({"MIN": "21", "PTS": "2", "REB": "4", "AST": "8"}), and whether the player started.
• scoringPlays: period, clock, team, play type, description and running score, for sports where ESPN lists scoring plays (American football, for example).
• keyEvents and lineups (soccer): goals, cards, penalties and substitutions with the minute; starters, substitutes, positions, shirt numbers and formation.
• leaders: the top performer per stat category, where ESPN publishes them.

Standing

One row per team per conference, division or table:

{
  "type": "standing",
  "league": "premier-league",
  "leagueName": "English Premier League",
  "sport": "soccer",
  "season": "2026-27 English Premier League",
  "group": "2026-27 English Premier League",
  "position": 1,
  "teamId": "359",
  "team": "Arsenal",
  "abbreviation": "ARS",
  "wins": 8,
  "losses": 1,
  "ties": 0,
  "gamesPlayed": 9,
  "points": 24,
  "winPercent": null,
  "gamesBehind": null,
  "streak": null,
  "record": "8-0-1",
  "note": "Champions League",
  "stats": { "gamesPlayed": "9", "wins": "8", "ties": "0", "losses": "1", "points": "24", "pointsFor": "14", "pointsAgainst": "5", "pointDifferential": "+9", "rank": "1", "overall": "8-0-1" },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-11-07T00:00:00.000Z"
}

stats carries every statistic ESPN publishes for the row under its ESPN name, so the columns differ by sport: the NBA rows have winPercent, gamesBehind and streak; soccer rows have points, ties (draws), goals for and against (pointsFor, pointsAgainst) and a qualification note.

Article

A news headline: articleId, articleType, headline, description, byline, published, lastModified, url, imageUrl, premium, and the teams and athletes the story is tagged with. The article body is not included.

The run's key-value store also gets an OUTPUT record: records per league and per event, any problems, the number of requests made and why the run stopped.

Quick start

The form opens on the scoreboard for the NBA, NFL and MLB, so at least one league is in season all year. Press Start and you get yesterday's and today's games in those leagues, typically 15 to 40 records for 2 to 4 cents:

{
  "mode": "scoreboard",
  "leagues": ["nba", "nfl", "mlb"]
}

More examples:

{ "mode": "scoreboard", "leagues": ["premier-league"], "dateFrom": "2026-11-07", "dateTo": "2026-11-09", "includeDetails": true }

{ "mode": "standings", "leagues": ["nba", "premier-league"] }

{ "mode": "teamSchedules", "leagues": ["nba"], "teams": ["LAL", "Boston Celtics"] }

{ "mode": "gameDetails", "gameIds": ["https://www.espn.com/nba/game/_/gameId/401909092/warriors-lakers", "401873037"], "leagues": ["nfl"] }

{ "mode": "news", "leagues": ["nfl"], "newsLimit": 20 }

A results feed (schedule it hourly):

{ "mode": "scoreboard", "leagues": ["nfl", "nba", "nhl"], "daysBack": 1, "monitorMode": true }

Modes

Mode	Returns	Charged as
scoreboard	Games for a date range: teams, scores, period scores, status, venue, attendance, TV	game, or game-details with box scores
gameDetails	The full box score for given game ids or ESPN game URLs	game-details
standings	One row per team per conference, division or table	standing-row
teamSchedules	Every game of the given teams in a season	game, or game-details with box scores
news	The latest headlines per league	article

What each sport returns

American football: NFL and college football

Scoreboard games carry the week number, season type (preseason, regular season, postseason), quarter-by-quarter linescores, team records, venue, attendance and broadcasters. Box scores add team stats (first downs, third-down efficiency, total plays and yards, and the rest of ESPN's list), player lines by category (passing, rushing and the other categories ESPN lists, with stats such as C/ATT, YDS, TD, INT), every scoring play with its type and the running score, and stat leaders. The college football scoreboard covers all FBS games, not only ranked teams.

Basketball: NBA, WNBA and college basketball

Games with quarter (or half) scores, records and broadcasters. Box scores add team totals (field goals, three-pointers, free throws, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks) and a stat line for every player with a starter flag: minutes, points, shooting, rebounds, assists, turnovers, steals, blocks, fouls and plus/minus. Players who did not play are flagged with didNotPlay; the reason is never copied. Standings come by conference with wins, losses, win percentage, games behind and streak. College scoreboards cover all Division I games.

Baseball: MLB

Games with linescores per inning as ESPN reports them, team records, venue and broadcasters. Box scores use the same structure as the other sports: team stats and player lines grouped by ESPN's categories, under the stat names ESPN shows. Standings come grouped as ESPN groups them.

Ice hockey: NHL

Games with period linescores and team records. Box scores use the same structure: team stats, player lines grouped by ESPN's categories and, where ESPN lists them, scoring plays. Standings rows carry points alongside wins and losses. Other hockey leagues ESPN covers work through customLeagues, for example hockey/mens-college-hockey.

Soccer: Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, MLS, Champions League and more

Matches with scores, status, venue and attendance. With box scores you also get lineups (starters and substitutes with position, shirt number, formation and substitution flags) and keyEvents (goals, cards, penalties and substitutions with the minute and ESPN's description), plus team stats such as fouls, cards, offsides, corner kicks and saves. Soccer box scores have no per-player stat lines. Tables have position, played, wins, draws (ties), losses, points and ESPN's qualification note ("Champions League", "Relegation").

Built in: MLS, English Premier League, English Championship, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Eredivisie, Scottish Premiership, Liga MX, UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. Any other competition ESPN covers works through customLeagues as soccer/<code>, for example soccer/por.1 (Portugal), soccer/bra.1 (Brazil) or soccer/arg.1 (Argentina).

Input reference

Field	Type	Default	What it does
mode	string	scoreboard	scoreboard, gameDetails, standings, teamSchedules or news.
leagues	string[]	nba when no league is given	nfl, college-football, nba, wnba, mens-college-basketball, womens-college-basketball, mlb, nhl, mls, premier-league, championship, la-liga, bundesliga, serie-a, ligue-1, eredivisie, scottish-premiership, liga-mx, champions-league, europa-league.
customLeagues	string[]		Any other ESPN league as sport/league: soccer/por.1, hockey/mens-college-hockey.
daysBack	integer	1	Scoreboard: days before today (UTC) to include, 0 to 62. Ignored when dateFrom is set.
daysAhead	integer	0	Scoreboard: days after today, for upcoming fixtures. Ignored when dateTo is set.
dateFrom / dateTo	string		Scoreboard: an explicit range (2026-11-01). At most 62 days per run.
statusFilter	string	all	all, finished, live or scheduled.
includeDetails	boolean	false	Scoreboard and team schedules: add each played game's box score. Scheduled games come without details.
gameIds	string[]		Game details mode: ESPN game ids or game URLs. For a bare id, the first league in leagues is used.
teams	string[]		Team schedules mode: abbreviations, names or ESPN ids (LAL, Arsenal, 13).
season	integer	current	Team schedules and standings: the season year as ESPN numbers it (2027 for the 2026-27 NBA season).
newsLimit	integer	25	News mode: headlines per league (1 to 100).
monitorMode	boolean	false	Scoreboard and team schedules: return only finished games not returned before.
monitorStoreName	string	espn-sports-monitor	The key-value store that remembers returned games. Use one name per feed.
maxResults	integer	1000	Stop after this many records.

Use cases

• Results feeds. An hourly run in monitor mode delivers every game once, as soon as it finishes.
• Analytics and models. Box scores with team stats and every player's stat line, in one consistent structure across sports.
• Fantasy and pick'em tools. Player lines, schedules and standings without maintaining a scraper per league.
• Fixtures and TV listings. Upcoming games with venue and broadcaster, for apps, newsletters and bots.
• League tables. Standings for dashboards and widgets.
• Team trackers. Every game of a team this season or any past season.
• AI agents. "What were last night's NBA scores?" or "show the Premier League table" answered from live data.

Monitor mode

Turn on monitorMode and schedule the Actor. Each run returns only finished games it has not returned before (per league), so an hourly schedule gives you a results feed with no duplicates. A game cut off by your spending limit is delivered on the next run. Use different monitorStoreName values for separate feeds.

Pricing

Pay per result. No subscription.

Event	Price	Per 1,000
Game (scoreboard or schedule)	$0.001	$1.00
Game with box score	$0.003	$3.00
Standings row	$0.0005	$0.50
News headline	$0.0005	$0.50
Run start	$0.0001

Run	Records	Cost
An NBA night, about 10 games	10 games	about $0.01
The same night with box scores	10 games with details	about $0.03
NBA and Premier League standings	50 rows	$0.025
A team's 82-game NBA schedule	82 games	$0.08
An hourly three-league results monitor, about 25 finished games a day	24 runs, 25 games	$0.0024 + $0.025 = about $0.03 a day

To cap spending, set maxResults or a maximum cost per run in the run options (maxTotalChargeUsd in the API). The Actor stops cleanly at the limit.

Use it from the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/localwire~espn-sports/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "scoreboard", "leagues": ["nba"], "daysBack": 0}'

With the official clients:

import { ApifyClient } from "apify-client";

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor("localwire/espn-sports").call({ mode: "standings", leagues: ["premier-league"] });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("localwire/espn-sports").call(run_input={"mode": "scoreboard", "leagues": ["nfl"], "daysBack": 7})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Use it from an AI agent (MCP)

Apify hosts an MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com. Add it to an MCP client (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and others) and sign in with your Apify account, or send your API token as an Authorization: Bearer header. To expose just this Actor as a tool:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=localwire/espn-sports

Then ask "what were last night's NBA scores?" or "show the Premier League table". Notes for agents: with no input the Actor returns yesterday's and today's NBA games; always pass leagues. gameDetails needs gameIds and teamSchedules needs teams. Box scores are large, so ask for them only for the games you need.

Integrations

Apify connects runs to Make, n8n, Zapier, LangChain, webhooks and other tools, and datasets export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or RSS. Typical setups: a monitor-mode run that posts final scores to Slack or Discord through a webhook; nightly box scores into a database; standings into Google Sheets.

FAQ

Does ESPN have a public API?

ESPN has no official, documented public API. Its website and apps load data from public JSON endpoints that need no login, and this Actor reads those and returns one stable schema. Because the endpoints are undocumented, ESPN can change them.

How do I get NFL or NBA box scores as JSON?

Run scoreboard mode with includeDetails: true for a date range, or gameDetails mode with the game ids or ESPN game URLs. Each game's details has team stats, player lines, scoring plays and leaders.

How do I get live scores?

Run scoreboard mode with daysBack: 0 and, if you only want games in progress, statusFilter: "live". Each run is a snapshot at the moment it runs; schedule it as often as you need. This is not a streaming feed.

Where do I find an ESPN game id?

It is the number in the game's URL: https://www.espn.com/nba/game/_/gameId/401909092/warriors-lakers has id 401909092. You can paste the whole URL into gameIds. Every scoreboard record also has gameId.

Which leagues are supported?

The 20 listed under leagues are built in. Any other league on ESPN works as sport/league in customLeagues, using the path ESPN's own data URLs use.

Can I get historical seasons?

Scoreboards accept any past dates, up to 62 days per run; split longer ranges across runs. teamSchedules and standings accept a season year.

Does it include betting odds or injury reports?

No. Odds, lines, win probabilities, injury reports and the reasons players sat out are left out on purpose.

How do I export scores to CSV, Excel or Google Sheets?

Open the run's dataset and choose CSV or Excel, or request https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?format=csv&view=games. For Google Sheets use Apify's integration or a Make or Zapier scenario.

How much does a full season cost?

An NBA regular season is 1,230 games: about $1.23 for scores, or $3.69 with box scores. An NFL regular season is 272 games: about $0.27, or $0.82 with box scores.

Limitations

• Unofficial source. ESPN's public site endpoints are not a documented API and can change.
• Blocks are not worked around. If ESPN refuses a request (an access-denied page, or rate limiting that persists after one wait), the run stops with a clear message and keeps what it already has.
• Not included, on purpose: betting odds and lines, win probabilities, injury reports and the reasons players sat out, and full article text.
• No play-by-play. Box scores carry scoring plays and, for soccer, key events; the full play-by-play log is not returned.
• Snapshots, not streams. A run reports the state at the time it runs.
• Dates are ESPN's game days. At most 62 days per run.
• Stat names are ESPN's own and differ by sport; they are returned as displayed (strings).
• Custom leagues depend on what ESPN publishes for them: some have no standings or no box scores.

Disclaimer

This Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by ESPN or The Walt Disney Company. ESPN is a trademark of ESPN, Inc. Scores and statistics are facts; check ESPN's terms of use for how you may reuse the data, especially commercially.

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