ESPN MMA UFC Scraper

ESPN MMA UFC Scraper

Scrape MMA events, fight news, and scoreboards from ESPN, up to a million items per run. Each result comes with structured fight data, athlete details, and match outcomes. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

ESPN's MMA section publishes fight cards, results, breaking news, and scoreboards daily, but pulling that data into a spreadsheet or app by hand is slow and brittle. This Actor reads the public ESPN MMA UFC endpoints directly, returning every event, news article, or team listing you request in a flat, predictable schema. Set a date filter for a specific fight night or let it fetch the latest scoreboard with no date at all.

Who uses it	What they scrape ESPN for
Sports bettors and odds analysts	Monitor fight scoreboards and results as soon as they post on ESPN.
MMA journalists and content creators	Pull the latest UFC news articles and event recaps for story research.
Data engineers building fight databases	Ingest structured fight cards and athlete data into a central warehouse.

What it does

This Actor collects MMA events, teams, or news from ESPN's UFC endpoints and returns each item as a consistent, flat row.

• 📊 Scoreboard scraping: Pull current or historical fight cards with athlete matchups and outcomes by date.
• 📰 News extraction: Grab MMA news headlines, summaries, and links as they appear in the ESPN feed.
• 👥 Team listings: Retrieve the full ESPN UFC team/athlete roster in one run.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with ESPN data

📈 Track fight results for betting models.

A sports quant runs the Actor on each fight-night date to capture scoreboard data, feeding outcomes and athlete performance into a predictive model.

📰 Monitor UFC news for editorial calendars.

An MMA blogger schedules a daily news scrape to collect the latest ESPN headlines and plan the week's content around breaking stories.

🗄️ Build a historical fight database.

A data engineer loops over past event dates with the scoreboard endpoint to backfill a complete archive of UFC fight cards and results.

👥 Audit the UFC athlete roster for research.

A fantasy-sports platform scrapes the teams endpoint weekly to keep its fighter list current with new signings and weight-class changes.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Direct endpoint access	Reads the same public ESPN MMA UFC endpoints that power the live site, no browser overhead.
Predictable flat schema	Every fight, news article, or team record arrives with a fixed structure for easy analysis.
Date-targeted scoreboards	Feed it a YYYYMMDD date to grab a specific fight night or skip the filter for today's card.
High-volume runs	Scale up to one million items per run on a paid plan, ideal for full-season archives.

How it compares

This Actor is built for direct ESPN MMA endpoint scraping with date-targeted scoreboard runs and a flat output schema, competing alongside general ESPN sports scrapers and the dedicated UFC Stats Scraper.

Feature	ParseForge	ESPN Sports Scraper - Scores, Odds, Stats & Standings	UFC Stats Scraper
MMA-specific endpoints	Yes (scoreboard, teams, news)	Yes	Yes
Date filter for specific fight-night scoreboards	Yes (YYYYMMDD format)	Not listed	Not listed
Separate news-articles endpoint	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Teams/roster endpoint	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Fighter rankings per weight class	Not included in endpoints	Not listed	Yes
Runs without a browser	Yes	Yes	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from ESPN endpoints for scoreboard, teams, or news, apply an optional date filter for scoreboards, and set a maximum item cap. Filters run as each record is read, so only the matches you want land in your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "endpoint": "scoreboard",
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "endpoint": "scoreboard",
 "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.85
1,000 results	$8.50
10,000 results	$85.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the ESPN MMA UFC Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to ESPN through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/espn-mma-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check the date you entered in the Date Filter. If you are using an exact YYYYMMDD and no fights occurred that day, ESPN returns an empty scoreboard. Try removing the date to see today's data, or verify the date format.

Why does the run stop at 10 items?

Free Apify accounts are limited to a 10-item preview. To fetch more records, upgrade your Apify plan and increase the Maximum MMA events field beyond 10.

The scoreboard data looks incomplete.

ESPN updates scoreboards in near real-time. If a fight ended, some fields may still be populating. Re-run the Actor a few minutes later to capture the full result.

I keep seeing an error when I enter a date.

Make sure the date is strictly in the YYYYMMDD format, with no hyphens or slashes. For example, use '20240309' for March 9, 2024.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What data can I scrape from ESPN MMA with this Actor?	You can scrape MMA scoreboards with fighter matchups and results, the latest UFC news articles, and the full team or athlete listing. Each endpoint returns structured data.
Does the Actor require an ESPN API key?	No. It reads the public endpoints ESPN uses to power its own UFC and MMA pages, so you do not need an API key, OAuth, or an ESPN developer account.
How do I scrape a specific fight night?	Set the endpoint to Scoreboard and enter the date in YYYYMMDD format in the Date Filter field. Leave the date empty to get today's scoreboard.
Can I scrape more than 10 items on the free plan?	Free Apify users are limited to a 10-item preview. Upgrade to a paid plan to run up to 1,000,000 items per execution.
Which UFC data is not available?	This Actor returns what ESPN's public feeds expose for MMA. Detailed play-by-play commentary, live round-by-round scoring, and granular fighter statistics like significant strikes landed are not included.
How often can I run the Actor?	You can run it manually at any time or schedule it to run on a recurring basis via Apify's scheduler, which is useful for checking scoreboard updates on fight night or monitoring the news feed daily.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your scraped dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, or RSS, and push it directly to integrations like Google Sheets, Airtable, or Amazon S3.
Is the Actor scraping ESPN legally?	The Actor accesses publicly available, non-login-protected ESPN pages and returns structured data from them. You are responsible for how you use that data and for complying with ESPN's terms of service.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ESPN, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.