# ESPN MMA UFC Scraper (`parseforge/espn-mma-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes MMA events, UFC news, and team listings from ESPN. Returns each fight result, news article, or athlete record as a flat row.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/espn-mma-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** Sports, Other
- **Stats:** 23 total users, 9 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $7.69 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

[![ParseForge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/main/banner.jpg)](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp)

### 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:

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

A larger pull:

```json
{
 "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](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).
2. Open the [ESPN MMA UFC Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/espn-mma-scraper?fpr=vmoqkp).
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](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) 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:

```bash
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](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp) 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.

# Actor input Schema

## `endpoint` (type: `string`):

ESPN sub-endpoint to fetch.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Free users: Limited to 10 items (preview). Paid users: Optional, max 1,000,000

## `dates` (type: `string`):

Optional YYYYMMDD date for scoreboard. Leave empty for today.

## Actor input object example

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

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "endpoint": "scoreboard",
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/espn-mma-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "endpoint": "scoreboard",
    "maxItems": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/espn-mma-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "endpoint": "scoreboard",
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/espn-mma-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parseforge/espn-mma-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/ygQMSMW2xkvoHRQSp/builds/iMc89ARabgWyr6tVk/openapi.json