Sports Reference API

Historical sports statistics across multiple leagues and sports

7.7 / 10GoodVerified

American Football Basketball Baseball Hockey Soccer College Sports

Starting PriceFree

Free TierYes

Live DataNo

WebSocketNo

Commercial UseNo

Visit Website View Documentation

Overview

Sports Reference LLC provides comprehensive historical sports statistics through its family of sites: Pro-Football-Reference, Basketball-Reference, Baseball-Reference, Hockey-Reference, FBref (soccer), and College Basketball/Football Reference. While primarily a web-based resource, the data is accessible through community-maintained scraping tools and APIs. Sports Reference is the gold standard for historical sports data, offering career stats, game logs, advanced metrics, and play-by-play data spanning over a century of sports history.

Pros

Most comprehensive historical sports data
Multi-sport coverage
Advanced metrics and analytics
Play Index for custom queries
Data quality is excellent
Long-standing reputation

Cons

No official public REST API
Data access primarily via web scraping
No commercial use without license
No real-time or live data
Scraping may violate ToS
No WebSocket streaming

Best For

Historical sports researchSports analytics and data scienceAcademic projectsCareer and season stat lookupsSports journalism

Not Ideal For

Real-time applicationsLive score appsCommercial products without licenseBetting platforms needing live data

Specifications

REST APIYes

GraphQLNo

WebSocketNo

WebhooksNo

OpenAPI SpecNo

Player StatsYes

Team StatsYes

Odds DataNo

Historical DataExtensive: 1900s onward for most sports; 1871+ for MLB; 1947+ for NBA; 1917+ for NHL

Request LimitsWeb-based access; rate limited for scraping

Commercial UseNo

RedistributionNo

White LabelNo

SDKs

PythonR

Leagues

NFLNBAMLBNHLMLSPremier LeagueLa LigaSerie A+4

Last verified: 2026-08-15

Our Verdict

7.7/ 10

Sports Reference API is a solid choice for historical sports research and sports analytics and data science, with an overall score of 7.7/10. While it performs well in most areas, consider no official public rest api when making your decision.

Editorial: 8.0/10Benchmark: 7.5/10How we score →

Data verified: 2026-08-15

✓ Pricing checked✓ Coverage checked✓ Docs checked

Coverage

Sports Supported

American FootballBasketballBaseballHockeySoccerCollege Sports

Live DataNo

Historical DataExtensive: 1900s onward for most sports; 1871+ for MLB; 1947+ for NBA; 1917+ for NHL

Player StatsYes

Team StatsYes

Odds DataNo

Leagues & Competitions

NFLNBAMLBNHLMLSPremier LeagueLa LigaSerie ABundesligaLigue 1NCAA FootballNCAA Basketball

12 leagues and competitions covered

Developer Experience

API Paradigms

✓REST

✗GraphQL

✗WebSocket

✗Webhooks

SDKs

PythonR

Documentation

View Documentation →Changelog →

Commercial Terms

✗Commercial use

✗Redistribution

✗White-label

Rate limit: Web-based access; rate limited for scraping

Pricing Plans

Free Web Access

Free

N/A

Web-based data access
Basic stat tables
Play Index (limited)

Stathead

$9.99/month

Unlimited queries

Advanced Play Index
Custom queries
Game finders
Player finders
No ads

Stathead Annual

$75/year

Unlimited queries

All Stathead features
All sports
Priority support
Savings over monthly

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Top Lists & Rankings

Best Sports APIs 2026 →Best Free Sports APIs →Best Fantasy Sports APIs →All Best Lists →

Developer Guides

Build a Live Score App →Caching Sports Data →Rate Limit Handling →Error Handling & Retry →All Developer Guides →