ESPN Public API Skill

You are an expert at using ESPN's undocumented public JSON APIs to fetch sports data. These APIs power espn.com and the ESPN mobile app. They require no authentication and return JSON.

Important: These are unofficial, undocumented APIs. They may change without notice. Be respectful with request volume, implement caching when possible, and handle errors gracefully.

How to Use This Skill

1. Identify what the user needs (scores, standings, player stats, odds, etc.)
2. Determine the sport and league using the slug reference in references/league-slugs.md
3. Pick the right API domain and endpoint from references/endpoints.md
4. Construct the URL and fetch the data
5. Parse the JSON response using patterns from references/response-schemas.md
6. Watch for common pitfalls documented in references/gotchas.md

API Domains

There are six ESPN API domains. Choose based on your data need:

Domain	Base URL	Use For
Site API	https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/{sport}/{league}/	Scores, teams, rosters, news, injuries, game summaries
Site API v2	https://site.api.espn.com/apis/v2/sports/{sport}/{league}/	Standings only (the site/v2 path returns a stub for standings)
Core API v2	https://sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/{sport}/leagues/{league}/	Athletes, detailed stats, odds, play-by-play, venues, coaches
Core API v3	https://sports.core.api.espn.com/v3/sports/{sport}/{league}/	Enriched athlete data, leaders
Web API v3	https://site.web.api.espn.com/apis/common/v3/sports/{sport}/{league}/	Player season stats, gamelogs, splits, leaderboards
CDN	https://cdn.espn.com/core/{league-abbrev}/	Full game packages (boxscore + plays + win prob). Requires ?xhr=1
Now API	https://now.core.api.espn.com/v1/sports/news	Real-time news feed

Quick Start Recipes

Get today's scores for any league

curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/{sport}/{league}/scoreboard"
# Example: NBA scores today
curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/scoreboard"
# Scores for a specific date
curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/scoreboard?dates=20250315"

Get standings

# IMPORTANT: Use /apis/v2/ NOT /apis/site/v2/ (the latter returns a stub)
curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/v2/sports/basketball/nba/standings"
curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/v2/sports/football/nfl/standings"

Get all teams

curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/teams"

Get a team's roster

# Team IDs: look them up from the teams endpoint first
curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/teams/13/roster"

Get a full game summary (boxscore + plays + leaders)

curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/summary?event=401765432"

Get player season stats

# Uses the Web API v3 domain. Works for NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB.
curl "https://site.web.api.espn.com/apis/common/v3/sports/basketball/nba/athletes/3136776/stats"

Get player game log

curl "https://site.web.api.espn.com/apis/common/v3/sports/basketball/nba/athletes/3136776/gamelog"

Get betting odds for a game

curl "https://sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/basketball/leagues/nba/events/{eventId}/competitions/{eventId}/odds"

Get league-wide injury report

curl "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/football/nfl/injuries"

Get real-time news

curl "https://now.core.api.espn.com/v1/sports/news?sport=basketball&league=nba&limit=20"

Get full game package via CDN (richest data)

# Returns gamepackageJSON with drives, plays, win probability, boxscore, odds
curl "https://cdn.espn.com/core/nba/game?xhr=1&gameId=401765432"
curl "https://cdn.espn.com/core/nfl/boxscore?xhr=1&gameId=401671793"

Common Query Parameters

Parameter	Description	Example
dates	Date filter (YYYYMMDD or range)	20250315 or 20250301-20250331
season	Season year	2025
seasontype	1=preseason, 2=regular, 3=postseason, 4=offseason	2
week	Week number	1
limit	Results per page	100
page	Page number	1
groups	Conference ID (college sports)	8 (SEC)
xhr	Required for CDN endpoints	1
active	Filter active athletes	true

Season Types

Type	Value	Description
Preseason	1	Exhibition/preseason games
Regular Season	2	Regular season
Postseason	3	Playoffs/postseason
Off Season	4	Off season

Betting Provider IDs

When filtering odds by provider:

Provider	ID
Caesars	38
FanDuel	37
DraftKings	41
BetMGM	58
ESPN BET	68
Bet365	2000

Writing Code

When the user wants to write code that calls the ESPN API:

Python (requests or httpx)

import requests

def get_nba_scoreboard(date=None):
    url = "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/scoreboard"
    params = {}
    if date:
        params["dates"] = date  # YYYYMMDD format
    resp = requests.get(url, params=params, timeout=30)
    resp.raise_for_status()
    data = resp.json()
    return data["events"]

JavaScript/TypeScript (fetch)

async function getNBAScoreboard(date?: string) {
  const url = new URL("https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/scoreboard");
  if (date) url.searchParams.set("dates", date);
  const resp = await fetch(url.toString());
  if (!resp.ok) throw new Error(`ESPN API error: ${resp.status}`);
  const data = await resp.json();
  return data.events;
}

Best practices for ESPN API code

• Always set a timeout (30s recommended)
• Implement caching for data that does not change frequently (teams, standings, rosters)
• Handle 404s gracefully (invalid IDs, offseason endpoints)
• Handle 429s (rate limiting) with exponential backoff
• The API is undocumented, so always validate response shape before accessing nested fields
• Use User-Agent header to identify your app

For Deeper Reference

• Full endpoint catalog: references/endpoints.md
• All sport and league slugs: references/league-slugs.md
• JSON response schemas with examples: references/response-schemas.md
• Common pitfalls and gotchas: references/gotchas.md
• Python fetch helper: scripts/espn_fetch.py
• Bash fetch helper: scripts/espn_fetch.sh