Where to get live NFL stats for web development?

August 4, 2008 7:53 AM

How does one go about getting access to live NFL football statistics for the purposes of web development?

I want to build an application for the iPhone (specifically one that can handle the live scoring and standings of my fantasy football team). Where do all these fantasy football websites and live scoring iPhone apps pull their up-to-the-minute player statistics from?

posted by BirdD0g to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

They make a deal with the NFL. Doing it any other way will almost certainly piss of the NFL's considerable legal team.
posted by meta_eli at 7:59 AM on August 4, 2008

STATS Inc, owned by News Corporation, are supposed to be the biggest company for sports statistics in the US. They do charge a not inconsiderable amount.
posted by HaloMan at 8:12 AM on August 4, 2008

I thought it was the evil, evil folks at the Elias Sports Bureau who kept all the stats and dribbled them out a bit at a time.

I go here to get after-the-fact stats.

I've thought of this before -- I'd like to be able to scrape the NFL site and dump the data into Excel to play around with, but I'm sure that would result in me being extradited to a black site and waterboarded until I was an Arizona Cardinals fan.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:31 AM on August 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: STATS Inc. is what all the big dogs appear to use – ESPN, SI.com, etc. Do we know what they charge? Couldn't find it on their site.
posted by BirdD0g at 8:39 AM on August 4, 2008

IANAL, but regarding legal issues, you may want to google some combination of "Supreme Court", "CDM Fantasy Sports" and "Major League Baseball". Basically, as of June 2008, you should feel fairly safe using players names and stats without paying huge licensing fees.

As to where you might get them....yeah Stats Inc is the usual choice. Personally, I screen scrape. :)
posted by danOstuporStar at 9:38 AM on August 4, 2008

Best answer: Stats Inc. is really the only option. That said, the cost is seriously prohibitive for a regular Joe like you or me. I've spoken with Stats Inc. over email because I have thought about this before as well (including the iPhone app idea), and here is the response from a company account manager:

Based on your requirements below, it likely would be at least $20K per season for the in-progress updates. Injuries & Transactions would probably add another $5K or so. AP News is going to run you at least another $15K as well.

Mefi Mail me if you want more details... I have researched this topic at length.
posted by fusinski at 10:48 AM on August 4, 2008 [1 favorite]