Sports data API
BALLDONTLIE
Unified REST API for scores, box scores, stats, odds and player props across 20+ leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, soccer, tennis, golf, F1, MMA, esports), plus webhooks and an MCP server.
Facts verified against the provider's site on
Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; based on 8–24 public discussions.
Computed from public data only; uptime and latency are not measured yet. Enterprise feeds that sell by contract score lower on transparency by design. How the score works
- Starting price
- $9.99/mo
- Free access
- Free tier
- Sports
- 10 (Basketball, American football…)
- Live data
- Yes
- Delivery
- Webhooks + polling
- Discussions
- 15 threads
- GitHub adoption
- 902 repos
Best for
Developers building sports apps, dashboards or AI-assisted projects who want stats, box scores and odds for many leagues from one REST API with a free entry plan.
Not ideal for
Companies that want to offer a competing sports-data API or feed built on its data, which the terms forbid.
Limitations to check
- − Free plan is limited to one sport and 5 requests per minute
- − Paid tiers below All-Access are priced per sport
- − Webhooks are on the top All-Access plan
- − Terms bar substitutes for the BALLDONTLIE API
Written from the provider's own pages (source).
Last checked 2026-11-03
BALLDONTLIE at a glance
- What is BALLDONTLIE best for?
- Developers building sports apps, dashboards or AI-assisted projects who want stats, box scores and odds for many leagues from one REST API with a free entry plan. Not ideal for: Companies that want to offer a competing sports-data API or feed built on its data, which the terms forbid.
- How much does BALLDONTLIE cost?
- The cheapest public paid plan of BALLDONTLIE is $9.99/mo. Listed plans: All-Star $9.99/mo; GOAT $39.99/mo; All-Access $299.99/mo.
- Does BALLDONTLIE have a free tier?
- Yes. BALLDONTLIE lists a free plan called "Free" (5 requests per minute).
- What does BALLDONTLIE cover?
- BALLDONTLIE is a sports data api. Its sports: Basketball, American football, Baseball, Ice hockey, Football (soccer), Tennis, Golf, Formula 1 and 2 more; data: Historical data, Odds, Play-by-play, Player props, Player stats, Live scores, Team stats. Live / in-play data is offered.
- Does BALLDONTLIE have a WebSocket or streaming API?
- No streaming is listed. BALLDONTLIE delivers data by REST, Webhooks.
- Can I use BALLDONTLIE data commercially or for betting?
- According to the public terms of BALLDONTLIE — commercial use: allowed; betting products: allowed; redistribution: allowed.
- What do developers say about BALLDONTLIE?
- Long-popular free NBA stats API, now covering NBA, NFL, MLB and EPL with a free tier and paid keys. Beginners use it for tutorials, React projects and portfolio apps; betting and fantasy builders pair it with odds feeds. Recommended as an alternative to nba_api and API-Sports. Little discussion of reliability or pricing.
- What are the alternatives to BALLDONTLIE?
- Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: SportsDataIO, TheRundown, Entity Sport, Sportrix, DunkAPI.
Commercial decision
Pricing & plan limits
| Plan | Price | Requests | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 5 / minute | 1 sport, basic data, community supportsource |
| All-Star | $9.99/mo | 60 / minute | Per sport; extended data, email supportsource |
| GOAT | $39.99/mo | 600 / minute | Per sport; full data accesssource |
| All-Access | $299.99/mo | 600 / minute | All 20+ sports, webhooks 500K/mo, Lab and StoryStats includedsource |
Monthly prices; annual toggle gives 20% discount (amounts not shown). 48-hour trial mentioned for GOAT/All-Access. Pricing taken via WebFetch of homepage pricing section; crawled pricing page was just the homepage.
Before choosing a paid plan, confirm
• What counts as one request (per call, per market, per region?)
• What happens when you exceed the quota: blocked or billed
• Whether live and historical data are on your plan
• Whether your use (public app, betting, resale) is licensed
The critical question
Data coverage
- Sports
- BasketballAmerican footballBaseballIce hockeyFootball (soccer)TennisGolfFormula 1MMAEsports
- Data types
- Historical dataOddsPlay-by-playPlayer propsPlayer statsLive scoresTeam stats
- Key competitions
- NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, Champions League, Formula 1source
- Competitions
- 20
- Live / in-play
- Yes
- Women's competitions
- Not disclosed
- Betting markets
- odds, player props
- Bookmaker regions
- Not disclosed
- Bookmakers
- Not disclosed
- History depth
- hundreds of years of historical data claimed (varies by league)
- Update frequency
- Not disclosed
- Name languages
- Not disclosed
- ID mapping
- Not disclosed
Coverage often depends on the plan; confirm the exact league and season on your plan.
Before you build
Usage rights & access
- Commercial use
- Allowedsource
- Betting products
- Allowed
- Redistribution
- Allowed
- Storing data
- Not disclosed
- Attribution
- Not disclosed
- Logos & photos
- Not disclosed
- Who can buy
- Individuals, Companiessource
- Verification (KYC)
- Not required
- Not available in
- Not disclosed
- Only available in
- Not disclosed
Lawful gambling-industry use is expressly permitted; user is responsible for local gambling law compliance
Read the termsDeveloper-ready evaluation
Integration & documentation
- Protocols
- RESTWebhooks
- Formats
- JSON
- Authentication
- api key
- SDKs
- Not disclosed
- OpenAPI spec
- Not disclosed
- Claimed latency
- Not disclosed
- Status page
- Not disclosed
- Sandbox / test keys
- Not disclosed
- Support
- Not disclosed
- SLA uptime
- Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: BALLDONTLIE Goal: build a feature on BALLDONTLIE data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth. ## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them) - Website: https://www.balldontlie.io - Docs: https://www.balldontlie.io/docs/ - Sports: Basketball, American football, Baseball, Ice hockey, Football (soccer), Tennis, Golf, Formula 1, MMA, Esports - Data: Historical data, Odds, Play-by-play, Player props, Player stats, Live scores, Team stats - Protocols: REST, Webhooks; formats: json - Auth: api_key - Free plan: Free, 5 requests per minute - Cheapest paid plan: $9.99/mo - Note: Monthly prices; annual toggle gives 20% discount (amounts not shown). 48-hour trial mentioned for GOAT/All-Access. Pricing taken via WebFetch of homepage pricing section; crawled pricing page was just the homepage. ## Verify before writing code - live update frequency - exact endpoint paths, parameters and response fields (read the official docs, do not guess) ## Implementation rules - Keep the API key on the server (environment variable, backend route or edge function); never ship it to the browser. - Cache responses and respect rate limits; count how many requests each screen triggers. - Handle errors explicitly: invalid key, quota exceeded (429), missing fields, empty fixtures, timeouts. - Start with one demo request and log the raw response before building UI on assumed field names.
Data quality signals
Data source & company
- Official partners
- Not disclosed
- How data is collected
- aggregated
- Certifications
- Not disclosed
- Payment methods
- Not disclosed
- Minimum contract
- Not disclosed
- Country
- Not disclosed
- Founded
- Not disclosed
Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube
What developers say
Long-popular free NBA stats API, now covering NBA, NFL, MLB and EPL with a free tier and paid keys. Beginners use it for tutorials, React projects and portfolio apps; betting and fantasy builders pair it with odds feeds. Recommended as an alternative to nba_api and API-Sports. Little discussion of reliability or pricing.
Praised for
- Free tier and easy start for learners
- Simple REST endpoints with decades of NBA history
- Widely used in tutorials and MCP servers
- Expanded beyond NBA to NFL, MLB, EPL
Complaints
- Free tier limited to subset of endpoints
- CORS issues for browser apps
Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.
Discussions
- [OC] I made a free NBA API with data from 1979-currentr/nba · 2019-01
- [OC] Balldontlie API: Data Analysis Challenge #1r/nba · 2019-07
- [OC] Insights into a shooter's streakinessr/nba · 2021-06
- Experiences with the different nba.com APIs? Which one would you recommend for play-by-play data to calculate player-specific ORtg or DRtg in a game?r/nba · 2023-05
- free API for NBA datar/nba · 2019-02
- To learn redux I built an NBA Stats Compare App. Critique welcome.r/reactjs · 2021-12
- [OC] balldontlie API updatesr/nba · 2019-03
- Anyone have any recommendations for a NBA stats API?r/learnprogramming · 2022-04
- I generalised my backtest engine for NBA betting models and made it public. Bring your own model and data.r/algobetting · 2026-10
- BALLDONTLIE - Sports APIr/sportsanalytics · 2024-12
- Can I Pass Different Promises Into The Same Function?r/learnprogramming · 2023-10
- Show HN: Free NBA APIHacker News · 2019-01
Open-source projects using it
Videos
- OKC Thunder Website DemoBee4Brendan · 2026-09
- Megépítettem a saját sportolókövető alkalmazásomat – Courtboard bemutató. Használd te is!Pintér Zsolt - AI magyarul · 2026-08
- LibreOffice Calc Add-in: Grab NBA Stats (balldontlie.io) #nba #libreoffice #libreofficecalcPrecision Data Analytics · 2026-07
- DVCrossover — WDD 231 Individual Project DemoDaniel Venâncio · 2026-06
- NBA Player Prop Deep Analysis - Google Sheet Initial SetupNext Level Sheets · 2026-04
- BALLDONTLIE. API. PROGRAMAÇÃO MOBILE.ESTAYLEyo · 2023-06
Shortlist next steps
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Evidence & transparency
Official sources
- https://www.balldontlie.io
- https://www.balldontlie.io/docs/
- https://www.balldontlie.io/#pricing
- https://www.balldontlie.io/terms.html
Facts were extracted from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing. How we know