Free / open data · United States
CollegeFootballData.com
College football API with games, team and player stats, recruiting, betting lines and advanced metrics; free key with monthly cap, higher tiers via Patreon, plus basketball API.
Facts verified against the provider's site on
Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; not enough public discussion to judge.
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
- Not public
- Free access
- Free tier
- Sports
- 3 (College sports, American football…)
- Live data
- Not disclosed
- Delivery
- Polling only (REST)
- Discussions
- 2 threads
- GitHub adoption
- 1.1k repos
Best for
College football analysts, hobbyists and apps that need games, play-by-play, recruiting and betting-line history through a free key.
Not ideal for
Projects that need other leagues, redistribution of the data, or live data on the free tier; higher tiers run through Patreon.
Limitations to check
- − Free tier is capped at 1,000 calls per month
- − Redistribution of data is not allowed
- − Live play-by-play and GraphQL need paid Patreon tiers
- − No SLA stated
Written from the provider's own pages (source).
Last checked 2026-11-03
CollegeFootballData.com at a glance
- What is CollegeFootballData.com best for?
- College football analysts, hobbyists and apps that need games, play-by-play, recruiting and betting-line history through a free key. Not ideal for: Projects that need other leagues, redistribution of the data, or live data on the free tier; higher tiers run through Patreon.
- How much does CollegeFootballData.com cost?
- CollegeFootballData.com does not publish prices on the pages we checked.
- Does CollegeFootballData.com have a free tier?
- Yes. CollegeFootballData.com lists a free plan called "Free" (1,000 requests per month).
- What does CollegeFootballData.com cover?
- CollegeFootballData.com is a free / open data. Its sports: College sports, American football, Basketball; data: Fixtures, Historical data, Odds, Play-by-play, Player stats, Results, Team stats.
- Does CollegeFootballData.com have a WebSocket or streaming API?
- No streaming is listed. CollegeFootballData.com delivers data by REST, GraphQL, so you poll for updates.
- Can I use CollegeFootballData.com data commercially or for betting?
- According to the public terms of CollegeFootballData.com — commercial use: allowed; redistribution: not allowed; storing data: allowed.
- What do developers say about CollegeFootballData.com?
- Free college football API behind a Python wrapper and the cfbfastR R package, shown in public-API lists, tutorials and BI-tool walkthroughs. Used for scores, betting lines and play-by-play. One user notes plays lack formation data. Little direct opinion beyond that, so assessment is mostly adoption-based.
- What are the alternatives to CollegeFootballData.com?
- Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: nflverse, SportsDataverse, Sportradar, Entity Sport, DunkAPI.
Commercial decision
Pricing & plan limits
| Plan | Price | Requests | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 1,000 / month | Basic endpoints, historical data, no cardsource |
| Tier 2 (Patreon) | Not public | 30,000 / month | Live play-by-play included; price not in fetched textsource |
| Tier 3+ (Patreon) | Not public | — | GraphQL, live data, higher limits; price and limits not in fetched textsource |
Patreon tier prices not on crawled page; left null. Docs URL points to tiers page; REST docs link exists on site.
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
- College sportsAmerican footballBasketball
- Data types
- FixturesHistorical dataOddsPlay-by-playPlayer statsResultsTeam stats
- Key competitions
- Not disclosed
- Competitions
- Not disclosed
- Live / in-play
- Not disclosed
- Women's competitions
- Not disclosed
- Betting markets
- Not disclosed
- Bookmaker regions
- Not disclosed
- Bookmakers
- Not disclosed
- History depth
- Historical seasons on free tier
- 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
- Not disclosed
- Redistribution
- Not allowed
- Storing data
- Allowed
- Attribution
- Not required
- Logos & photos
- Not included
- Who can buy
- Individuals, Companiessource
- Verification (KYC)
- Not required
- Not available in
- Not disclosed
- Only available in
- Not disclosed
API key tied to a verified email; one subscription and shared quota cover both CFBD and CBBD
Read the termsDeveloper-ready evaluation
Integration & documentation
- Protocols
- RESTGraphQL
- Formats
- JSON
- Authentication
- api key
- SDKs
- python, typescript, csharp
- OpenAPI spec
- Not disclosed
- Claimed latency
- Not disclosed
- Status page
- Not disclosed
- Sandbox / test keys
- Not disclosed
- Support
- email, discord
- SLA uptime
- Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: CollegeFootballData.com Goal: build a feature on CollegeFootballData.com data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth. ## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them) - Website: https://collegefootballdata.com - Docs: https://collegefootballdata.com/api-tiers - Sports: College sports, American football, Basketball - Data: Fixtures, Historical data, Odds, Play-by-play, Player stats, Results, Team stats - Protocols: REST, GraphQL; formats: json - Auth: api_key - Free plan: Free, 1000 requests per month - Note: Patreon tier prices not on crawled page; left null. Docs URL points to tiers page; REST docs link exists on site. ## 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
- Not disclosed
- Certifications
- Not disclosed
- Payment methods
- Not disclosed
- Minimum contract
- Not disclosed
- Country
- United States
- Founded
- Not disclosed
Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube
What developers say
Free college football API behind a Python wrapper and the cfbfastR R package, shown in public-API lists, tutorials and BI-tool walkthroughs. Used for scores, betting lines and play-by-play. One user notes plays lack formation data. Little direct opinion beyond that, so assessment is mostly adoption-based.
Praised for
- Free and widely wrapped (Python, R)
- Includes scores, lines and play-by-play
Complaints
- Play data lacks formations
Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.
Discussions
- College football formations play by play APIr/sportsanalytics · 2024-09
- How to handle a JSON that returns a list of dict-like objects in Pandas?Stack Overflow · 2020-11
Open-source projects using it
Videos
- AI Buillder Pack WalkthroughBill Radjewski · 2026-07
- Connecting to CollegeFootballData with ChatGPT and PowerBiRecon Sports · 2026-04
- Connecting a REST API Data Source with TimeXtender: Episode 40Timextender Tuesdays · 2024-09
- D1 Baseball Logos in PlotsRobert Frey · 2020-03
Shortlist next steps
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Evidence & transparency
Official sources
- https://collegefootballdata.com
- https://collegefootballdata.com/api-tiers
- https://collegefootballdata.com/terms
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