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Free / open data

nflverse

Community open-source NFL data project: play-by-play since 1999, rosters, schedules and player stats distributed as downloadable files with R and Python loader packages. Data mostly CC-BY 4.0.

Facts verified against the provider's site on

Commercial use: AllowedBetting use: not disclosedMostly positive
Visit official siteOpen API docsCompare
Featured in:🆓 Best free sports APIs❤️ Developer favourites📂 Open sports data🐙 Most used on GitHub🏢 APIs you can use commercially🏈 Best American football APIs
67

SportDex Score

#4 of 233 sports APIs

See the full ranking →
Popularity
48

Brand demand, developer discussions, GitHub repos and videos

Community & reliability
72

Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; based on only a few discussions, pulled towards neutral.

Transparency
90

Public prices, docs, terms and coverage you can check before calling sales

Developer experience
69

Free access, docs, SDKs, OpenAPI, sandbox, realtime delivery, ecosystem

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
1 (American football)
Live data
Not disclosed
Delivery
CSV download, SDK only
Discussions
4 threads
GitHub adoption
3.4k repos

Best for

Analysts and modellers who want free NFL play-by-play since 1999 and stats via R and Python packages.

NFL modellingPlay-by-play researchFantasy analysis

Not ideal for

Live apps needing real-time feeds or a hosted REST API; data is distributed as files through loader packages.

Limitations to check

  • − File and package access, no hosted REST API
  • − FTN data is CC-BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike)
  • − Attribution required
  • − NFL only

Written from the provider's own pages (source).

Last checked 2026-11-03

nflverse at a glance

What is nflverse best for?
Analysts and modellers who want free NFL play-by-play since 1999 and stats via R and Python packages. Not ideal for: Live apps needing real-time feeds or a hosted REST API; data is distributed as files through loader packages.
How much does nflverse cost?
nflverse does not publish prices on the pages we checked.
Does nflverse have a free tier?
Yes. nflverse lists a free plan called "Open data".
What does nflverse cover?
nflverse is a free / open data. Its sports: American football; data: Fixtures, Historical data, Play-by-play, Player stats, Results, Team stats.
Does nflverse have a WebSocket or streaming API?
No streaming is listed. nflverse delivers data by CSV download, SDK only, so you poll for updates.
Can I use nflverse data commercially or for betting?
According to the public terms of nflverse — commercial use: allowed; redistribution: allowed; storing data: allowed.
What do developers say about nflverse?
Open-source NFL data (play-by-play, rosters, schedules, player stats) distributed as files with R and Python loaders, under CC-BY. Widely used by fantasy dashboards, dynasty tools, waiver-wire content and sportsdataverse packages; chosen as a free primary source or schedule fallback. Not a live REST API, so real-time needs require other providers.
What are the alternatives to nflverse?
Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: CollegeFootballData.com, Sportradar, CollegeBasketballData.com, Retrosheet, EuroLeague API.

Commercial decision

Pricing & plan limits

PlanPriceRequestsWhat's included
Open dataFree—CC-BY 4.0 data (FTN data CC-BY-SA 4.0); MIT-licensed codesource

Crawled pricing/docs pages were generic GitHub pages. Licence info from search snippets. Release file formats (parquet/rds/csv) not verified; csv listed. Docs URL for nflreadr site not verified.

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
American football
Data types
FixturesHistorical dataPlay-by-playPlayer statsResultsTeam stats
Key competitions
NFLsource
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
since 1999
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
Allowed
Storing data
Allowed
Attribution
Required
Logos & photos
Not disclosed
Who can buy
Individuals, Companiessource
Verification (KYC)
Not required
Not available in
Not disclosed
Only available in
Not disclosed

Open data released via GitHub

Read the terms

Developer-ready evaluation

Integration & documentation

Protocols
CSV downloadSDK only
Formats
CSV
Authentication
none
SDKs
r, python
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: nflverse

Goal: build a feature on nflverse data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth.

## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them)
- Website: https://github.com/nflverse
- Docs: https://pypi.org/project/nflreadpy/
- Sports: American football
- Data: Fixtures, Historical data, Play-by-play, Player stats, Results, Team stats
- Protocols: CSV download, SDK only; formats: csv
- Auth: none
- Free plan: Open data
- Note: Crawled pricing/docs pages were generic GitHub pages. Licence info from search snippets. Release file formats (parquet/rds/csv) not verified; csv listed. Docs URL for nflreadr site not verified.

## 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
community
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

Mostly positivefree tiercoveragealternativeslegal

Open-source NFL data (play-by-play, rosters, schedules, player stats) distributed as files with R and Python loaders, under CC-BY. Widely used by fantasy dashboards, dynasty tools, waiver-wire content and sportsdataverse packages; chosen as a free primary source or schedule fallback. Not a live REST API, so real-time needs require other providers.

Praised for

  • Free open data with deep play-by-play history
  • R and Python packages and many dependent projects
  • Handy fallback when ESPN endpoints fail

Complaints

    Nothing specific.

    Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.

    Discussions

    Shortlist next steps

    Alternatives worth comparing

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      CollegeFootballData.comFree / open data57

      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.

      Free tierCollege sportsAmerican footballBasketball
      Free tier2 discussions · 1.1k repos
    • Sportradar logo
      SportradarB2B data feed51

      Global supplier of live data, odds feeds, streaming and trading services to sportsbooks, media and leagues; developer portal offers sport-specific APIs with trial keys, commercial pricing by request volume via sales.

      ⚡ StreamingMulti-sport (40+)
      Price not public33 discussions · 237 repos
    • CollegeBasketballData.com logo
      CollegeBasketballData.comFree / open data51

      College basketball data service with a free personal API key, CSV exporter, analytics tools and a paid historical starter pack; sister project of the CFBD football API.

      Free tierBasketballCollege sports
      from $1/mo1 discussions · 42 repos
    • Retrosheet logo
      RetrosheetFree / open data55

      Volunteer-run archive of major league baseball history offering downloadable CSV play-by-play, game logs, schedules and biographical files back to the 19th century.

      Free tierBaseball
      Free tier6 discussions · 347 repos
    • EuroLeague APIFree / open data33

      Public EuroLeague and EuroCup basketball API exposing games, boxscores, shots, play-by-play and standings, widely wrapped by community clients.

      Free tierBasketball
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    nflverse vs CollegeFootballData.comnflverse vs Sportradarnflverse vs CollegeBasketballData.comnflverse vs Retrosheetnflverse vs EuroLeague APInflverse vs Cricsheetnflverse vs MoneyPuck Data

    Evidence & transparency

    Official sources

    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