Top Sports data APIs in 2025

Whether you are building a live score widget, fantasy sport platforms or integrating match stats into your mobile apps, sports data APIs are the key. In 2025, the market has matured significantly with providers offering deep data coverage, fast update frequencies and flexible integration options.

With that growth comes complexity, and not all APIs are created equal. Some excel at real-time updates while others focus on historical data. Pricing models vary widely as well depending on usage and sport.

This guide is designed to help developers by presenting and reviewing some of the top sports data APIs available in 2025. We will look at their capabilities, ease of integration, documentation quality, and which use cases they serve best. This way you can pick the one that best fits your goals.

Highlightly Sport API

Highlightly is a sports data provider that focuses on delivering live scores, match statistics, event data, predictions, odds and match highlights in real-time, developer-friendly format. It is ideal for developers building apps around sports such as football, basketball, cricket, rugby and other global sports.

Highlighly can be integrated and used via RapidAPI or through the native platform directly. Its standout features include per-match news articles, AI powered predictions, and especially video highlights which are rarely bundled together in competing APIs.

Pricing is quite flexible. Highlightly provides a generous free tier and paid plans with up to 40% yearly discount. This makes it quite appealing to startups, hobby developers and small to medium size projects. While certain functionalities such as live odds require a paid plan, the overall value is quite high for what you get. The documentation is extremely detailed which makes integration easy as well.

Overall, Highlightly is a strong option if you want a cost-effective API that goes beyond basic stats by offering media content, predictions, highlights and smooth integration options.

Sportradar API

Sportradar is one of the largest and most established sports data providers in the world, trusted by major broadcasters, bookmakers, and professional leagues. Its APIs offer real-time data coverage across a massive range of sports including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, motorsports, and even niche ones.

What sets Sportradar apart from other sport providers is their depth and reliability. From live play-by-play commentary to advanced analytics, injury reports, betting odds, and even computer vision generated insights, Sportradar APIs are designed for enterprise level companies. Their coverage includes hundreds of leagues globally, with strong support for localization and multilanguage support.

However, their data comes at a price. Sportradar APIs are not publicly available with open pricing. They typically require direct business negotiation and are primarily targeted at B2B partnerships which makes them less accessible to indie developers or smaller startups. Integrating Sportradar also often involves custom contracts, onboarding processes, and account management.

If you are building a large-scale app, media platform or sportsbook and need ultra reliable, deeply detailed sports data, Sportradar is one of the top choices (assuming you have the budget and legal backing to support it).

StatsPerform

StatsPerform is another major player in the sports data industry, particularly known for combining AI and data analytics. It powers a wide range of sports platforms, media outlets and betting operators by delivering real-time data, historical stats and predictive analytics.

They provide extensive coverage across football, basketball, cricket, baseball and more. Their key features are live scores, advance metrics, deep player/team analysis and AI-driven insights (e.g., win probabilities, expected goals). StatsPerform is ideal for enterprises needing both basic data and in-depth analytics for predictive modeling, fan engagement and content automation.

Like Sportradar, StatsPerform is mostly aimed at enterprises. The pricing is typically negotiated based on use case and scale, which makes them not suitable for small-medium sized projects. They provide high quality APIs but with a steep learning curve which often require direct onboarding support.

Developers who need fast, simple access to scores, stats, and predictions will find platforms like Highlightly far more accessible in both pricing and implementation.

Sportmonks

Sportmonks is considered a developer-friendly alternative in the sports data API space, aimed at mid-sized platforms. Their APIs cover football, cricket and F1, with a strong emphasis on ease of use.

For football, Sportmonks provides access to live scores, fixtures, player and team stats, standings, betting odds and more. The API structure is straightforward, and they offer detailed documentation with helpful examples making integration easy and smooth even for less experienced developers.

Sportmonks operates on a somewhat modular and interesting pricing model:

• European plan which offers data for 27 european leagues
• Worldwide plan that provides access to 111 worldwide leagues
• Enterprise plan which unlocks access to +2000 leagues across the globe

While the data is not as deep or as fast as providers like StatsPerform or Sportradar, it's more than sufficient for fantasy apps, betting content sites, sports dashboards and other real-time applications. Despite not supporting many sports, they are still a great choice for developers looking for a balance between data coverage and ease of use. Sportmonks is well suited for MVPs, medium- sized sports apps which focus on either soccer, cricket or F1.

TheSportsDB

TheSportsDB is a community maintained sports API designed for developers and hobbyists looking for a free or low-cost solution. Unlike enterprise providers, it leans heavily on user contributed data, making it ideal for independent projects, fan sites or prototypes.

While it may not offer in-depth data or live updates of premium APIs, TheSportsDB provides reliable access to a wide range of data including:

• Teams and players across multiple sports (football, basketball, baseball, etc.)
• Historical results and fixtures
• Basic league information and standings
• Event thumbnails and logos

The API is well documented. There's also an active community and data coverage continues to expand thanks to their contributors. For developers who do not need real-time updates or enterprise-level accuracy, TheSportsDB is a solid choice, especially when budget is a concern.

Conclusion

When you are choosing the right sports data API, your decision will depend on your project's needs, budget and scale. Enterprise providers such as Sportradar and StatsPerform offer rich and highly structured datasets, but they often come with enterprise-level pricing and complex onboarding. This makes them better suited for large-scale platforms, media outlets or medium to large sized betting companies.

On the other hand if you are looking for cost-effective, developer-friendly alternatives, Highlightly is a strong option in 2025. It offers quite a few rich features such as prematch/live odds, video highlights, predictive models, per match articles, in-depth game stats and so on.

Whether you are building a fantasy app, betting platform, sports blog or an app, Highlightly delivers robust features at a fraction of the cost that enterprise level solutions provide with little to no sacrifice in quality, documentation or support. For startups, indie developers, small to medium-sized media outlets looking to ship fast, it's arguably one of the best all in one sports data APIs on the market today.