Exploring API Side-Hustle Ideas — Part 2: Sports APIs
Creating a passive income from your hobby.
This is part 2 of a multi-part series where I break down APIs and their marketplaces. In this part, I’ll cover APIs related to sport, what types of services exist, who they are aimed at, and some of my speculations for new APIs which could be successful in the future.
- Part 1: What is an API?
- Part 2: Sport APIs
- Part 3: Finance APIs
- Part 4: Travel APIs
- More Coming Soon…
Overview
Modern-day sports are increasingly driven by data and as a result, there’s a huge market for Sports APIs which can provide useful insights and statistics. This marketplace is quite saturated, with some big players profiting highly from its popularity. However, if you’re a keen sports fan, a sport-related API is a great opportunity to earn money in an area that you’re interested in.
Understanding the End-User
A successful API is ultimately determined by the value it provides its target audience. To understand what you can offer, I’ve broken down some of the people I believe could benefit from a sports-related API.
Professional Teams & Scouts.
Ever seen the film Moneyball? Data has taken over most back rooms in top-level sports teams. For better or worse, it’s playing a huge part in recruiting new talent, picking a playstyle, and analyzing upcoming opponents. For those teams, the more data the better, and if you can provide a new insight that they haven’t already covered you’ll be incredibly valuable.
Fantasy League Enthusiasts.
Any keen sports fan will likely be a member of at least one fantasy league. Whether it be with work colleagues, friends, or family — there’s great shame awaiting the loser and at least a year’s worth of bragging rights for the victor. Making the right team selection is crucial. Like professional teams, fantasy players are relying less on intuition and more on insights provided by people with more knowledge and data.
Betters Looking for an Edge.
This is certainly not a new phenomenon. Pretty much every British newspaper in existence dedicates a handful of pages to the last couple of days of horse racing results. Aimed specifically at that group of regulars perched at the bar, picking out their sure-win bets for the upcoming day. Everyone is looking for an edge over the betting companies and new insights are always welcomed.
Fans of the Game.
There doesn’t need to be any competitive or financial incentives to attract the eyes of some sports fans. Enthusiasts are often just looking for a better understanding to back up their questionable opinions in the pub. If you can provide value to these individuals, you’ve probably also caught the eyes of those from the categories above.
Existing API’s
As of 2021, the Sports API marketplace is one of the most popular both for creators and users. There are thousands of services spread across all of the major sports so it can be a daunting market to enter. However, there are always stones left unturned, and plenty of opportunities to improve upon existing offerings or develop new ideas entirely. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, it’s certainly worth taking the time to understand what already exists, and why they are successful.
Historic Game Stats
Similar to the old men reading horse racing results from the back of a trashy newspaper, there’s great value and need for a comprehensive backlog of past results for all sports. As a result, there are already many APIs covering all of the most popular sports (Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc.).
Live Stats
For some uses, gathering data and statistics in real-time is crucial. This could be as simple as someone wanting to keep updated with the score of a football match that they can’t watch live. It could also be used to enhance the experience of watching the sport itself, giving insights to whoever is interested as it progresses.
Betting Odds
It should be noted that betting companies are hesitant to allow programmatic access to their odds, so care should be taken to not violate their terms of service. There are however several legitimate APIs that offer betting odds across many different sports. If there are any gaps to be found in this market, they will surely provide value to users.
Player Databases
Specifically for team sports, play databases offering detailed statistics on individual players are increasing in popularity. Whether this is for the fantasy league enthusiast or fed into a bigger system, the data here can be incredibly useful.
Potential Ideas
Finding gaps in this market is certainly is not an easy task, but if you find an opening it could prove to be incredibly lucrative. To finish my exploration of the sports API marketplace, here are some new ideas which might inspire your next project.
Niche Sports Statistics
There are thousands of sports, with even the smallest containing dedicated fans and services which could be catered for. There are bound to be gaps in the market for more niche sports, with varying degrees of profitability.
Improvements on Existing
Sports APIs are one of the most common offered on marketplaces, however, this should not be a deterrent. Even if your idea already exists, question whether there is anything else you could provide to give added value. Often the existing APIs fail to keep up with new trends, so there are plenty of opportunities for invested newcomers to produce something better, especially if you’re a fan of the target sport.
F1 Live Stats
I am a big Formula 1 fan, so naturally, when doing my research into the area I looked here first. All forms of motor-racing are quite complicated and can be incredibly difficult to keep up with. As a result, there’s an ever-growing need for viewers to be pointed in the right direction to keep up with everything that’s happening during a race. Information like tire duration, pit-stop lengths, and mechanical issues can often be overlooked by the casual viewer even though they play a huge part in the overall drama. Apps and websites are already being created to help satisfy this need. However, there’s certainly a gap to be filled regarding more detailed live statistics and events.
Golf Player Trackers
In many (and also very few) ways, golf is similar to Formula 1. With players teeing off at staggered intervals, it can be difficult to keep track of where people are at any one point. I see a fair bit of value being added to an existing Golf API, by providing live player location updates. Admittedly my golf fanbase knowledge is sub-par, but I can at least see use-cases for the more involved viewer sitting at home, or someone at the course trying to catch the best of the action.
NBA Transfers
Another potential gap in the market is an API looking at player transfers in various sports. There are many existing services, websites, and apps which require up-to-date team information. I imagine that this is a time-consuming task to do manually, especially for leagues like the NBA where complex deals can involve players from a handful of teams at once. Maybe there’s some value to be added by providing an API that provides these roster updates in real-time?
Esports
There is a lot of money to be made in the existing Sports API marketplace, with hundreds if not thousands of services being made to quench the thirst of sports enthusiasts. However, more exciting to me is the sharp rise in the popularity of Esports, which is predicted to surpass a market value of $1.5B by 2023. Due to the inherently competitive nature, Esports share the same type of end-users as traditional sports, with dedicated betting and fantasy league websites arriving in the past few years. As a result, it seems likely that the APIs which exist for traditional sports could be taken into the digital realm which great success. This is certainly an exciting area to watch, and I’m sure the new platform for the competition will spark the creation of entirely new API concepts in the not-too-distant future.
I hope this article has opened your eyes to some of the possibilities within API creation, and more specifically sports-related APIs. For further analysis of other marketplace areas, please check out the other parts of this series.
- Part 1: What is an API?
- Part 2: Sport APIs
- Part 3: Finance APIs
- Part 4: Travel APIs
- More Coming Soon…
