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Real Time Statistics Feeds for Fantasy Sports?

Posted by Cliff on from the just-for-fun dept.

Anonymous Coward asks: "I want to develop an applet that will track/sort/rank NFL players using real-time statistical feeds from somewhere. Is there a subscription service or site that offers real time NFL statistical feeds (bonus points given if its a free service)?"

29 comments

  1. Multi-category crap. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What the fuck does this have to do with enlightenment?

    Or humour, or half the other categories, for that matter?

    1. Re:Multi-category crap. by leviramsey · · Score: 1

      Uh... it's not categori[sz]ed under humo(|u)r....

    2. Re:Multi-category crap. by Oddly_Drac · · Score: 1

      "What the fuck does this have to do with enlightenment?

      Or humour, or half the other categories, for that matter?"

      God hate me for agreeing with an AC, but it does seem to have limited relevance to hardware and enlightenment. Has moderation become a matter of randomly pushing buttons?

      (in anticipation of the irony of being modded down for 'offtopic')

      --
      Oddly Draconis
      Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
    3. Re:Multi-category crap. by Zonaflash · · Score: 0

      While fantasy leagues are mildly interesting, attempting to simulate a game and the determinants of its outcome from box scores and misc data is more interesting, since a lot of econometric and analytical tools come into play. Typically, these tools are applied to processes that we cannot observe, so we can rarely test the efficacy of the statistical models or of the modeling techniques. Monte carlo helps a lot, but it oftn lacks the complexity of something real world, like a basketball game with an explaosive number of possible variables. Sports games, however, offer us a chance to grab the data, build the models and then watch the game to see how close we were. Well, just one application anyway.

      --
      SoftBank Haiku: The bandwidth broadens; Users sign up in millions. Where are the profits?
    4. Re:Multi-category crap. by Tower · · Score: 1

      Except that it is under Entertainment, not enlightenment... and it isn't under humor (or humour), your comment might be valid.

      --
      "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  2. NFL.com by leviramsey · · Score: 5, Informative

    The NFL recently set up GSIS, which basically allows you to use a Java applet which receives stats from the league as they're input by the offical scorer at the game (I actually know (through a fan board) the official scorer for the Scottish Claymores). You can use a stripped down version of the applet on NFL.com, and you can register yourself as a member of the media (it's scandalously easy to do, though not as much as when the username/password for NFLMedia.com was media:media) to get a full version (which will give you the full game stats and play-by-play mere minutes after the game is finished in your choice of PDF or XML). Using this, you could reverse-engineer the protocol and write your own server (though I forget whether the NFL claims a copyright on the game statistics they distribute).

    1. Re:NFL.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the hell are you talking about? No American NFL team has the name of a foreign country. Dumbass.

    2. Re:NFL.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The other poster is correct. THERE ARE NO AMERICAN FOOTBALL TEAMS IN THE NFL NAMED AFTER OTHER NATIONS.

      There are, however, NFL franchise teams IN OTHER COUNTRIES which are, of course NAMED AFTER THOSE COUNTRIES.

      So much for your "no other country is interested in playing amreican football" theory. Since the Scottish Claymores are, IN FACT, an NFL football team playing IN THE UK.

    3. Re:NFL.com by roll_w.it · · Score: 2, Informative
      So much for your "no other country is interested in playing amreican football" theory. Since the Scottish Claymores are, IN FACT, an NFL football team playing IN THE UK.
      Yes, an educational morning for me...

      Apparently there is an NFL Europe of which the Scottish Claymores are a member.

      That's enough for today, back to sleep.
  3. Stats, Inc. by Fastball · · Score: 4, Informative

    I looked into this a few years ago for college basketball no less. I got a tepid response because I was a "small timer" looking to do some stuff for a fantasy league, but they probably have package that will meet your (obviously NFL football this time of year) fantasy league's needs and costs forty times the worth of your firstborn.

    1. Re:Stats, Inc. by Jac_no_k · · Score: 1

      We use Stats Inc. for MLB (Baseball) data. I'm working for a medium size company and they were pretty responsive to me. They would create new tables and manipulate the data to whatever specifications I wanted. I'm guessing it's costing us $5k a season for the service... I dunno, I'm just a programmer over here.

  4. Fantasy Sports? by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 1

    There was I thinking you meant something like Dragon Racing, or Magic Potion Creating... Can anyone think of a really bizarre made-up sport that might occur in a fantasy world?

    1. Re:Fantasy Sports? by Hard_Code · · Score: 1

      quidditch? /me ducks

      --

      It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
    2. Re:Fantasy Sports? by Dstrct0 · · Score: 1

      How about the Wizard Wrestling Federation?

      --
      Build boards not bombs
    3. Re:Fantasy Sports? by b!arg · · Score: 1

      That's Wizard Wrestling Entertainment. Get it right next time or the World Wildlife Foundation will get wicked on your ass.

      --

      Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
    4. Re:Fantasy Sports? by MyRuger · · Score: 1

      I was at a bar once and saw Dwarf Tossing!!! That has to count for something.

  5. Hockey by falcon203e · · Score: 0

    Make an NHL one too while you're at it, eh?

    --
    ----- "All right. It was a miracle. Can we go now?"
  6. Quidditch. duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like imagine something like soccer with broomsticks. Hmmmm.

  7. Statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    76.925 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

  8. I'm pretty sure... by adlai · · Score: 1

    ..that a free service along this lines doesn't exist [at least not in a legal way]. I've looked into trying to setup a way of getting real-time baseball statistics for free but have been largely stymied. I know from the research that I did last spring on this topic that ESPN runs a realtime stats server that is widely used -- whose name I'm forgetting. (Competing with Stats, Inc.) Help, anyone?

    I'm pretty sure it's fairly expensive, though. Are you sure you need realtime statistics????

  9. New functionality in EVAS by PeteyG · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Rasterman has been hard at work on EVAS, adding this functionality (and many others equally as useful) to his pet project, which is the core of Enlightenment.

    This is why Enlightenment 0.17 is taking so fscking long to come out, and this is why the E topic was added to this.

    --
    no thanks
  10. The requirements for this by chia_monkey · · Score: 1

    Ergh...have you checked out the requirements to use the GSIS service? IE on Windows. That's it. Talk about restrictions. I find it kind of ironic too since this is supposedly using a Java applet. Why bother with the applet if you're going to be so restrictive?

    I guess my question would be "is there anything out there for Macs?"

    --

    "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
    1. Re:The requirements for this by leviramsey · · Score: 1

      Officially they only support IE on Windows, but I've used it with Mozilla on Linux... just don't try to ask them for support if you're not using the approved system.

  11. The one I use by g1zmo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have used Real Time Sports for fantaysy football, and I think it's one of the best. Near real-time updates from the AP wire, pretty comprehensive league tracking, reasonable fees for the service, etc.

    --
    I have found there are just two ways to go.
    It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow.     -REK, Jr.
  12. Just curious by angle_slam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What kind of league do you run where you need real-time stats? Most leagues I've participated in are done on a weekly basis, and you can't change your team once the game starts. Knowing that Marshall Faulk has scored 3 TDs may be interesting, but pretty much useless if you're trying to manage a team because, if he is not on your starting lineup, he doesn't count.

  13. Scrape it by scenic · · Score: 3, Informative
    I have to point out another option. While the NFL seems to have a service, other sports don't. I've written a couple of plugins for Watson on the mac to deal with baseball and football scores. I essentially scrape the data from ESPN.com and display them. There is nothing stopping you from doing the same thing for "real-time" stats from a game.

    Also on the Mac, I've reversed the gamecast applet protocol that ESPN.com uses and created a Konfabulator widget that does the gamecast. There is NOTHING stopping you from doing the same thing (and it's much easier, assuming you're comfortable around packet sniffers and writting HTTP clients) for yahoo or gamecast.

    Sujal

    --

    politics, food, music, life: FatMixx

    1. Re:Scrape it by dmr · · Score: 1

      ...and to think I was about to blog this just so you would read this article and reply to it. Nice userid number.

  14. Make sure you don't break any copyright... by PinglePongle · · Score: 1

    In the UK, soccer stats are copyrighted and tightly controlled; as the US appears to have more lawyers per head of the population than is strictly necessary, I'd imagine the same is true for NFL stats.

    You don't want to end up getting sued for your fantasy league - get it legal if you can ! Oh, and prepare to sell some body parts to do it.

    --
    It's all very well in practice, but it will never work in theory.