Real Time Statistics Feeds for Fantasy Sports?

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)?"

Comments

NFL.com

[leviramsey]

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).

Re:NFL.com

[roll_w.it]

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.

Stats, Inc.

[Fastball]

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.

Scrape it

[scenic]

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