Overview
TheSportsDB is a crowd-sourced sports database providing data on teams, players, leagues, and events across dozens of sports. You can retrieve detailed information like team logos, player photos, and match results with a simple API key. It is a great starting point for building sports-related apps or dashboards.
Beginner Tip
Use the free tier (API key "1") to explore the API without signing up—just replace the key with your own once you need higher limits. Always check the strThumb and strBanner fields for pre-hosted artwork images.
Measurement Record
What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.
- Request
- GET https://www.thesportsdb.com/api/v1/json/3/searchteams.php?t=Arsenal
- Result
- HTTP 200 · application/json · 17,189 bytes · compressed
- Response time
- 44 ms (median of 3) · fastest 27 ms
- Transport
- TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 · certificate issued by Google Trust Services
- Browser CORS
- Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
- Served by
- cloudflare
- Recorded
- 2026-08-10
Fields Returned
Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.
| Field | Type | Value received |
|---|---|---|
| teams | array | [1 item] |
Captured Response
Captured from a real request to https://www.thesportsdb.com/api/v1/json/3/searchteams.php?t=Arsenal on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.
{
"teams": [
{
"idTeam": "133604",
"idESPN": "359",
"idAPIfootball": "42",
"intLoved": "10",
"strTeam": "Arsenal",
"strTeamAlternate": "Arsenal Football Club, AFC, Arsenal FC",
"strTeamShort": "ARS",
"intFormedYear": "1892",
"strSport": "Soccer",
"strLeague": "English Premier League",
"idLeague": "4328",
"strLeague2": "FA Cup",
"idLeague2": "4482",
"strLeague3": "EFL Cup",
"…": "(50 more fields)"
}
]
} Field Reference
idTeam Unique numeric ID for the team within TheSportsDB strTeam The full official name of the sports team strLeague The primary league the team competes in Implementation Example
Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.
const url = "https://www.thesportsdb.com/";
// Replace headers or query params with the values required by this API.
const response = await fetch(url, {
headers: {
"X-API-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY"
}
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data); What Can You Build?
Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.
Common Errors & Troubleshooting
Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.
Measured Score Breakdown
Live HTTP request to the API endpoint
Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026
Technical Specifications
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