@cyanheads/sports-mcp-server
Get live scores, schedules, standings, team and player data for NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, soccer, and more via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.
8 Tools
Overview
Live and historical sports data from ESPN, MLB StatsAPI, and TheSportsDB. Check scores, schedules, and standings, and look up teams and players across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, major soccer leagues, and college football and basketball.
Tools
Agent skill
The sports-guide covers complete fixture ranges, game recaps, standings comparisons, and player identity checks. It ships with plugin installs, npm, Docker, and the desktop bundle, and is available to MCP clients as a skill resource.
Capability reference
sports_find_team tool
- Free-text
query (max 200 characters) with an optional league filter
- Returns team metadata with
espnId/mlbId/tsdbId cross-references merged across providers; totalFound counts returned records
- Failed ESPN/MLB lookups appear in
unavailableSources; no results returns no_match, or sources_unavailable if a source failed. The free TheSportsDB key can return incomplete results
sports_find_player tool
- Free-text
query (max 200 characters); optional sport is advisory and does not filter
- Returns player IDs, name, team, position, nationality, birth date, and thumbnail;
no_match when none is found
- The default key
123 limits searches to one record
sports_get_scores tool
league required; date (YYYY-MM-DD) defaults to today in US Eastern time; optional team_name filters games- Returns home/away teams, score, status, period or clock, and UTC start time. Empty results carry
reason, emptyReason (no_games or no_team_matches), and notice
limit defaults to 100 (max 200) and offset to 0; responses include availableGames, totalReturned, effectiveLimit, offset, truncated, and nextOffset
sports_get_schedule tool
league required; optional team_name, date_from/date_to, limit (default 100, max 200), and offset (default 0). A single date bound requests that day; reversed dates fail- Returns home/away teams and scores, status, UTC start time, venue, and source. A partial
team_name must identify one team: ambiguous_team lists candidates, team_not_found means no match
- Dated requests cover at most seven days. Responses include
requestedDateFrom/requestedDateTo, servedDateFrom/servedDateTo, availableGames, effectiveLimit, offset, and truncated; follow nextOffset, then nextDateFrom as date_from
sports_get_game tool
- Required
league and source-prefixed numeric game_id from scores, schedules, or team detail; mlb: IDs require league: "mlb"
- Returns game metadata plus
periodScores, teamStats, leaders, and scoringPlays; missing values are null. Scheduled games return metadata only; game_not_found for a missing or wrong-league game. Athlete IDs belong to ESPN or MLB, not TheSportsDB
limit defaults to 20 (max 50) and offset to 0; responses include totalCount, returnedCount, servedFrom/servedTo, effectiveLimit, and nextOffset
sports_get_standings tool
league required; optional season (4-digit year), current season if omitted- Returns rank, group (conference, table, or MLB division), wins, losses, ties, NHL overtime losses, points, winning percentage, division rank, streak, and games behind; inapplicable values are null.
season_not_found when the season has no data
limit defaults to 100 (max 200) and offset to 0; responses include availableStandings, totalReturned, effectiveLimit, offset, truncated, and nextOffset. If the MLB team lookup fails, unavailableSources lists standings_team_metadata
sports_get_team tool
league and team_name required; exact names or abbreviations win, otherwise a partial name must identify one team (ambiguous_team lists candidates, team_not_found means no match)- Returns metadata, active roster, the latest 5 completed results, and the next 3 scheduled fixtures
- NFL rosters exclude injured-reserve/out, suspended, and practice-squad players; missing jerseys and venues are null
sports_get_player tool
player_id accepts a tsdb:-prefixed ID (from sports_find_player) or a raw numeric TheSportsDB ID- Returns biography, team, position, nationality, birth date, height, weight, and thumbnail;
player_not_found when the ID doesn't resolve
espnId is filled when TheSportsDB supplies one, otherwise null
Features
Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.
Sports-specific:
- Three keyless sources — ESPN site API, MLB StatsAPI, and TheSportsDB (free tier key
123)
- League routing sends each query to the best source per sport
- Normalized output types across sources —
NormalizedGame, NormalizedTeam, NormalizedPlayer, NormalizedStanding
- Cross-source team IDs merged onto one record by
sports_find_team
- Off-season queries return a notice (standings) or
games: [] with a reason (scoreboards) instead of an error
Agent-friendly output:
- Source provenance on every record —
source: 'espn' | 'mlbstats' | 'thesportsdb'
- Typed error reasons (
no_match, sources_unavailable, team_not_found, ambiguous_team, player_not_found, season_not_found, game_not_found, incompatible_game_source), each with a recovery hint
- Typed empty-result notices and pagination or schedule-window metadata on every response
- Provider text is escaped and treated as data, never instructions
Getting started
Add it to Claude Code:
For other clients, add this to the MCP config file:
No API keys are required. THESPORTSDB_API_KEY optionally enables a premium key for broader player and team searches; the default free key returns at most one record. For Docker or a source build, see Running the server.
Configuration
See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.
Running the server
Local development
Requires Bun v1.4.0 or higher and Node.js v24+.
Serving commands execute Node, including when launched with bun run. Bun handles dependency resolution and build tooling; ESPN requests run under Node.
-
Build and run:
-
Run checks and tests:
Docker
The image builds with Bun, runs the production server under Node, defaults to HTTP transport and stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/sports-mcp-server. For stdio, use docker run -i --rm -e MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio ghcr.io/cyanheads/sports-mcp-server:latest. To build locally, use docker build -t sports-mcp-server .; OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.
Project structure
Development guide
See CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:
- Handlers throw, framework catches — no
try/catch in tool logic
- Use
ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage
- Register new tools via the barrel in
src/mcp-server/tools/definitions/index.ts
- Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields
Contributing
Issues are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:
License
Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.
