How to build a livescore website with Sportmonks’ Football API

Build your livescore website via these steps: 

Step 1: Gather the tools

Let’s begin by ensuring you have the necessary tools to build your website. Here’s what you’ll need:

• API Token: Before developing, you must obtain a Sportmonks API token. If you haven’t already, you can create one by visiting MySportmonks.
• Code Editor: We recommend using a reliable code editor to write and edit your website’s code. One of our developers uses Visual Studio Code, but feel free to use any code editor you prefer.
• Postman (Optional): While not essential, installing Postman can be incredibly helpful for testing and debugging API requests. If you’re interested in learning how to use the Sportmonks Football API with Postman, read our How-to use Sportmonks Football API with Postman guide.

Having these tools ready will set you up for success as you build your livescore website with Sportmonks’ Football API.

Step 3: Selecting the data to show

Now that you’ve outlined the leagues you wish to feature, the next step is determining the data you want to present to your target audience.

Typically, livescore websites display essential information such as:

• Date and time of the match
• League name, stage and round 
• Home and away teams
• Match status (e.g., first half, half-time, full-time etc.)
• The score
• Events like goals, cards, and other match events
• Logos of teams, leagues, and country flags

While this may seem like a substantial amount of data, our Football API is designed to retrieve and deliver this information efficiently, with speed and precision. Furthermore, the API offers excellent flexibility, only returning the specific data you request.

Suppose you need additional match data, such as lineups and match statistics. In that case, we have detailed resources on our “how-to build a match page” to guide you through accessing and incorporating this information into your livescore website.

Step 5: Build your API request

With the base URL ready, it’s time to enhance the request with various includes based on your selections in Step 3. This allows for a more comprehensive and tailored response from the API.

For example, a common request may include participants, goals scored, substitutions, and yellow/red cards. For simplicity, these match events can be bundled into one include called “events,” as demonstrated below:

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/inplay?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN&include=scores;events;participants;periods

This URL retrieves data on scores, events (including goals, substitutions, and cards), participants, and match periods.

For a complete list of possible includes available for livescores, you can refer to the Livescore page. 

Ultimately, as the developer of your livescore website, you can add any includes you desire. Whether you choose to include all available data or only specific subsets, the decision is yours to make based on the needs and preferences of your audience. Feel free to customise the request with as many or as few includes as you see fit.

Step 7: Filtering Requests

This step will explore advanced requests, explicitly focusing on filtering data to meet specific criteria. Let’s consider a scenario where you’re only interested in goals scored and cards on your livescore website.

We can implement a filter to exclude all other event data to ensure that our page only displays the goals and cards in the matches. 

To achieve this, we’ll apply a filter to our request by adding `&filters=eventTypes:14,19,20,21` to the URL. This filter instructs the API only to return the goals (type ID: 14), yellowcards (type ID: 19), redcards (type ID: 20), yellowredcards (type ID: 21) of the matches on your livescore website. 

Here’s an example of how to incorporate the filter into your request:

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/inplay?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN&include=events.type&filters=eventTypes:14,19,20,21

By utilising filtering capabilities, we can tailor the data retrieved from the API to match the specific needs and preferences of our livescore website. For further details on filtering techniques, refer to our dedicated filter tutorial for additional guidance.