ESPN scores, standings and teams in n8n
Pull live and recent scores, league standings, team rosters, news headlines, and full game boxscores for NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, Premier League, La Liga, F1, UFC, PGA Golf, ATP Tennis, and more.
What this workflow does
Import it and n8n runs the ESPN Scores, Standings, Teams & News by League Actor on Apify every day at 08:00 with the starter input below. Each row comes back with mode, sport, league, name and 7 more. A Google Sheets append is included and stays off until you add your sheet. The only credential it needs is your Apify API token.
Read from the workflow file, built for ESPN Scores, Standings, Teams & News by League version 1.0.2. Updated 2026-11-14.How the rows travel
6 nodes, in the order n8n runs them. The yellow stop is the call to the Apify Actor; the dashed stop is optional.
- Daily trigger Schedule trigger
- Configure input Code
- Run Apify Actor HTTP Request
- Normalize + dedupe Code
- Rows ready No operation
- Google Sheets (optional) Google Sheets, off until you switch it on
From the Short
This workflow is the one the video points to: the number in each video opens this page.
Input
The Configure input node holds the starter input. Change it there; every setting the Actor accepts is listed below.
{
"includeTeamDetails": false,
"maxItems": 25,
"mode": "news"
}| Setting | Type | Required | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mode | string | Yes | news | What to fetch from ESPN. 10 choices. |
| league | string | No | nba | League slug. The sport is derived automatically. 36 choices. |
| leagues | array | No | – | Optional multi-league override for modes that iterate leagues (scoreboard, odds, standings, teams, teamDetail, news, players, schedule, rankings), e.g. ["nba","nfl"]. |
| datePreset | string | No | today | Date window for scoreboard and odds. ESPN accepts one date per request, so ranges are fetched one day at a time. One of: today, tomorrow, yesterday, last7Days, next7Days, custom. |
| startDate | string | No | – | First date for datePreset=custom, in YYYYMMDD or YYYY-MM-DD. |
| endDate | string | No | – | Last date for datePreset=custom (inclusive), in YYYYMMDD or YYYY-MM-DD. Maximum 366 days. |
| season | integer | No | – | ESPN season year for standings, schedule, players and rankings (e.g. 2025). Leave blank for the current season. |
| seasonType | string | No | – | Filter a team schedule by season phase (ignored for soccer schedules, which ESPN reports as one league season). One of: preseason, regular, postseason. |
| teamIds | array | No | – | Teams for teams/teamDetail/schedule/players. Accepts 2, BOS or nba/BOS. Get IDs from mode=teams. |
| eventIds | array | No | – | Games for gameDetail/odds. Accepts 401909904 or nba/401909904. Get IDs from mode=scoreboard. |
| athleteQueries | array | No | – | Player names to search, e.g. ["LeBron James", "Jannik Sinner"]. |
| athleteIds | array | No | – | ESPN athlete IDs for direct profiles, e.g. ["1966"]. |
| rankingType | string | No | all | Which poll to return. 'all' includes every poll ESPN publishes for the league. One of: all, ap, coaches, cfp, pound-for-pound. |
| statusFilter | string | No | all | Filter scoreboard, odds or schedule rows by game state. One of: all, pre, in, post. |
| liveOnly | boolean | No | false | Keep only in-progress games (scoreboard and odds). |
| newsScope | string | No | league | League news is capped at 50 articles by ESPN. Global pages the ESPN now feed and filters to the selected league. One of: league, global. |
| includeTeamDetails | boolean | No | true | Fetch each team's record, venue and next event. Adds one request per team. |
| includeGameDetails | boolean | No | false | Attach the full game summary to every team-sport game. Adds one request per game. |
| includePlayerStats | boolean | No | false | Attach latest season stats to player rows and the player box score to gameDetail. Adds requests per player. |
| includeGameLog | boolean | No | false | Attach the current-season game log to each player. Adds one request per athlete. |
| includePlayByPlay | boolean | No | false | Include the full play-by-play list in gameDetail (scoring plays are always included). |
| maxItems | integer | No | 50 | Hard cap on data records. Notice rows explain unsupported or empty requests. |
What each row holds
Every field the Actor returns stays in the row (11 in its dataset schema). Normalize + dedupe trims text, drops empty fields and adds _source and _scrapedAt. The main fields:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| mode | Mode |
| sport | Sport |
| league | League |
| name | Name |
| status | Status |
| homeTeam | Home Team |
| awayTeam | Away Team |
| homeScore | Home Score |
| awayScore | Away Score |
| date | Date |
What the first run costs
With the starter input (maxItems = 25) a first run costs about $0.42 on the Apify Free plan: $0.40 to start the run at 4 GB of memory and $0.02 for the results, plus platform usage.
The Actor lists $0.99 per 1,000 results; its catalogue page breaks the price down by Apify plan. The Apify Free plan includes $5 of usage a month.
The Actor behind it
ESPN Scores, Standings, Teams & News by League: Pull live and recent scores, league standings, team rosters, news headlines, and full game boxscores for NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, Premier League, La Liga, F1, UFC, PGA Golf, ATP Tennis, and more.
The same job from an AI agent
The matching agent skill gives Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents the same Actor, input and fields. Install it in one line:
npx skills add https://scraperfinder.com --skill espn-scores-standings-teams-and-news-by-league The eSPN scores, standings and teams skill, with manual install and run steps
Questions people ask
How do I import this workflow into n8n?
Copy https://scraperfinder.com/n8n/espn-scores-standings-teams-and-news-by-league.json. In n8n, open a new workflow, click the three-dot menu, choose Import from URL and paste it. Or download the JSON file and use Import from File; both give the same 6 nodes.
Do I need an Apify account?
Yes. The workflow calls the ESPN Scores, Standings, Teams & News by League Actor through the Apify API with your own token, and each run is billed to your Apify account. The Free plan includes $5 of usage a month.
What does a run cost?
With the starter input (maxItems = 25) a first run costs about $0.42 on the Apify Free plan: $0.40 to start the run at 4 GB of memory and $0.02 for the results, plus platform usage. The Actor's Store page shows the current price.
Can I change what it collects?
Yes: edit the input object in the Configure input node. The Actor takes 22 settings; the table on this page lists each one with its default. Raise maxItems once the first rows look right.
Does it work without Google Sheets?
Yes. The rows wait in the Rows ready node, so you can connect any other node there: a database, Airtable, a webhook or an email. The Google Sheets node is only one option.
Workflow updated 2026-11-14