FAQ

Here some FAQs about Sports Open Data; take a look to know more about us:

What’s Sports Open Data?

Sports Open Data was a project born in June 2015 by Paolo Riva and Riccardo Quatra. This project starts by a basic need: create a platform that could provide statistics data about several sports by using best technologies currently available to deliver them (API REST). All data will be structured by using conventional standard for web and not-web (like Java) application development.

What’s an API REST?

API REST is just like a way we could provide the data to customers. Every available data on Sports Open Data could be available by a web address (a classic URL) that could allow a user to get, insert, modify or delete an information into the data (of course if a user has relative authorization to do that).


…and an example of API REST?

API REST works like we’re asking questions to Sports Open Data, so you only need to create an URL syntactically correct to get the data needed. You could see in further slides some examples about this kind of questions…


An API REST Request (1)

Q: How could i get which seasons are available for a specific soccer league on sportsopendata.net?
A: You simply build an URL like this one: http://soccer.sportsopendata.net/leagues/serie-a


An API REST Request (2)

Q: How could i get a team roster in sportsopendata.net?
A: You simply build an URL like this one: http://soccer.sportsopendata.net/teams/fc-torino

An API REST Request (3)

Q: How could i get a player profile in sportsopendata.net?
A: You simply build an URL like this one: http://soccer.sportsopendata.net/players/maxi-lopez


What should i get from an API?

To get a unique response, to be useful of course for mobile devices, it will be returned every time a JSON.


What’s a JSON?

A JSON is a data structure (like an xls or a csv file) that could be used by every kind of existed application. It’s more light than an XML, currently the classic format for data export, so it’s faster on mobile connections and make it more useful than an XML.


Why Sports Open Data?

Sports Open Data born with a specific goal: become a referal for every professional worker in professional sports by delivering data easy aggregable, by reducing elaboration data for every question you’ve about a player, a team, a league or a season.


How much is Sports Open Data?

Sports Open Data would be, and must be, a free service. A user have only to register himself on website to get a double-key authentication (ApiKey and ApiSecret) that could be user to make every kind of call by using API REST requests.


How could live S.O.D.?

Sports Open Data idea is to be supported, for every league, by a crowdfunding system (like Kickstarter): in this way it could be created an entry level lower that our competitor; in this way also who hasn’t great economic availability could be a Sports Open Data supporter. Sports Open Data also deliver, to every it supporter, a customized gadget based to support chosen.


Why I have to support S.O.D.?

Because like me, in Italy, I support Serie A service, another “me” in England could support Premier League. In this way both of us have two leagues from which get data but we’ve supported only once. Service could be more interesting much leagues are available on S.O.D.


How much it costs this service on Kickstarter?

Just thinking about our collaborators, localized for geographic area, and platform maintenance we could think about a 5000 euros for league. We could also estimate that could be sufficient 200 small supporters, with an entry level of 25 euros, to support Serie A for an entire season.


Who are “collaborators”?

Soccer world is rich of scouts that, for every kind of reason, couldn’t find a team or simply a work position. Sports Open Data offers of course visibility added to a small refund for every analysis done. More are the leagues, more could be the visibility.


Sports Open Data starts with soccer but could be catch other sports?

With our sustainability model, with adeguated profilation, every sports could be collected in Sports Open Data. Platform has been already created to support every kind of sports because we’ve already created all subdomains for our domain. So if soccer could be called by soccer.sportsopendata.net than basket could be available under basket.sportsopendata.net and so on…


Could you provide also other services?

Sports Open Data co-founders are web developer so we could be able to create, with consulency support, every kind of interface you need on S.O.D. For free we could also deliver you a series of widget that could easy insert into your website.


Which are your potential customers?

- Sports News Websites
- Professional Workers in Sports
- Teams
- Betting Websites or Betting Consulency Ws.
- Fantasy Game
- Our competitors (maybe…)
- Web agency or freelance web developer


How could evolve this product?

Sports Analysis move faster so we would like to open a specific forum for every league and sport that we’re going to deliver analysis for. This could allow us to offer data that our customers wants. And also we could feel immediately if our customers are satisfied of our service.


How could I contribute to product?

Data will be 100% free, but software not: so you can’t develop anything on Sports Open Data software if you’re not part of our developers team. Anyway you could ask for more details in our infos from our forum or you could candidate yourself as a localized scout: to do that you’ve to pass a test to check your knowledges about sports.

Have you got a question that is not here? Just contact us and we’re answering you as soon as possible.