io.github.cyanheads/sports-mcp-server

---

Overview

Live and historical sports data from ESPN, MLB StatsAPI, and TheSportsDB. Look up teams and players, check scores, schedules, and standings across NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and major soccer leagues from any MCP client. Runs as a stdio process or a local Streamable HTTP server.

Tools

Tool	Description
sports_find_team	Resolve a team name or partial name to canonical records and source IDs across providers.
sports_find_player	Resolve a player name to canonical TheSportsDB records with ID, team, position, and bio fields.
sports_get_scores	Live and final scores for a league on a given date, optionally filtered by team.
sports_get_schedule	Upcoming and past fixtures for a team or league over a date range.
sports_get_standings	Current standings or league table for a league and season.
sports_get_team	Team detail combining metadata, roster, recent results, and upcoming fixtures.
sports_get_player	Player details from TheSportsDB — biography, team, position, and physical stats.

Capability reference

sports_find_team _tool

• Free-text query (non-whitespace, max 200 characters) with an optional league filter to narrow the search
• Searches TheSportsDB, ESPN, and MLB StatsAPI, then deduplicates matches by display name, merging cross-source IDs into one record
• Returns full name, abbreviation, location, logo URL, venue, and espnId/mlbId/tsdbId cross-references per match
• no_match error when no team matches the query across any source

---

sports_find_player _tool

• Free-text query (max 200 characters) plus an optional sport hint — advisory only, since TheSportsDB has no server-side sport filter and matches return regardless of its value
• Returns player_id, full name, current team, position, nationality, birth date, and thumbnail URL
• no_match error when no player matches in TheSportsDB

---

sports_get_scores _tool

• league required; date (YYYY-MM-DD) defaults to today; optional team_name filters to one team's game
• Routes NFL/NBA/NHL/soccer to ESPN, MLB to MLB StatsAPI
• Returns home/away teams, score, status (scheduled/in-progress/final/postponed/cancelled), period or clock, and UTC start time
• No games scheduled returns games: [] with a reason string instead of an error

---

sports_get_schedule _tool

• league required; optional team_name, and date_from/date_to (YYYY-MM-DD, inclusive)
• Fetches from ESPN or MLB StatsAPI depending on league, applying the date range server-side where the provider supports it
• Returns opponent, home/away score, status, UTC start time, venue, and source per game
• team_not_found error when team_name doesn't resolve to a team in the league

---

sports_get_standings _tool

• league required; optional season (4-digit year) — omit for the current season
• Returns rank, wins, losses, ties, points (NHL/soccer), winning percentage, division rank, streak, and games behind per team
• No season given and no data available returns empty standings with an enrichment notice instead of an error; an explicit season with no data throws season_not_found

---

sports_get_team _tool

• league and team_name required (fuzzy match on name, abbreviation, or location)
• Returns team metadata, active roster, up to 5 recent completed results, and up to 3 upcoming fixtures
• MLB teams source roster and schedule from MLB StatsAPI; all other leagues use ESPN
• team_not_found error when team_name doesn't resolve in the league

---

sports_get_player _tool

• player_id accepts a tsdb:-prefixed ID (from sports_find_player) or a raw numeric TheSportsDB ID
• Returns bio, current team, position, nationality, birth date, height, weight, career description, and thumbnail URL
• player_not_found error when the ID doesn't resolve to a player

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 3) — no required API credentials
• Internal league routing table sends each query to the best source per sport; callers never reference an upstream API directly
• Normalized output types across all sources — NormalizedGame, NormalizedTeam, NormalizedPlayer, NormalizedStanding — with source provenance on every record
• Cross-source team IDs merged onto one canonical record by sports_find_team, deduplicated by display name
• Graceful off-season handling — empty standings return an enrichment notice rather than an error; empty scoreboards return games: [] with a reason string

Agent-friendly output:

• Source provenance on every record — source: 'espn' | 'mlbstats' | 'thesportsdb' — so agents can reason about data authority
• Structured reason field on empty score responses, and an enrichment notice on off-season standings, so agents can explain results without treating them as errors
• Cross-source IDs surfaced by sports_find_team — espnId, mlbId, tsdbId — for downstream routing without re-resolving names
• Typed error reasons (no_match, team_not_found, player_not_found, season_not_found) each carrying an actionable recovery hint

Getting started

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sports": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/sports-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sports": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/sports-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sports": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/sports-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).
• No API keys required — ESPN and MLB StatsAPI are fully keyless; TheSportsDB ships with a free public test key (3).

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/sports-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd sports-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env to override defaults (all optional)

Configuration

Variable	Description	Default
THESPORTSDB_API_KEY	TheSportsDB API key. Replace with a paid key for higher rate limits.	3
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE	Transport: stdio or http.	stdio
MCP_HTTP_PORT	Port for HTTP server.	3010
MCP_SESSION_MODE	HTTP session mode: stateful, stateless, or auto (resolves to stateful). The server declares stateless in source; an explicit value here overrides it.	stateless
MCP_AUTH_MODE	Auth mode: none, jwt, or oauth.	none
MCP_LOG_LEVEL	Log level (RFC 5424).	info
LOGS_DIR	Directory for log files (Node.js only).	<project-root>/logs
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry instrumentation.	false

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http
  

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec
  

Docker

docker build -t sports-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -p 3010:3010 sports-mcp-server

The Dockerfile 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. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

Directory	Purpose
src/index.ts	createApp() entry point — registers tools and inits services.
src/config	Server-specific environment variable parsing (THESPORTSDB_API_KEY).
src/services/types.ts	Normalized cross-source types and league routing table.
src/services/espn	ESPN site API service — scores, schedules, standings, teams.
src/services/mlb	MLB StatsAPI service — scores, schedules, standings, rosters.
src/services/thesportsdb	TheSportsDB service — player and team search/metadata.
src/mcp-server/tools	Tool definitions (*.tool.ts).
tests/	Unit and integration tests mirroring src/.
docs/	Design doc and directory tree.

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:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.