@cyanheads/sports-mcp-server

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

Related MCP server: Sports Hub MCP Server

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 3 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 3)

• 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 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

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

Running the server

Local development

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:

  # 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

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.