@pipeworx/thesportsdb

TheSportsDB MCP — sports catalog across 50+ leagues: teams, players, events, venues, league tables. Free tier with public key.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1684+ live data sources.

Tools

• list_sports() / list_leagues(sport?, country?)

• search_teams(query), get_team(team_id), league_teams(league_id)

• search_players(query) / get_player(player_id)

• team_events_last(team_id) / team_events_next(team_id)

• events_by_day(date, sport?, league?)

• league_table(league_id, season?)

Related MCP server: mcp-sports

Auth

The free public tier uses API key 3 (well-known, no signup required). Pipeworx defaults to this. For higher rate limits / extra endpoints register at https://www.thesportsdb.com/ and BYO via ?_apiKey=<key>.

Data source

https://www.thesportsdb.com/api/v1/json/<apiKey>/

Match detail (event_detail, event_timeline, event_stats, event_lineup)

Four per-match tools for settling questions about a single fixture: the scoreline and venue (event_detail), goals with scorer/assist/minute plus cards and substitutions (event_timeline), team-by-team statistics (event_stats), and the starting eleven plus substitutes (event_lineup). All take a TheSportsDB event_id — find one with events_by_day, team_events_last or team_events_next.

They are NOT premium-gated — but the free tier truncates them

Measured 2026-09-12 on the free public key: all four endpoints return real data, so no key is required and none of these tools refuses for want of one.

What the free tier does do is cap each array at 5 rows, silently. On idEvent 2594568 (Bayern Munich vs Bodø/Glimt, final score 5-0) the timeline returns 5 rows, the earliest at minute 45, containing 2 goals — every first-half goal is absent. event_stats returns 5 statistics and does not include shots on goal, corners or possession. event_lineup returns 5 players. intHomeScoreHT / intAwayScoreHT come back null.

So for a settlement workload a supporter key matters — for completeness, not for access. Pass it as _apiKey.

How the tools tell you

event_timeline cross-checks the goals it can see against the event's own final score. When they disagree it returns complete: false with goals_in_timeline, goals_in_final_score and a note saying not to settle a first-scorer or half-time question from it. That is proof of truncation, not a guess. event_stats and event_lineup have no equivalent invariant, so they report complete: null when exactly 5 rows come back — which may be a whole small result or a truncated large one, and from the response alone those are indistinguishable.

Coverage is per-competition

A match the source has not covered returns found: false with a reason, never an error and never a wrong answer. The tools distinguish two cases that arrive identically from upstream (both are a bare null): no_timeline_for_event — the match exists and is named back to you, the source just has no timeline for that competition — versus no_data_and_event_unconfirmed, where the event id could not be confirmed either. For a caller settling a market those are opposite conclusions: "ask a different source" versus "you have the wrong match".

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "thesportsdb": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/thesportsdb/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/thesportsdb/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1684+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

This pack takes your own API key (_apiKey) — we don't front one for it, so there's no curl here that would run without it. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/thesportsdb_list_sports. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "thesportsdb": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-thesportsdb"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-thesportsdb

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Thesportsdb data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT