The World Wide Leader in Sports Leaves Developers in a World of Hurt as ESPN Closes Public API

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

ESPN has announced that it is closing its public API and will no longer be issuing public API keys. Developers utilizing the ESPN API with a public API key will continue to do so until Monday, December 8, 2014, at which point the keys will no longer be active.

ESPN launched the ESPN Developer Center in March 2012 and according to the company has evolved, “the capabilities and direction of our API program have continued to evolve in order to serve sports fans in the best way possible.” This evolution now includes taking away developers API access.

According to a ESPN statement, “As part of that evolution, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our public APIs, which will enable us to better align engineering resources with the growing demand to develop core ESPN products on our API platform.”

In the past ESPN has grouped access of its API’s into 3 groups:

- Internal (ESPN) - ESPN employees and contractors using the API to build ESPN apps;

-Strategic Partner - strategic partners working w/ ESPN to include ESPN content in their products/services;

- Public - independent, pre-approved developers using ESPN content according to our Terms and Conditions.

Among the public API’s available from ESPN were streaming of ESPN broadcast content; access to news content; and sports star’s biographical, profile, and statistical data. As to the API’s that have been available only to ESPN “strategic partners,” there was no word on if that content will still be made available.

In an age where companies are hyperactively exploring how to monetize their API’s, the move by ESPN might seem strange, however it could be that the company has found that restricting access to API’s may provide greater monetization opportunities.