Known issues

Places where the API behaves differently from its older documentation, or in surprising ways. All were measured on 5 Oct 2026.

Limits

• v2 "Limit" values aren't the real limits.
• Every v2 lookup is documented with "Limit: 1", but list-like lookups return many records: lookup/player_stats returned 315, lookup/event_lineup 22.
• filter/tv/day (287) and filter/tv/sport (189) returned more than their documented 100.
• search/team returned 12 against a documented 10.
• schedule/next/league and schedule/previous/league returned 20 against 10.
• Some free-key results are lower than documented: all_leagues.php returned 5 (documented 10), search_all_leagues.php 5 (10), eventsseason.php 5 (15).
• The free keys get fewer fields from all_leagues.php: strLeagueAlternate is missing.

Keys

• A second free key, 3, still works, with the same limits as 123.
• Wrong keys get HTTP 400, with a "premium" message even on v1. The old example keys 1 and 2 no longer work.

Responses

• Record keys don't always match their content: eventslast.php returns events under results; search_all_leagues.php returns leagues under countries.
• "No results" has three forms (null, an empty body, {"Message":"No data found"}), all with HTTP 200.
• Rejected parameters come back with HTTP 200 and the error text where the records belong: {"seasons":"Invalid League ID passed"}.
• v2 search sends ids as numbers. Every other endpoint sends text.

Endpoints

• eventstv.php with a= (country) but no s= (sport) returns an empty body. eventstv.php?id= takes a channel id, not an event id.
• v2 search/event needs the exact stored event name. v1 searchevents.php matches looser input such as Arsenal_vs_Chelsea.
• livescore.php (v1) is undocumented but works. The free keys get the full live feed (51 games, the same as premium), and l= is ignored.

The official OpenAPI files

TheSportsDB publishes v1 and v2 OpenAPI files. Compared with the API: - Missing endpoints that work and are documented in HTML: v1 searchfilename.php, playerresults.php and lookupplayerstats.php; v2 lookup/player_results, lookup/player_stats and filter/tv/channelid. - Missing parameters: eventstv.php c= and id=; search_all_seasons.php description=1. - Only there: v2 list/seasonposters/{idLeague}, which isn't in the HTML documentation. - Fields that are no longer sent: idSoccerXML, intStadiumCapacity, strTweet2, strTweet3, intEventScore, intEventScoreTotal.

The reference on this site covers all of these.

Data

• An event's strLeague can be an old name for its idLeague (e.g. Colombia Categoría Primera A for the league now called Colombian Liga DIMAYOR). Match leagues by id.
• strWeather is rarely filled in (1 of 901 events on 4 Oct 2026).

Legacy endpoints

These aren't in the current documentation. They answer the free keys but return HTTP 404 (an HTML page) to premium keys, so an app built on the free key can break when it upgrades.

Removed endpoints that return 404 to every key: lookuplineups.php (use lookuplineup.php) and eventsvs.php. These searches no longer answer: searchteams.php?sname= (short code) and searchplayers.php?t= (by team) both return an empty body. Use lookup_all_players.php?id={teamId} for a squad.