Livescores

Display all livescores of your favourite leagues and teams. The livescore endpoints allow you to retrieve up-to-date livescores that interest you quickly.

🔗 Livescores vs Fixtures: When to use what

Livescores and fixtures are closely related but serve different purposes:

Use Case	Recommended Endpoint	Why
Live match tracker / scoreboard	Livescores	Lightweight, updates frequently, only active matches
Match details page	Fixtures	Complete information (venue, officials, detailed stats)
Pre-match information	Fixtures	Livescores only show matches 15 min before kickoff
Post-match analysis	Fixtures	Access full statistics and detailed data
Historical matches	Fixtures	Livescores only available during match window

💡 Best Practice: Use livescores for real-time updates in your live tracker, then fetch the full fixture when users click for details.

📖 Learn more: Fixtures Tutorial - Complete fixture data and all available endpoints

You can choose a variety of endpoints to retrieve the livescores of that particular moment.

This section will briefly discuss all the options available to request livescores.

An overview of all available options:

• GET All Inplay Livescores: returns all the inplay fixtures.

• GET All Livescores: Returns the fixtures 15 minutes before the game starts. It will also disappear 15 minutes after the game is finished.

• GET Latest Updated Livescores: returns all livescores that have received updates within 10 seconds.

For the Livescore endpoints this is the base URL:

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/ 

Per endpoint the rest of the URL requires additional information. We will explain this per endpoint.

Requesting livescores

GET All Inplay Livescores

Returns all the live fixtures. For example, if you want all leagues' matches within your subscription that will start within 15 minutes or are already live or have finished in the past 15 minutes. This comes in handy when you want all the actual games that are inplay or will be soon. Also, the matches that just ended

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/inplay

This response is different for any plan. If you are subscribed to the free plan, you will receive matches of the Danish Superliga and the Scottish Premiership.

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/inplay?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN

Response

{
  "data": {
    "id": 18535517,
    "sport_id": 1,
    "league_id": 501,
    "season_id": 19735,
    "stage_id": 77457866,
    "group_id": null,
    "aggregate_id": null,
    "round_id": 274719,
    "state_id": 5,
    "venue_id": 8909,
    "name": "Celtic vs Rangers",
    "starting_at": "2022-09-03 11:30:00",
    "result_info": "Celtic won after full-time.",
    "leg": "1/1",
    "details": null,
    "length": 90,
    "placeholder": false,
    "last_processed_at": "2023-03-02 17:47:38",
    "has_odds": true,
    "starting_at_timestamp": 1662204600
  },
//And more!  

Let’s evaluate the response:

• id: the unique fixture id

• sport_id: the sport related to the fixture

• league_id: the league the fixture belongs to

• season_id: refers to the season the fixture belongs to

• stage_id: refers to the stage the fixture is played in

• group_id: refers to the group the fixture is played in

• aggregate_id: refers to the aggregate the fixture is played at

• round_id: refers to the round the fixture is played at

• state_id: refers to the state the fixture is played at

• venue_id: refers to the venue the fixture is played at

• name: represents the name of the fixture

• starting_at: datetime object representing the start time

• result_info: textual representation of the final result info

• leg: represents the leg of the fixture

• details: represents details about the fixture

• length: length of the fixture (minutes)

• placeholder: indicates if the fixture is a placeholder

• last_processed_at: the date and time the fixture was last processed

• has_odds: indicates if the fixture has odds available

• starting_at_timestamp: the starting timestamp

Please be aware that in the livescores endpoint, the fixtures will be available 15 minutes before the match has started and 15 mins after it has ended.

Need data outside this window? Use the Fixtures endpoints to access match data at any time - before, during, or after the match.

GET All Livescores

Returns all the fixtures of the current day. This will give an overview of all the matches that will be played on the current day. The number of matches will be higher than the previous endpoint which only gives live matches and matches that will start in 15 minutes or have ended in the past 15 minutes. Therefore, this is the best endpoint to use if you want to show all matches that will happen today.

The URL to request all the fixtures of the current day is the same as the base URL All you have to do is authorize the request with your API token. Check our authentication section for more info.

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN

Response

{
  "data": {
    "id": 18535517,
    "sport_id": 1,
    "league_id": 501,
    "season_id": 19735,
    "stage_id": 77457866,
    "group_id": null,
    "aggregate_id": null,
    "round_id": 274719,
    "state_id": 5,
    "venue_id": 8909,
    "name": "Celtic vs Rangers",
    "starting_at": "2022-09-03 11:30:00",
    "result_info": "Celtic won after full-time.",
    "leg": "1/1",
    "details": null,
    "length": 90,
    "placeholder": false,
    "last_processed_at": "2023-03-02 17:47:38",
    "has_odds": true,
    "starting_at_timestamp": 1662204600
  },
//And more!  

About the response:

• The response is based on the leagues in your plan. If you're missing a specific league, check your subscription. Learn more about leagues.

• Livescores return the same data structure as fixtures - the only difference is timing. Any livescore can also be accessed via the fixtures endpoint using its ID.

GET Last Updated Livescores

Your response will be smaller than the “all livescores” response and only returns you all livescores that have received updates within 10 seconds. This way, you will see the most important changes very quickly.

All you have to do is add the latest characteristic to the base URL:

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/latest

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/latest?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN

Response

{
  "data": {
    "id": 18535517,
    "sport_id": 1,
    "league_id": 501,
    "season_id": 19735,
    "stage_id": 77457866,
    "group_id": null,
    "aggregate_id": null,
    "round_id": 274719,
    "state_id": 5,
    "venue_id": 8909,
    "name": "Celtic vs Rangers",
    "starting_at": "2022-09-03 11:30:00",
    "result_info": "Celtic won after full-time.",
    "leg": "1/1",
    "details": null,
    "length": 90,
    "placeholder": false,
    "last_processed_at": "2023-03-02 17:47:38",
    "has_odds": true,
    "starting_at_timestamp": 1662204600
  },
//And more!  

Adding useful information

As you’ve learnt in the includes tutorial, you can enrich your request with includes. This section will discuss some of the most common requests used on the livescores endpoints.

First of all, you can find a list of all available includes on the endpoint pages. The most common includes are:

• scores

• participants

• statistics.type

• events

• lineups

This results in the below request:

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/inplay?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN&include=scores;participants;statistics.type;events;lineups

57KB

celtic_rangers_scores_stats_participants_events_lineups.json

Open

Download the stats, events and lineups for Celtic - Rangers

Selecting and filtering

In our filtering tutorial you’ve learnt how to select specific fields or filter only on the data you’re interested in. Our API returns a set of data related to the fixtures by default. We can imagine you’re not interested in all the data the API returns.

Let’s say you’re only interested in the fixtures of the Danish Superliga (league id: 172).

https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/livescores/inplay?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN&filters=fixtureLeagues:172&include=league

Check our filtering tutorial for more tips and tricks.

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See also

Understanding the full picture

• Fixtures Tutorial - Complete fixture data for past, present, and future matches

• States - Understanding match states (NS, LIVE, FT, etc.)

Prerequisites

• Includes Tutorial - Learn how to enrich your requests

• Authentication - Set up your API access

Building real-time apps

• Rate Limiting - Optimise polling frequency for livescores

• Filter and Select Fields - Filter by specific leagues or fixtures

• Best Practices - Build efficient livescore applications

Related endpoints

• Livescores Endpoints - API endpoint reference

• Fixtures Endpoints - Access complete fixture data