# Introduction

#### 🌍 Overview

Sportmonks Football API 3.0 is built for flexibility, accuracy, and speed.\
It offers:

* **Highly customisable requests** – filter, include, and select exactly what you need.
* **Fast livescores** – get near real-time updates from leagues worldwide.
* **Reliable, verified data** – trusted by thousands of developers and businesses.

In addition to the Football API, Sportmonks also offers:

* 🧠 **Prediction API** – machine learning–powered match probabilities and value bets.
* 🗞 **News API** – sports headlines and articles for enriched content.
* 🧩 **Football Widgets** – ready-made, embeddable components.
* 🏏 **Cricket API** and 🏎 **Formula 1 API** – part of our growing sports data suite.

#### 📈 Coverage

* Over **2,300 football leagues** covered.
* More than **1,350 leagues** included in the Prediction API.
* Every **continent, country, league, season, stage, round, venue, TV station, player, coach, referee, bookmaker, market, event, and fixture** has its own unique ID.
* Over **100 endpoints**, grouped under **15+ entities**, each with its own filters, includes, and examples.

#### ⚙️ API Structure

Sportmonks API 3.0 is built around structured *entities*. Each entity represents a data type (like teams, fixtures, or players) and provides multiple endpoints for different operations.

Example entities include:

* **Fixtures** — match data, events, and statistics.
* **Teams** — squads, stats, and performance metrics.
* **Players** — personal data, stats, transfers, and more.
* **Standings** — league tables and rankings.

> 💡 Each entity has a rate limit calculated over all its endpoints.\
> You can read more in our [Rate Limit guide](https://docs.sportmonks.com/football/api/rate-limit).

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#### 🧭 Getting Started

We’ve built tutorials and guides to help you quickly integrate the API into your project.\
Start with:

1. **Authentication** — learn how to authenticate using your API token.
2. **Making your first request** — see step-by-step examples of a live API call.
3. **Request Options** — customise your queries with filtering, sorting, and includes.

Example:

```bash
curl "https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/leagues?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN"
```

This request returns all leagues available in your subscription, including their names, IDs, and metadata.

#### 🧰 Developer Resources

* **Best Practices** — learn how to optimise calls and sync data efficiently.
* **Demo Response Files** — preview real JSON responses before integrating.
* **Guides & Tutorials** — deep dives into live data, statistics, and widgets.

#### 🚀 Ready to Build?

You can jump right in with our tutorials or Postman collection to start experimenting:

> 👉 [**Run in Postman**](https://app.gitbook.com/u/IUBUJiafDZcMtsn0kjaw4GNJJwA2)


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.sportmonks.com/v3/tutorials-and-guides/tutorials/introduction.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.