The latest articles on DEV Community by KickoffData (@kickoffdata). https://dev.to/kickoffdata https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4153918%2Fefab0751-aa55-419e-99ca-742a9b1bd70e.png https://dev.to/kickoffdata en KickoffData Thu, 01 Oct 2026 07:10:22 +0000 https://dev.to/kickoffdata/i-built-a-football-data-rest-api-lessons-from-shipping-live-scores-for-small-apps-cfm https://dev.to/kickoffdata/i-built-a-football-data-rest-api-lessons-from-shipping-live-scores-for-small-apps-cfm <p>I recently launched Kickoff Data, a REST API for football match data.</p> <h2> Who it’s for </h2> <p>Developers building livescore widgets, tipster blogs, bots, and small football apps.</p> <h2> What the API returns </h2> <ul> <li>Live and finished matches</li> <li>Fixtures and standings</li> <li>Lineups and in-play stats</li> <li>Historic seasons</li> <li>Match odds (on higher plans)</li> </ul> <h2> What I learned shipping this </h2> <ol> <li>Coverage questions beat feature lists. People ask “is league X included?” before anything else.</li> <li>Live data is really about polling, rate limits, and failure modes — not magic “real-time.”</li> <li>Docs matter more than landing-page adjectives. Time-to-first-successful-request is the conversion metric.</li> </ol> <h2> Links </h2> <p>Site: <a href="https://www.kickoffdata.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.kickoffdata.com</a><br><br> Docs: <a href="https://www.kickoffdata.com/docs" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.kickoffdata.com/docs</a></p> <p>If you’ve integrated a sports data API before, I’d love to hear what made you choose (or leave) a provider.</p> api backend saas showdev