College rankings and polls API

The AP Top 25, coaches polls and (college football) the College Football Playoff rankings: each ranked team with rank, previous rank, trend, record, points and first-place votes, plus others receiving votes and teams that dropped out. Latest release by default, or a past week. Data is aggregated from public sources and is typically 20-30 seconds behind live play (about 1 second after our source). There is no SLA.

Paths and parameters

GET/api/v1/sports/{sport}/leagues/{league}/rankings

Get college polls and rankings. AP Top 25, coaches polls and, for college football, the College Football Playoff rankings, FCS and Division II/III polls. Leagues: football/college-football and basketball/mens-college-basketball. Without `week`, the latest release of each poll. Each poll lists the ranked teams with record, points and first-place votes, plus others receiving votes and teams that dropped out.

  • sport (path, required): Sport slug: football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer.
  • league (path, required): League slug, e.g. nfl, college-football, nba, mens-college-basketball, mlb, nhl, eng.1, usa.1.
  • poll (query): One poll: ap, coaches, cfp, fcs, afca, or a poll id. Default: every poll.
  • week (query): A past week of the season (1-25). Default: the latest release.
  • season (query): Season year for `week` (default: current). College basketball 2026-27 = 2027.
  • seasonType (query): With `week`: 1 preseason, 2 regular season (default), 3 postseason.

Live example

Request

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $RSA_API_KEY" \
  "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/v1/sports/football/leagues/college-football/rankings?poll=ap"

Response captured from live data at 2026-11-07 13:48 UTC (refreshed every few minutes). Long arrays are trimmed; meta.rateLimit values are illustrative for a Free key. Trimmed to the top 3 of 25 ranked teams, 1 of 10 others receiving votes and 1 of 4 dropped out.

Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "1",
      "name": "AP Top 25",
      "shortName": "AP Poll",
      "type": "ap",
      "week": {
        "number": 10,
        "label": "Week 10",
        "seasonType": 2
      },
      "season": 2026,
      "date": "2026-11-01T07:00Z",
      "lastUpdated": "2026-11-01T22:08Z",
      "ranks": [
        {
          "rank": 1,
          "previousRank": 1,
          "trend": "-",
          "points": 1740,
          "firstPlaceVotes": 62,
          "record": "8-0",
          "team": {
            "id": "2390",
            "name": "Hurricanes",
            "location": "Miami",
            "displayName": "Miami Hurricanes",
            "abbreviation": "MIA",
            "conference": "ACC",
            "logo": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/images/proxy?id=GgcVSgNPTUMITUgaFFQVVVQXBVwOHV5LRQBZD1lbBllDXR0CWxFaV1xZTB9aXQpYQVRe"
          }
        },
        {
          "rank": 2,
          "previousRank": 3,
          "trend": "+1",
          "points": 1648,
          "firstPlaceVotes": 7,
          "record": "7-1",
          "team": {
            "id": "61",
            "name": "Bulldogs",
            "location": "Georgia",
            "displayName": "Georgia Bulldogs",
            "abbreviation": "UGA",
            "conference": "SEC",
            "logo": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/images/proxy?id=GgcVSgNPTUMITUgaFFQVVVQXBVwOHV5LRQBZD1lbBllDXR0CWxFaV1xZTBtYSkoYVg"
          }
        },
        {
          "rank": 3,
          "previousRank": 6,
          "trend": "+3",
          "points": 1540,
          "firstPlaceVotes": 1,
          "record": "8-0",
          "team": {
            "id": "254",
            "name": "Utes",
            "location": "Utah",
            "displayName": "Utah Utes",
            "abbreviation": "UTAH",
            "conference": "Big 12",
            "logo": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/images/proxy?id=GgcVSgNPTUMITUgaFFQVVVQXBVwOHV5LRQBZD1lbBllDXR0CWxFaV1xZTB9cUBQGX10"
          }
        }
      ],
      "othersReceivingVotes": [
        {
          "points": 79,
          "record": "0-0",
          "team": {
            "id": "77",
            "name": "Wildcats",
            "location": "Northwestern",
            "displayName": "Northwestern Wildcats",
            "abbreviation": "NU",
            "conference": "Big Ten",
            "logo": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/images/proxy?id=GgcVSgNPTUMITUgaFFQVVVQXBVwOHV5LRQBZD1lbBllDXR0CWxFaV1xZTBpeSkoYVg"
          }
        }
      ],
      "droppedOut": [
        {
          "previousRank": 19,
          "record": "0-0",
          "team": {
            "id": "2567",
            "name": "Mustangs",
            "location": "SMU",
            "displayName": "SMU Mustangs",
            "abbreviation": "SMU",
            "conference": "ACC",
            "logo": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/images/proxy?id=GgcVSgNPTUMITUgaFFQVVVQXBVwOHV5LRQBZD1lbBllDXR0CWxFaV1xZTB9cUg1YQVRe"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "count": 1,
    "note": "Latest release of each poll.",
    "rateLimit": {
      "limit": 125,
      "remaining": 124,
      "reset": 1796083200000
    }
  }
}

Fields

FieldTypeNotes
idstring
namestring
shortNamestring
typestringap, usa (coaches), cfp, fcs, afca (Division II / III)
weekobject
seasonintegerCollege basketball seasons are named by the year they end (2026-27 = 2027).
datestring
lastUpdatedstring
ranksRankEntry[]
othersReceivingVotesobject[]
droppedOutobject[]

League support

Checked against live data on 2026-10-04: 2 available, 0 limited, 0 seasonal or not verified, 27 not available.

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Code samples

curl

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $RSA_API_KEY" \
  "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/v1/sports/football/leagues/college-football/rankings?poll=ap"

JavaScript (fetch)

const res = await fetch("https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/v1/sports/football/leagues/college-football/rankings?poll=ap", {
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.RSA_API_KEY}` }
});
const { success, data, meta } = await res.json();
console.log(data, meta.rateLimit);

Python (requests)

import os, requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/v1/sports/football/leagues/college-football/rankings?poll=ap",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['RSA_API_KEY']}"},
    timeout=10,
)
body = res.json()
print(body["data"])

Each request above is 1 call. Free covers 125 calls a month after a 1,000-call first month, at 1 request/second. Starter is $29/month for 10,000 calls (about 333 a day) plus webhooks and WebSocket, so you stop polling for changes; 7-day free trial. Compare plans

Shipping a product with this data?

Polling works on every plan. Production apps usually also want events pushed to them, by webhook or WebSocket, as soon as we detect them (typically 20-30 seconds behind live play). These guides show the setup and the plan each one needs.

Rate limits and pricing

PlanPriceCallsRateWebSocketWebhooks
Free$0125/mo (1,000 first 30 days)1/s500 msgs/moNo
Starter$29/mo ($290/yr)10,000/mo5/sShares monthly poolShares monthly pool
Growth$49/mo ($490/yr)25,000/mo10/sShares monthly poolShares monthly pool
Pro$99/mo ($990/yr)50,000/mo20/s100,000 msgs/mo25,000/mo
Business$179/mo ($1,790/yr)150,000/mo40/s300,000 msgs/mo75,000/mo
Scale$299/mo ($2,990/yr)500,000/mo100/s500,000 msgs/mo100,000/mo

Every successful REST call counts as one call. Over the limit you get HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header. No SLA. Full pricing.

FAQ

What does the rankings endpoint return?
The AP Top 25, coaches polls and (college football) the College Football Playoff rankings: each ranked team with rank, previous rank, trend, record, points and first-place votes, plus others receiving votes and teams that dropped out. Latest release by default, or a past week.
Which leagues support rankings?
Verified on 2026-10-04: College Football, Men's College Basketball. Not available: 27 other leagues.
Is it free to try?
Yes. The Free plan is $0 with 125 calls per month (1,000 in the first 30 days) at 1 request per second, no card required. Every successful call counts as one call.
How fresh is the data?
Data is aggregated from public sources and is typically 20-30 seconds behind live play (about 1 second after our source). There is no SLA.
Can I get updates pushed instead of polling?
Webhooks are included on every paid plan (Starter, Growth, Pro, Business, Scale). WebSocket is included on paid plans, and the Free plan gets a 500-message monthly preview.