Use live sports data in Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT with MCP

Point your AI assistant at one URL and it can answer "Which NFL games are live?" or "Who leads the Premier League match right now?" with real data. Nothing to install; each tool call counts as one API call.

Stack
MCP, Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT
Plan
Free (each tool call is one API call)
Code
mcp/ (MIT)

Updated 2026-10-07. Tested against the live API on that date. 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.

1. Get a free API key

Sign up (no card) and copy the key from the dashboard. The Free plan gives you 1,000 calls in the first 30 days, then 125 a month, at 1 request per second. Every successful REST call counts as one call.

Check the key works with one call to the live-scores endpoint:

Terminal

export REALTIME_SPORTS_API_KEY=your_key
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $REALTIME_SPORTS_API_KEY" \
  "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/v1/sports/football/leagues/nfl/events/live"

2. Add the server to your client

The server is hosted at https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/mcp (Streamable HTTP, stateless). Authenticate with your key as a Bearer header. For Claude Code run the command below; for Cursor add the JSON to ~/.cursor/mcp.json. The examples repo has ready configs for Claude Desktop, VS Code and Cline, and the MCP docs cover ChatGPT connectors.

mcp/claude-code.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Add the hosted Realtime Sports API MCP server to Claude Code.
# Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key (free at https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/signup).
claude mcp add --transport http realtime-sports https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

mcp/cursor.mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "realtime-sports": {
      "url": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

mcp/vscode.mcp.json

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "realtime-sports-api-key",
      "description": "Realtime Sports API key",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "realtime-sports": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${input:realtime-sports-api-key}" }
    }
  }
}

3. Ask questions

Try: "Which NFL games are live right now?", "Show me the college football week 6 schedule", "Summarize the scoring plays of the last Chiefs game", "What is the spread for Thursday night's game?", or "List the Lakers roster". The assistant picks among 14 read-only tools: list_leagues, get_live_events, get_events, get_event, get_plays, get_box_score, get_odds, get_schedule, list_teams, get_team, get_team_roster, search_athletes, get_injuries and get_news.

4. Test it from the command line

initialize and tools/list work without a key, so you can inspect the server before signing up. A tool call without a key returns a tool result that explains how to get one.

Terminal

curl -s https://www.realtimesportsapi.com/api/mcp \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $REALTIME_SPORTS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_live_events","arguments":{"sport":"football","league":"nfl"}}}'

Endpoints used

  • POST /api/mcp (Streamable HTTP, JSON-RPC)

Full reference: docs · OpenAPI · what each endpoint returns, by league

FAQ

Does the MCP server cost extra?
No. It uses your normal API key and each tool call counts as one call, so the Free plan works for questions.
Is it in the MCP registry?
Yes, as io.github.ahunter135/realtime-sports-api in the official MCP registry.
Can the assistant stream live updates?
No, tools answer one question at a time. For continuous updates in your own app use webhooks or the WebSocket stream.

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