If you're a CS student trying to break into sports tech, stop grinding LeetCode for a second and build something with real sports data.

Here are 5 APIs that'll give you a massive head start:

1. Sportradar — The gold standard. Real-time scores, player stats, odds data. Most major sportsbooks and media companies use this under the hood.

2. ESPN API — Unofficial but incredibly useful. Scores, standings, and team data across every major league. Perfect for side projects.

3. Stathead / Basketball Reference — Historical stats going back decades. If you want to build ML models predicting player performance, this is your training data.

4. The Odds API — Aggregates betting odds from dozens of bookmakers. Great for building arbitrage finders or odds comparison tools.

5. Strava API — If you're into fitness/endurance sports tech, Strava's API gives you access to activity data, segments, and leaderboards.

The key is to actually build with these. A portfolio project using real sports data will get you further in a sports tech interview than 500 solved LeetCode problems.

I teach CS/IT students how to build real sports tech products inside SportStack. If this is your thing, come check it out.