Sports Reference Blog

We have recently made a small, but notable, improvement to Pro Football Reference: the extension of our coverage of transactions back to 1994. Previously, our transactions coverage went back to 2002, so this update includes eight seasons of new data. This update has also allowed us to beef up our coverage of trades, which has gone back to 1994 for many years, but which had some missing transactions. On player pages, we have distinct sections for trades and transactions, but we hope to merge these into one section in the future for more ease of use (and ease of maintenance!). In addition, this new data appears on our season pages, with a page for each month of transactions. For instance, here's January of 1994's NFL transactions. And here's the well-traveled Jeff George's player page with newly fleshed out transactions data. Read the rest of this entry

We have recently made significant improvements to nearly 200 men's basketball NCAA Tournament box scores at College Basketball Reference, filling in many previously missing categories in our collection of every box score in the history of the tournament. These improvements, which span from 1947 through 1984, are most heavily concentrated between 1958 and 1984 on categories such as starting lineups, minutes played, turnovers, assists, blocked shots and steals. As you can see on our data coverage page, our coverage of every statistical category in men's NCAA Tournament games is now nearly complete all the way back to 1973-74. The main 'missing' stats are 3-pointers (which simply didn't exist) and offensive rebounds (which were not tracked). Additionally, most of the rare games for which we're missing blocks, steals, turnovers or assists were games where those categories were simply not tracked. It was up to the discretion of whichever crew was scoring games at a given site to decide what statistics they would track. So much of what is "missing" is not missing in the sense that it exists and we haven't found it, so much as it is "missing" in the sense that no one bothered to track it and it is therefore unknowable (and in a sense, not even really "missing" since it would need to have once existed in order for it to be missing). All of that is to say that we now feel like we are very close to having every NCAA tournament statistic that was actually recorded. Read the rest of this entry

We've added a new competition to FBref! The Leagues Cup, the annual competition between MLS and Liga MX teams, is now on the site! This includes the 2023-25 editions of the competition, just in time for the Seattle Sounders' triumph in the Final

One fun thing about this data update is that it increases our coverage of Lionel Messi's career. He's now up to 712 goals across all competitions on FBref.

In the blink of an eye, we’ve hit the beginning of September, which means that our summer internship program has come to a close. We were very fortunate to have another wonderful intern cohort in 2025 in our Data and Marketing Departments. Check out what our interns did over the summer and their plans for the fall!

Anne Friedman, Data Intern, graduated this past May from Scripps College where she studied Data Science, English Literature, and Spanish. She grew up reading the sports page of the newspaper every morning, and now mainly follows baseball (go Giants!), cycling, soccer, and a variety of women’s sports leagues.

This fall, she will build on the skills she developed at Sports Reference as she continues to pursue a career in sports analytics and operations. Her favorite project this summer was working with historical women’s college basketball schedule data, where she cleaned the data and developed tests to identify discrepancies, which she then researched.

Ella Chang, Marketing Intern, is a rising senior at Boston College, where she studies communication with a journalism minor. She grew up in the Philly area and proudly roots for the Eagles, Flyers, and Phillies, along with BC's sports teams.

In the fall, she’ll be busy writing her honors thesis on female collegiate athletes and working with BC Athletic Communications. Her favorite project was updating SR logos so that they reflect the new direction of SR branding.

Ethan Courtney, Marketing Intern, attends Nova Southeastern University and is majoring in Marketing. He roots for the Lakers and Florida Panthers, enjoys living in warm climates like South Florida where his college is located, and is a mentee in the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics program.

In the fall, Ethan will be finishing his last semester at Nova Southeastern. His favorite project was working on the Biggest MLB Postseason Comebacks of This Century video, which was posted on the Sports Reference YouTube channel.

Nate Mikkelson, Data Intern, is a Data Analytics student at Western Governors University with a background in healthcare and a passion for sports history. He especially enjoys uncovering stories in the numbers that connect fans more deeply to the game.

This fall, Nate will return to his full-time work as a phlebotomist while continuing his studies and seeking new opportunities in data analytics. His favorite project this summer was identifying and verifying Negro League no-hitters, combining careful research with a love of baseball’s history.

We are thrilled to announce that we have added five new seasons of box scores to College Football Reference. We now have a box score with scoring details, team stats and player passing/rushing/receiving stats for every FBS (I-A, at the time) game from 1995 to 1999. For instance, here's the box score for the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, which led to Nebraska's second consecutive national championship. Previously, our coverage was restricted to 2000 to the present. With this new update, we now have statistics for every game of Tom Brady's career, every game of Drew Brees's career, and almost every game of Peyton Manning's career (which began in 1994). The additional information also means we can calculate player and team splits for an additional five seasons. Similarly, this update extends the number of searchable seasons available in Stathead for the College Player Game Finder and the College Team Game Finder. Read the rest of this entry

Pro Football Reference has added coverage of the Greasy Neale Award, which has annually been awarded to the Coach of the Year as determined by the Maxwell Football Club since 1989. The award can be seen on the pages of winners, such as Sean McDermott in 2024, and it is listed in our awards index, as well.

We've updated Baseball Reference's Playoff Odds page to add a new stat! There's now a column showing the percentage of time that a team earns a bye!

With the new Postseason format, two teams earn a bye straight to the LDS. While the record of how those teams have done after the bye is mixed, teams still spend much of the regular season jockeying for those spots. Now, you can see your team's odds of going straight to the LDS.

Ever wondered how effective Jerry Rice was with Joe Montana throwing him the ball? How John Elway performed in the 4th quarter? Who the best short-yardage rusher was in the 1980s? What defense could never get off the field on 3rd down in the late '70s? No? Well, we're happy to announce that we've got answers for you anyways! We are thrilled to announce that Pro Football Reference now has play-by-play and related statistics/splits for all regular-season and playoffs games (with the exception of four minutes and 47 seconds of a single game) all the way back to 1978, which was the first season of the NFL's 16-game schedule era. This sort of comprehensive, digitized play-by-play is not available anywhere else in the public realm. We are very proud to be able to democratize this data and present it to our users.

Read the rest of this entry

Exciting news! We've updated our list of No-Hitters and Perfect Games to include all known major Negro League no-hitters. Major credit to our data intern Nate Mikkelson for cleaning up and organizing the data that allowed for this update!

For more information on our Negro Leagues data, and what counts as a major Negro League, head to the site.

Thanks to the work of the SABR Biographical Research Committee (and specifically to the efforts of Justin McKinney) we have added a net of one new player to major league baseball in the 1870s.

In the May/June newsletter, SABR noted

We had listed Fred William Hotchkiss Crane as playing for the Elizabeth Resolutes in 1873 and the woebegone Brooklyn Atlantics in 1875. Justin McKinney determined that these were two different players. The Elizabeth newspapers said that this player was William Crane. He had played with Elizabeth in 1872 and was called into service when Frank Fleet missed the train. For the 1875 Brooklyn games, the New York Clipper specifically stated that this was not Fred. It was Thomas Crane who had previously played with the Silver Stars. In summary, Fred Crane loses his major league status with William Crane as the 1873 Elizabeth player and Thomas Crane as the 1875 Brooklyn player. The good news about all this is that Justin was able to find William Crane. There was a William Crane of appropriate age who lived in Elizabeth and died in 1897. His obituary said that he was “an enthusiastic baseball player.” It is pretty nice to get confirmation that he was a ballplayer when he only played one game in 1873. A family tree on Ancestry provided the details of his birth.

Accordingly, we no longer list Fred Crane as a major league player and we now have pages for William Crane (1873 Elizabeth Resolutes) and Thomas Crane (1875 Brooklyn Atlantics)