🏈 ESPN News Monitor: Keyword Alerts

Track the ESPN stories that matter to your work. Find public ESPN articles about teams, athletes, leagues, injuries, transfers, and topics. Run a one-off search or monitor new matches on a schedule.

🔎 Keyword matches See the exact terms and snippets that made an article relevant.

📡 New-story alerts Keep a named monitor and return only new or changed matches.

🏷️ Sports context Keep league, team, athlete, topic, and publication details together.

📄 Clean exports Use one flat article row in spreadsheets, databases, and alert workflows.

Use this ESPN news scraper to collect current public stories from the feeds you choose. Match words or phrases in headlines, descriptions, or eligible public article text. The output keeps the source link and context so you can decide what deserves attention.

🎯 What you can do

• I am a sports editor tracking player, transfer, and injury news before I plan coverage.
• I am a fantasy or betting analyst watching team and athlete mentions without manually opening every current feed.
• I am a media analyst collecting article links and publication times for a sports news dashboard.
• I am a data product manager adding current ESPN news signals to an existing workflow without maintaining a source-specific collector.

🚀 How to use it

STEP 1 Choose feeds Select an ESPN sport and league feed, such as NFL or NBA.

STEP 2 Set your signal Add keywords, exclusions, and the parts of each article you want checked.

STEP 3 Monitor changes Reuse a state name on scheduled runs to receive only fresh or updated matches.

Leave keywords empty for a safe first run that returns current articles from the chosen feed. Add keywords once you know the signal you want to track.

🧭 Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
keywords	array of strings	No	Words or phrases to find. Leave it empty to export the selected current feed without a keyword filter.
feeds	array of objects	No	ESPN sport and league feeds to scan. The form starts with the NFL feed.
matchFields	array of strings	No	Choose whether matching checks headlines, descriptions, or public article text.
matchMode	enum	No	Return an article when any keyword matches, or only when every keyword matches.
caseSensitive	boolean	No	Enable only when the capitalization of your terms matters.
excludeKeywords	array of strings	No	Skip articles containing any excluded word or phrase.
includeArticleBody	boolean	No	Check eligible public article text for matches and snippets. Premium article text is not collected.
publishedAfter	string	No	Keep only articles published on or after an ISO date or date-time.
publishedBefore	string	No	Keep only articles published on or before an ISO date or date-time.
monitoringStateName	string	No	Name a persistent monitor. Reuse the same name on scheduled runs.
onlyNewMatches	boolean	No	With a monitoring state, omit articles that have not changed since the last successful run.
maxItems	integer	No	Set a safe cap on matching article records across every selected feed.

📊 Data table

Field	Type	Description
articleId	string	Stable ESPN identifier used for deduplication and monitoring.
headline	string	Public article headline.
description	string	Public summary when ESPN provides one.
url	string	Source article link.
sport and league	string	ESPN feed context that returned the article.
teams, athletes, and topics	array	Public context labels supplied with the article.
publishedAt and lastModifiedAt	string	Source publication and update times when available.
premium	boolean	Whether ESPN marks the article as premium.
matchedKeywords	array	Your words or phrases that matched the article.
keywordMatches and snippets	array	Match location, occurrence count, and a short source excerpt.
changeType	string	NEW, UPDATED, or UNCHANGED when a named monitor is used.
firstSeenAt and lastSeenAt	string	Monitoring provenance, present only for named monitoring runs.
scrapedAt	string	Time this Actor collected the record.

Example output:

{
  "articleId": "49486537",
  "headline": "Eddie Howe set to leave Newcastle - sources",
  "url": "https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49486537/eddie-howe-set-leave-newcastle-sources",
  "sport": "soccer",
  "league": "all",
  "teams": ["Newcastle United"],
  "matchedKeywords": ["Newcastle"],
  "headlineMatchCount": 1,
  "premium": false,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-30T08:45:00.000Z"
}

🗂️ Output views

• 📰 Matched articles: a concise current-news table for daily research.
• 🏷️ Match details: the keywords, counts, and snippets behind every match.
• 📡 Monitoring status: change states and first-seen or last-seen times for scheduled work.

💰 Pricing

Pricing is based on saved article records. Empty runs cost nothing, and there are no subscriptions. The price is shown in the Apify run panel before you start a paid run.

⭐ Enjoying ESPN News Monitor: Keyword Alerts?

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Did the monitor help you spot an ESPN story before it slipped past? A rating helps sports researchers and media teams find this Actor. It also shows us which monitoring workflows to improve next.

★  Rate this Actor on Apify

❓ FAQ

Can I scrape ESPN news by keyword?

Yes. Add one or more words or phrases and choose where they should be checked. The Actor returns the matched terms and short snippets so you can review why each article appeared.

Can I monitor new ESPN injury, transfer, or team news?

Yes. Give the run a monitoringStateName, reuse it on a schedule, and switch on onlyNewMatches. The first successful run creates the baseline. Later runs return new or updated matching articles.

Does this include ESPN+ article text?

No. The Actor keeps public metadata for an article marked premium, but it does not collect premium article text.

How much ESPN history can I collect?

ESPN's public feeds are current and bounded. This Actor is designed for ongoing monitoring and current-news collection, not a complete historical archive.

⚖️ Public-data scope

This Actor collects publicly available ESPN news metadata and eligible public text. Keep source links and attribution in downstream work. You are responsible for following ESPN terms, copyright rules, and applicable law.

🔗 Other actors

• Cricket Data API: ESPNcricinfo StatsGuru Export ↗ - export structured cricket records and player statistics.
• ⚽ SofaScore Scraper: Live scores, stats and fixtures ↗ - collect live events, fixtures, and sports statistics.
• 🛰️ Telegram Channel Delta Monitor ↗ - track new public channel posts and changes over time.
• 🧵 Threads Monitor: Public Post Changes ↗ - monitor public Threads mentions and post updates.
• Layoff Signal Monitor: Unified Corporate Disclosures & WARN Act Tracking ↗ - track business signals through recurring public-disclosure monitoring.