First Import - Sports API Hub Docs

After connecting to the API, you are ready to bring sports data into your site. This guide walks you through importing your first league and season — from browsing the API hierarchy to seeing games, teams, and players in the WordPress admin.

Admin Menu: API & Import > Import

Prerequisite: Complete the API Setup guide before proceeding. You need a working API key and at least one sport enabled.

🗂️ Understanding the API Hierarchy

The sports API organizes data in a tree structure. Understanding this hierarchy helps you find the right league and season to import.

Category (country)
  └── League (competition)
        └── Season (year-specific edition)

For example:

• Category: USA
• League: NBA
• Season: NBA 2025/26

You always import at the season level. A season contains all the fixtures, teams, players, and standings for that competition year.

📥 Step 1: Browse and Select a Season

1. Go to API & Import > Import
2. If you have multiple sports enabled, select one from the sport tabs at the top
3. The first time you visit the Import page for a sport, click Load Leagues from API to fetch the full league catalog. This runs in two steps — loading leagues for each country, then loading seasons for each league. Wait for both steps to complete
4. The browse panel now shows countries and their leagues. Use the Country filter or search to find a league
5. Click a league to see its available seasons — for example, “NBA”
6. Click the Import button next to a season to open the import modal

After clicking Load Leagues from API, the plugin fetches leagues for each country and then loads their seasons:

Season Capability Badges

Each season row in the browse panel may show letter badges indicating what data is available from the API:

Badge	Meaning	What It Enables
P	Player Stats	Per-game box scores with individual player statistics
T	Team Stats	Per-game team statistics (shooting percentages, rebounds, etc.)
E	Events / Incidents	Play-by-play timeline (scoring plays, periods, timeouts)
H	Highlights	YouTube video highlights linked to games

These badges are auto-detected the first time you browse a season. Major leagues like the NBA typically have all four badges. Smaller leagues may have fewer.

Step 2: Configure and Start the Import

After clicking the import icon on a season, the import modal opens. Here you select which tasks to run.

For your first import, select the following tasks:

1. Hierarchy — creates the league and season records in your database (fast, a few seconds)
2. Fixtures — imports all scheduled and finished games for the season (batches of 30 per API call)
3. Teams — fetches team details including logos, colors, and venue information
4. Finished Details — downloads full game data: match details, box scores (lineups), and optionally team statistics, incidents, and highlights
5. Rosters — imports team rosters with player details (positions, jersey numbers, photos)
6. Standings — fetches league standings tables

Click Start Import to add these tasks to the queue. The tasks run in the correct order automatically — you do not need to start them one at a time.

Step 3: Monitor Progress

Once the import starts, the task queue appears at the top of the Import page. Each season shows task badges (HIER, FIX, FIN, ROST, TEAM, STND, CUP) with their current status. The queue header shows overall progress — for example, “7/60 done, 1 running, 52 queued”.

You can Pause, Cancel All, or Cancel individual seasons. The currently running task shows a progress message — for example, “Fetching highlights (500/651)”.

You can leave the Import page open while the tasks run. If you navigate away, running tasks will stop — but you can return to the Import page and start them again. Already-imported data will not be duplicated.

🔍 Step 4: Verify Your Data

Once the import completes, check the results in the admin.

Games

Go to Hub Data > Games to see all imported games. The list shows each game’s date, teams (with logos), score, status, and league. Use the filters at the top to narrow by sport, league, season, or status.

Teams and Players

Go to Hub Data > Teams and Hub Data > Players. These entities were auto-created during the import. Teams include logos and colors; players include positions, jersey numbers, and photos (when available from the API).

Frontend Pages

Click the View link on any game, team, or player in the admin list to open its frontend page. These pages are generated automatically using the Layout Builder with default layouts for each entity type and sport.

Batch Import: Multiple Seasons

You do not need to import seasons one at a time. You can select multiple seasons and queue them all at once — the plugin processes them sequentially.

1. In the browse panel, click the import icon on a season to open the modal
2. Select your tasks and click Start Import
3. While the first season imports, open another season’s import modal and start it too
4. New tasks are added to the end of the queue

This is useful when importing multiple seasons from the same league (e.g., NBA 2024/25 and 2023/24) or seasons from different leagues.

Additional Import Tasks

Beyond the core tasks recommended above, several optional tasks can add more depth to your data:

Task	What It Imports	When to Use
Cup Trees	Knockout bracket data	Only for tournaments with playoff brackets (NBA Playoffs, March Madness, etc.)
Kickoff Times	Updated game schedule times	If games have been rescheduled since the initial fixture import
Re-update	Refreshes already-imported game details	If API data has been corrected (stat fixes, missing incidents added)
Highlights	YouTube video highlights for finished games	After finished details — adds video highlights to game pages

Import Pipeline Summary

The recommended order for a complete first import:

1. Hierarchy — categories, leagues, and season structure
2. Fixtures — all games (schedules + scores)
3. Teams — team logos, colors, and venue information
4. Finished Details — box scores, statistics, and play-by-play for completed games
5. Rosters — team rosters with player details
6. Standings — league standings tables

Steps 1-4 are essential for a fully functional site. Steps 5-6 add depth and are recommended but optional.

Tips for Getting Started

• Start small. Import one season from one league. Explore the data in admin and on the frontend before importing more leagues.
• Check your API usage. After importing, visit your RapidAPI dashboard to see how many requests you used. This helps you plan for larger imports.
• Enable background sync later. Once you have data imported, you can enable Background Sync to keep scores, standings, and rosters updated automatically.
• Use shortcodes to display data. After importing, try embedding a shortcode like [anwphub-games] or [anwphub-standings] on any page to see your data in action.

What’s Next

Now that you have data imported, here are the recommended next steps:

• Learn about the import system — see Import & Sync for a detailed guide to all import tasks and background sync
• Customize your pages — use the Layout Builder to rearrange blocks on game, team, player, and season pages
• Add shortcodes — embed shortcodes to show games, standings, brackets, and calendars on any page or post
• Configure import options — in API & Import > API Config, you can toggle which sub-data to fetch (lineups, team statistics, incidents, highlights)

Related

• API Setup — Configure the API connection before importing
• Import & Sync — Detailed guide to the import page and all task types
• Import Tasks — Full reference for each import task
• Shortcodes — 13 shortcodes for displaying imported data
• API Config — Import sub-options and API connection settings