South Ark Daily Picks / Data Sources & Methodology
Data Sources & Methodology
Provider access, data provenance and the limits of a zero-dollar publication.
CFBD transition
The server integration targets CollegeFootballData.com. Before imports, authenticated /info verifies the account’s actual allowance. Current published tiers list 1,000 shared monthly calls for Free and 3,000 for approved Academic access. Academic eligibility is not assumed. Live scoreboard, CFBD weather and provider opponent-adjusted metrics require paid access and are disabled in this $0 workflow.
CFBD’s terms effective August 12, 2026 allow commercial derived analysis and reasonable factual displays, but prohibit raw database mirrors, substitute APIs and standalone bulk redistribution. The Site exposes bounded statistical summaries without raw-response access or bulk exports. Data provided by CollegeFootballData.com once connected. Provider terms and tiers may change.
Preserved historical material
Existing ESPN-derived rows and previous snapshots remain privately retained for history and reconciliation. Their rights for expanded public statistical redistribution have not been verified, so legacy raw-statistical endpoints are disabled. Original editorial articles and timestamped derived picks retain source attribution and archived status.
Forecasts & availability
National Weather Service hourly forecasts are requested server-side using verified venue coordinates where supported. Injuries require dated, identified, official reports; absence of a report means unavailable, not healthy. Neither factor receives an invented numerical adjustment.
Cadence
Hourly automation with daily statistics and line snapshot gates; six-hour score/schedule cache during game windows; next week releases Sunday or Monday after current-week finals are confirmed. No 30-second provider feed. Visitors do not trigger CFBD requests. Quota reserve, caching and errors can delay any update. The data-health page reports actual activation and timestamps.
Private NBA & NHL research database
A finite TheSportsDB collection adds partial upcoming fixtures. It contains 49 NBA and 50 NHL games, largely preseason. Free responses are capped; missing player statistics and biased sampling prevent current forecast eligibility. Source records are private, and forecasts do not train on these partial rows. TheSportsDB documentation · Terms.
API-SPORTS NBA & NHL connection
API-Basketball v1 is selected for schedules, final scores, team box scores and player-game statistics. API-HOCKEY is selected for NHL schedules, final scores and team statistics. Private imports require a server credential and verified account coverage. Source records, player logs, standings and team tables are not published or exportable; public pages show only original matchups and model outputs. API-SPORTS does not itself grant publication rights; the publisher must verify any required permissions. NHL player/goalie statistics have not been verified and remain unavailable. NBA also reads SportsDataverse/hoopR published NBA schedule research assets from their public releases, with attribution to their upstream source; no direct ESPN queries are made. A daily private league schedule/results collector is enabled for this noncommercial research project. Public endpoints expose bounded matchup schedules and independently calculated estimates, with no raw statistics export. See /api/schedule?sport=nba and /api/schedule?sport=nhl; persisted coverage and errors determine availability. API-SPORTS terms · Actual connection status.
Preserved professional source review · October 8, 2026
NFL: nflverse
CC BY 4.0. Conditional downloads; 8 calls/day and 200/month local cap; source has no published guaranteed SLA. Source and terms →
NBA: FiveThirtyEight historical archive
CC BY 4.0 publication with attribution. 2013–2015 game scores only. NBA API production use disabled: NBA terms restrict betting use and comprehensive statistics databases. Source and terms →
NHL: NHL API / FiveThirtyEight archive
Permission required for expanded public use of NHL feed. Official feed access failed. Historical archive returned HTML. No current or historical NHL statistics loaded. Source and terms →
MLB: Retrosheet
Attribution-required reuse including commercial use. 2023–2025 regular-season scores. StatsAPI / Statcast public publication disabled pending permission; no current lineups, pitchers or player logs. Source and terms →
Retrosheet attribution: The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.
NFL data: nflverse, CC BY 4.0; transformations and independently calculated projections by South Ark Daily Picks. NBA archival scores: FiveThirtyEight, underlying attribution Basketball-Reference, CC BY 4.0 publication. No provider model forecasts are presented as our model.
Optional odds providers, separately reviewed
The Odds API at the-odds-api.com offers 500 free monthly credits; one US-region h2h request costs one credit. Current player props are available where covered, but event and market requests consume credits. This adapter remains disabled; the active budgeted provider is SportsGameOdds. Raw redistribution is prohibited; no browser key or raw odds API is exposed.
The distinct theoddsapi.com site advertises 25 free daily requests for NFL, NBA and MLB h2h, with paid tiers for more markets. The established provider publishes an unauthorized-reseller warning concerning that domain. We have not enabled it because data rights are unresolved.
SportsGameOdds
Server-only SportsGameOdds supplies selected timestamped game lines and player prop prices where account coverage permits. Current terms allow end-user display as part of applications providing independent value; standalone data feeds, bulk downloads and database redistribution remain disabled. Odds are cached observations, not our forecasts. See the odds board for actual connection health and the 1,800-object rolling target, 2,000-object hard stop and 500-object provider reserve. No paid plan is activated.
Cost controls
No new paid service has been activated. Existing hosting and R2 are reused. CFBD retains its local 350 monthly reservation ceiling within the account allowance; NFL uses 8 daily / 200 monthly conditional-request caps. Historical backfills are manual and finite. Runtime reads cached snapshots. Free hosting/storage limits must be checked against the owner account; unlimited traffic is not promised.