ESPN College Football Game Predictor (BPI Matchup Predictor)
Source:R/espn_cfb_game.R
espn_cfb_game_predictor.RdGet ESPN's pre-game matchup predictor (Football Power Index game projection) for a single college football game.
Value
A data frame with one row per team-predictor metric:
| col_name | types | description |
| game_id | character | ESPN game identifier. |
| matchup_name | character | Predictor matchup name (e.g. TNTC at Georgia). |
| matchup_short_name | character | Short predictor matchup name (e.g. TNTC @ UGA). |
| last_modified | character | ISO timestamp the predictor was last run. |
| team_side | character | home or away. |
| team_id | character | ESPN team id (parsed from team_ref). |
| team_name | character | Team nickname; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_abbreviation | character | Team abbreviation; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_location | character | Team location / school name; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_display_name | character | Full team display name; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_short_display_name | character | Short team display name; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_nickname | character | Team nickname label; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_color | character | Primary team color; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_alternate_color | character | Alternate team color; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_logo_href | character | Default team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| team_logo_dark_href | character | Dark-variant team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only. |
| stat_name | character | Predictor metric key (e.g. gameProjection). |
| abbreviation | character | Metric abbreviation. |
| display_name | character | Human-readable metric name. |
| short_display_name | character | Short human-readable metric name. |
| value | numeric | Metric value. |
| display_value | character | Display-formatted metric value as shown on ESPN. |
| description | character | ESPN's description of the metric. |
| team_ref | character | $ref URL to the team-in-season resource. |
Details
Wraps the ESPN core-v2 endpoint
events/{game_id}/competitions/{game_id}/predictor. ESPN's predictor
resource carries one statistics block per team (home and away); this
wrapper flattens both into one long frame – one row per (team x predictor
metric). Metrics include each team's projected win probability
(gameProjection), predicted point total, and matchup-quality scores.
This endpoint responds HTTP 400 for future / not-yet-scheduled games
and is only reliably populated for completed games. The @examples
use a finished game; pass game_id values for completed games.
When team_detail = TRUE (the default) the ESPN team catalog
(espn_cfb_teams()) is fetched once and friendly team fields are joined
in next to the team_id column – team_name, team_abbreviation,
team_location, team_display_name, team_short_display_name,
team_nickname, team_color, team_alternate_color,
team_logo_href, and team_logo_dark_href. A catalog failure degrades
to NA
rather than erroring the wrapper. Set team_detail = FALSE to skip the
catalog fetch and the join.
See also
Other ESPN CFB Functions:
espn_cfb_award(),
espn_cfb_awards(),
espn_cfb_clear_cache(),
espn_cfb_coach(),
espn_cfb_coach_record(),
espn_cfb_coaches(),
espn_cfb_franchise(),
espn_cfb_franchises(),
espn_cfb_futures(),
espn_cfb_game_broadcasts(),
espn_cfb_game_drive_plays(),
espn_cfb_game_drives(),
espn_cfb_game_leaders(),
espn_cfb_game_odds(),
espn_cfb_game_pbp(),
espn_cfb_game_play(),
espn_cfb_game_player_box(),
espn_cfb_game_player_statistics(),
espn_cfb_game_powerindex(),
espn_cfb_game_probabilities(),
espn_cfb_game_situation(),
espn_cfb_game_status(),
espn_cfb_game_team_leaders(),
espn_cfb_game_team_linescores(),
espn_cfb_game_team_records(),
espn_cfb_game_team_roster(),
espn_cfb_game_team_statistics(),
espn_cfb_game_teams(),
espn_cfb_groups(),
espn_cfb_pbp_v2(),
espn_cfb_player(),
espn_cfb_player_career_stats(),
espn_cfb_player_eventlog(),
espn_cfb_player_gamelog(),
espn_cfb_player_overview(),
espn_cfb_player_seasons(),
espn_cfb_player_splits(),
espn_cfb_player_stats_v3(),
espn_cfb_players(),
espn_cfb_position(),
espn_cfb_positions(),
espn_cfb_powerindex(),
espn_cfb_qbr(),
espn_cfb_rankings(),
espn_cfb_recruits(),
espn_cfb_season_info(),
espn_cfb_season_types(),
espn_cfb_season_weeks(),
espn_cfb_seasons(),
espn_cfb_standings(),
espn_cfb_team(),
espn_cfb_team_ats(),
espn_cfb_team_awards(),
espn_cfb_team_coaches(),
espn_cfb_team_events(),
espn_cfb_team_leaders(),
espn_cfb_team_powerindex(),
espn_cfb_team_ranks(),
espn_cfb_team_record(),
espn_cfb_team_roster(),
espn_cfb_team_schedule(),
espn_cfb_teams(),
espn_cfb_unnest_plays(),
espn_cfb_venue(),
espn_cfb_venues(),
espn_cfb_week_rankings()
Examples
# \donttest{
try(espn_cfb_game_predictor(game_id = 401628339))
#> ── Game predictor data from ESPN ───────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:56:29 UTC
#> # A tibble: 34 × 24
#> game_id matchup_name matchup_short_name last_modified team_side team_id
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 2 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 3 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 4 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 5 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 6 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 7 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 8 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 9 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 10 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> # ℹ 24 more rows
#> # ℹ 18 more variables: team_name <chr>, team_abbreviation <chr>,
#> # team_location <chr>, team_display_name <chr>,
#> # team_short_display_name <chr>, team_nickname <chr>, team_color <chr>,
#> # team_alternate_color <chr>, team_logo_href <chr>,
#> # team_logo_dark_href <chr>, stat_name <chr>, abbreviation <chr>,
#> # display_name <chr>, short_display_name <chr>, value <dbl>, …
try(espn_cfb_game_predictor(game_id = 401628339, team_detail = FALSE))
#> ── Game predictor data from ESPN ───────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:56:29 UTC
#> # A tibble: 34 × 14
#> game_id matchup_name matchup_short_name last_modified team_side team_id
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 2 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 3 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 4 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 5 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 6 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 7 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 8 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 9 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> 10 401628339 Tennessee Tech … TNTC @ UGA 2025-01-21T1… home 61
#> # ℹ 24 more rows
#> # ℹ 8 more variables: stat_name <chr>, abbreviation <chr>, display_name <chr>,
#> # short_display_name <chr>, value <dbl>, display_value <chr>,
#> # description <chr>, team_ref <chr>
# }