Get the full ESPN group hierarchy for a college football season – the division roll-ups (Division I, FBS, FCS) and every conference nested beneath them, flattened into one catalog table.
Value
A data frame with one row per group:
| col_name | types | description |
| season | integer | Season (4-digit year). |
| season_type | integer | ESPN season type id queried. |
| group_id | character | ESPN group id. |
| name | character | Group / conference name. |
| abbreviation | character | Group abbreviation. |
| short_name | character | Group short name. |
| is_conference | logical | TRUE for an actual conference, FALSE for a division roll-up. |
| parent_group_id | character | group_id of the parent node (NA at the root). |
| slug | character | Group slug. |
| group_ref | character | $ref URL to the group resource. |
| standings_ref | character | $ref URL to the group standings resource. |
| teams_ref | character | $ref URL to the group teams index. |
Details
Wraps the ESPN core-v2 endpoint
sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/football/leagues/college-football/seasons/{year}/types/{season_type}/groups.
ESPN's group index only exposes two top-level groups; the conferences
sit several levels deep under children. This wrapper walks the tree
recursively, dereferencing every node, and returns one row per group.
Filter is_conference == TRUE for the actual conferences (ACC, SEC,
Big Ten, ...); the group_id of a conference is what
espn_cfb_standings() accepts as group_id. The parent_group_id
column lets you reconstruct the division -> conference nesting.
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_predictor(),
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_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_groups(year = 2024))
#> ── Groups and conferences from ESPN ────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:56:38 UTC
#> # A tibble: 78 × 12
#> season season_type group_id name abbreviation short_name is_conference
#> <int> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <lgl>
#> 1 2024 2 35 Division I… yy Div II/III FALSE
#> 2 2024 2 57 NCAA Divis… d2 NCAA Divi… FALSE
#> 3 2024 2 104 CIAA ciaa CIAA TRUE
#> 4 2024 2 107 GLIAC gliac GLIAC TRUE
#> 5 2024 2 146 Great Amer… gamc Great Ame… TRUE
#> 6 2024 2 108 Great Lakes gl Great Lak… TRUE
#> 7 2024 2 165 Great Midw… G-MAC Great Mid… TRUE
#> 8 2024 2 110 Gulf South gs Gulf South TRUE
#> 9 2024 2 112 Independen… ind2 Independe… TRUE
#> 10 2024 2 116 Lone Star lone Lone Star TRUE
#> # ℹ 68 more rows
#> # ℹ 5 more variables: parent_group_id <chr>, slug <chr>, group_ref <chr>,
#> # standings_ref <chr>, teams_ref <chr>
# }