ESPN is locking down their public API effective December of this year. While I never did more than plonk against it, that was because the functionality was exceptionally limited. I understand that they’re sitting on a goldmine of stats and information but there is a whole mess of potentially awesome applications that could be developed if that information could be tapped for non-commercial usage. I had hoped that ESPN would see itself fit to broaden the functionality over time.

Instead, I got this via email today:

Dear ESPN API Developer,

Since the launch of the ESPN Developer Center in March 2012 the capabilities and direction of our API program have continued to evolve in order to serve sports fans in the best way possible.

As part of that evolution, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our public APIs, which will enable us to better align engineering resources with the growing demand to develop core ESPN products on our API platform.

Effective today, we will no longer be issuing public API keys. Developers utilizing the ESPN API with a public API key may continue to do so until Monday, December 8, 2014, at which point the keys will no longer be active.

We want to thank you for supporting the ESPN API, and we hope you found value interacting with the service over the past two years.

Boo!