Coverage levels - ESL and SSL

Two parameters decide how much data you actually get, and they are the ones integrators misread most often. Neither is a quality rating - both are contracts about what is guaranteed.

• Event Stats Level (ESL) applies to a single match
• Season Stats Level (SSL) applies to a whole season

Event Stats Level

Four levels, each guaranteeing a floor of detail:

Level	What is guaranteed
VIP	the deepest set collectable for the sport; live coverage often by two scouts in team sports
GOLD	solid team statistics and basic player statistics; lineups and player names added live on key incidents
SILVER	basic team statistics, often collected on a phone from the venue; lineups and player names not guaranteed
BRONZE	live score and match time only; a full-time-only result when there is no live coverage

ESL changes during a single match's life - it is not one value

The same match can be BRONZE three days before kick-off, SILVER during live coverage and GOLD five hours after the final whistle, once a data manager has entered the post-match protocol.

So caching ESL once, at fixture creation, gives you a value that is wrong by the time anyone reads it. Re-read it when you re-read the event.

Two sub-parameters split that timeline explicitly:

• ESL Live - the level aimed at during the match. Drives what you get from play-by-play products and livescore add-ons.
• ESL After - the level aimed at post-match. Lets you know, days ahead, how deep the statistics will be once the match is over.

The + marker

GOLD+ does not mean "almost VIP". It means: everything guaranteed at GOLD, plus at least one extra statistic that normally belongs to a higher level.

A scout covering Manchester United - Liverpool from TV can deliver everything GOLD guarantees, and additionally Assists, which is a VIP-level statistic. That is not enough to raise the match to VIP, because VIP requires the whole set. The result is GOLD+ with a note about the add-on.

Do not treat + as a level in a comparison. Sort by the base level; use + only to know that something extra might be present.

Season Stats Level

Level	What is guaranteed
LEGEND	fixtures, results, basic and extended standings, plus the deepest stats collectable in the sport, per team and per player
ELITE	as above, minus the requirement that everything be scouted live; data must exist on an official or verified source
EDGE	fixtures, results, basic standings, basic team statistics; limited player statistics such as goalscorers
STARTER	fixtures, results, basic standings

Season statistics are the sum of every match protocol in the season, so the season level implies a floor on every match in it:

SSL	Every match must reach
LEGEND	ESL VIP, verified within 24 h of the final whistle
ELITE	ESL GOLD or VIP, verified within 24 h
EDGE	ESL SILVER, GOLD or VIP, verified within 24 h
STARTER	any ESL, no protocol verification

One match covered below the floor makes the whole season's aggregates incomplete - which is why the floor is a hard requirement rather than an average.

Two things that look true and are not

"Scout coverage means GOLD." No. A match can be covered live on a phone at SILVER, and if it belongs to an ELITE season the missing statistics are added to the protocol after the match.

"An ELITE season means every match is scouted live." No. Which live source is used per match is an internal decision. In one ELITE season, 150 matches can be live at GOLD, 100 at a lower live level and 56 at BRONZE - and all 306 still end up at GOLD or better in the protocol, just not live.

The practical consequence: SSL tells you what the finished season contains, not what arrives during the match. If your product is live, read ESL Live. If it is post-match analytics, read SSL and ESL After.

Reading it from the API

stats_lvl on a competition carries the same value as the SSL of its currently active season. The source documentation says to ignore the competition-level field and read the season instead - otherwise a competition with a finished LEGEND season and a new STARTER season reports the wrong level for whichever one you are actually looking at.

Next

• Time, clocks and timezones - the other parameter set that is routinely misread
• Data reference - which statistics exist per sport, generated from the API