SPORTSML: Sports Data Language extends XML
A new computer language to describe sports results has been
approved by a consortium of news organisations. SportsML or Sports Markup Language, has been created by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), in association with major news agencies.
SportsML is a dialect of XML, and its data can be easily the Web, newspaper publishing systems, or sports archives. As a part of the XML programming family, SportsML adheres to benchmarks set down by W3C.
SportsML breaks sports data into bite-sized pieces and allows publishers to completely describe the how, what, when, where and why of sports. Documents in SportsML can be as simple or as complex as needed, drawing from a wide range of available descriptions for sports scores, schedules, standings and statistics.
Team and player names, results, standings and other important information are handled in a standardised way, greatly reducing the tedious editing process that is often required to prepare sports results for publication. League data can also be stored in SportsML, making standings and playoff results easier to handle.