Methodology

Where the data comes from

Matchcast aggregates broadcast information from 15+ named sources, organised into four reliability tiers. Every listing on the site can be traced back to at least one of these sources via our public API. Nothing on Matchcast is invented, generated, or assumed without a source on file.

We do not scrape data from competitor aggregators (JustWatch, Live Soccer TV competitor sites, etc.) and we do not republish data we do not have the right to use. When a broadcaster requests removal of content under DMCA, we honour it; our process is documented on the DMCA page.

The data pipeline runs continuously throughout the day. The full 22-step master pipeline is documented in our internal architecture notes and exposed through the matches API.

How we score confidence

Every broadcast listing carries a confidence score between 0.00 and 1.00. The score is a composite of three signals:

1. Source reliability. Official league APIs outrank scraped TV guides; licensed commercial feeds outrank free public ones. The starting tier is shown in the table below.
2. Cross-source agreement. A listing confirmed by two independent sources scores higher than one confirmed by a single source.
3. Recency. Confidence decays over time when a listing is not re-confirmed. Expired or stale broadcast rights lose 0.10 from their score each pass through the pipeline.

Low-confidence listings are flagged visually on match pages and prioritised for community review. Listings whose confidence falls below an internal floor are hidden until they can be reconfirmed — we would rather show nothing than show a wrong answer with a high score.

How we verify

Source aggregation alone is not enough. Broadcast rights change mid-season, regional blackouts shift week to week, and no single feed catches everything. The verification layer that sits on top of the pipeline is what keeps the data honest in the long tail.

Click signals

When a reader clicks through to a broadcaster from a Matchcast listing, that click is logged as an implicit confirmation that the listing was correct enough to be useful. The signal is anonymised — we record the listing ID and timestamp, not the reader. Repeated clicks on a listing push its confidence score up; absence of clicks for a long-tail fixture is a flag for manual review.

Community reports

Every match and broadcast page carries a report link. Reports flagging incorrect or missing broadcasters are reviewed manually and fed back into the confidence model. We weight reports by the reporter's historical accuracy where we have a track record.

Manual editorial review

Marquee fixtures (World Cup, NFL playoffs, Premier League title-decider weekends) are reviewed by hand against the official broadcaster pages before the match goes live. The same is true of every guide on the site — each of the 49 guides is hand-researched against current broadcaster pricing pages, not auto-generated.

Open API

The same dataset that powers the website is exposed through the public API. Anyone can verify our data themselves — confidence scores, source attribution, and broadcaster fields are all there.

What we will not do

The bright lines. These are the things Matchcast will never do, regardless of commercial pressure:

• We do not list unauthorised streams. Ever. No IPTV apps, no piracy mirrors, no “sketchy free options.” Every broadcaster in our database is a rights-holding entity.
• We do not scrape competitor sites. Other aggregators' data is theirs. We get our data from primary sources or licensed commercial feeds we pay for.
• We do not display affiliate listings as if they were independent recommendations. Where a link earns us a commission, it is disclosed at the link and on the page.
• We do not let advertising relationships influence which broadcasters appear in our lists or in what order. Our ad inventory is sold via third-party ad networks against page context, not against specific broadcaster listings. The ad networks have no editorial input.
• We do not publish without a confidence score, a source, and a path for correction. If we cannot show our working on a listing, we do not publish it.