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Women's International Basketball Data in R: FIBA, EuroLeague Women, WNBL, W League and More

Saiem Gilani, Geoffery Hutchinson

Source: vignettes/articles/womens-international-basketball-leagues.Rmd
womens-international-basketball-leagues.Rmd

wehoop reaches well beyond the WNBA and NCAA: it wraps the official data feeds behind FIBA’s national-team tournaments, Europe’s club competitions, and domestic women’s leagues in Australia, Japan, France, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Turkey and Latin America. This article is a map of those functions: which league each family covers, how seasons are numbered, and the function to call for a schedule, play-by-play, box score or shot chart.

None of the code in this article is run when the site is built. Every function here calls a live source, so copy the examples into your own session.

What you’ll learn

  • Which wehoop family covers which league or competition.
  • The common pattern every family follows: list the seasons, get a schedule, then pull a game.
  • How each family numbers its seasons.
  • Practical rules for calling these sources politely.

The league map

League or competition Country or region Prefix Schedule Play-by-play Shots Box scores
FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup Worldwide fiba_wwc_ yes yes yes player, team
Women’s Olympic Basketball Tournament Worldwide fiba_woly_ yes yes yes player, team
FIBA Women’s EuroBasket Europe fiba_weurobasket_ yes yes yes player, team
FIBA Women’s AmeriCup Americas fiba_wamericup_ yes yes yes player, team
FIBA Women’s Asia Cup (Division A) Asia and Oceania fiba_wasiacup_ yes yes yes player, team
FIBA Women’s AfroBasket Africa fiba_wafrobasket_ yes yes yes player, team
EuroLeague Women Europe (clubs) fiba_elw_ yes yes yes player, team
EuroCup Women Europe (clubs) fiba_ecw_ yes yes yes player, team
Any FIBA competition Worldwide fiba_gdap_, fiba_gamepage_ yes yes yes player, team
WNBL Australia nbl_rosetta_ (org = "wnbl", the default) yes yes player, team, player by period
NBL1 (men’s and women’s conferences) Australia nbl1_ (Atrium) or nbl_rosetta_ (org = "nbl1") yes yes nbl1_shots() player, team
W League (WJBL) Japan wjbl_ yes, by month yes player, team, by period
Ligue Feminine de Basket (LFB) France lfb_ (Genius Sports) yes yes yes player, team
Women’s British Basketball League (WBBL) Great Britain wbbl_ (Genius Sports) yes yes yes player, team
DBBL (Damen-Basketball-Bundesliga) Germany scb_ (league = "dbbl", the default) yes scb_game_actions() player, team
Liga Femenina Endesa and other FEB competitions Spain feb_ (group = 4, the default) yes yes yes player
KBSL (Kadinlar Basketbol Super Ligi) Turkey tbf_ (competition = "kbsl", the default) yes yes yes player, team
LNBP Femenil (with LNBP and Copa Value) Mexico lnbp_ (Atrium) yes yes yes player, team
Liga Mayor de Baloncesto El Salvador lmb_ (Atrium) yes yes yes player, team
LPB / LPBF Panama lpb_ (Atrium) yes yes yes player, team

Notes on the table:

  • “Both” sites. The Atrium sites (lnbp_, nbl1_, lmb_, lpb_) host men’s and women’s competitions side by side. List them with the *_seasons() function and pass the women’s competition_id (or season_id) to the schedule, standings and teams functions.
  • LFB coverage. Genius Sports hosts only the 2018 and 2019 LFB seasons.
  • TBF and FEB coverage. TBF serves play-by-play and shots for finished games from the 2025-26 season. FEB group is the site’s menu group (1 Primera FEB, 2 Segunda FEB, 4 Liga Femenina Endesa, 9 and 10 LF-2, 67 LF Challenge, 73 Copa de Espana, 74 Liga U), not a competition id.
  • Shot charts. The WNBL Rosetta, W League and SCB feeds have no shot locations.

Each family’s reference page lists every function and its returned columns: FIBA, FIBA competitions, Genius Sports, Genius competitions, Atrium, Atrium competitions, NBL / WNBL (Rosetta), SCB (DBBL), FEB, TBF and WJBL. The whole group is the International Basketball section of the reference.

How are the families built?

Most of these families sit on a handful of shared data engines:

  • FIBA GDAP (fiba_gdap_*()) is FIBA’s data API for national-team events and FIBA club competitions; fiba_gamepage_*() reads the per-game pages of fiba.basketball.
  • Genius Sports (genius_*()) hosts LiveStats and widget feeds for many federations; org picks the league.
  • Atrium (atrium_*(), Sportradar) runs league stats sites; website_id picks the site.
  • The rest (nbl_rosetta_*(), scb_*(), feb_*(), tbf_*(), wjbl_*()) each wrap one league’s own feed.

The per-competition prefixes (fiba_wwc_, wbbl_, lnbp_ and so on) are thin aliases. fiba_wwc_schedule() is fiba_gdap_schedule() with the Women’s World Cup filled in; wbbl_pbp() is genius_pbp(); lnbp_shots() is atrium_shots() with the LNBP site id. Use the alias when it exists. Use the base engine when you need a competition without one.

Every alias family follows the same three steps:

  1. List what exists: *_editions(), *_seasons() or *_competitions().
  2. Get the schedule for a season, which returns game ids.
  3. Pass a game id to *_pbp(), *_shots(), *_player_box() or *_team_box().

How are seasons numbered?

Season labels follow the convention of each source, so check before you loop.

Family season means Example
FIBA tournaments (fiba_wwc_, fiba_woly_, fiba_weurobasket_, fiba_wamericup_, fiba_wasiacup_, fiba_wafrobasket_) The event year 2024 is Paris 2024
EuroLeague Women, EuroCup Women (fiba_elw_, fiba_ecw_) The ending year 2025 is 2024-25
WBBL, LFB The ending year 2026 is 2025-26
WNBL (nbl_rosetta_) The ending year 2026 is 2025-26
NBL1, LNBP, LMB, LPB The calendar year 2025
W League (wjbl_) The ending year 2026 is 2025-26
DBBL (scb_) The ending year 2026 is 2025-26
FEB, TBF The ending year 2026 is 2025-26

FIBA: World Cup, Olympics and continental championships 

library(wehoop)

# Every edition of the Women's World Cup the API knows about
fiba_wwc_editions()

# The 2022 tournament (Sydney)
wwc_2022 <- fiba_wwc_schedule(season = 2022)

# One game: play-by-play, shot chart and box scores
game_id <- wwc_2022$game_id[1]
fiba_wwc_pbp(game_id, season = 2022)
fiba_wwc_shots(game_id, season = 2022)
fiba_wwc_player_box(game_id, season = 2022)

# Final standings and teams
fiba_wwc_standings(season = 2022)
fiba_wwc_teams(season = 2022)

The Olympics and the continental championships work the same way:

fiba_woly_schedule(season = 2024)          # Paris 2024
fiba_weurobasket_schedule(season = 2025)
fiba_wamericup_schedule(season = 2025)
fiba_wasiacup_schedule(season = 2025)
fiba_wafrobasket_schedule(season = 2025)

EuroLeague Women and EuroCup Women

FIBA runs both European club competitions, so they share the FIBA aliases. Their season is the year the season ends.

elw <- fiba_elw_schedule(season = 2025)      # 2024-25
fiba_elw_standings(season = 2025)
fiba_elw_pbp(elw$game_id[1], season = 2025)

fiba_ecw_schedule(season = 2025)             # EuroCup Women 2024-25

For any FIBA competition without an alias, find its edition and call the base engine directly: fiba_gdap_editions() takes a competition family id and returns the editions; fiba_gdap_schedule(comp = ...) takes an edition id.

Australia: WNBL and NBL1

The Rosetta functions default to the WNBL.

nbl_rosetta_seasons()                          # WNBL seasons
wnbl <- nbl_rosetta_matches(season = 2026)     # 2025-26
match_id <- wnbl$match_id[1]
nbl_rosetta_match_pbp(match_id)
nbl_rosetta_match_player_box(match_id)
nbl_rosetta_standings(season = 2026)

# NBL1, the second tier, has women's conferences on two feeds
nbl_rosetta_matches(season = 2025, org = "nbl1")
nbl1_seasons()        # Atrium site: pick a women's competition_id here

Japan: the W League

The W League schedule is paged by month. List the months, then loop.

wjbl_leagues()
months <- wjbl_game_months(season = 2026)
games <- wjbl_schedule(season = 2026, game_month = months$game_month[1])

id <- games$play_schedule_id[1]
wjbl_pbp(id)
wjbl_box_score(id)
wjbl_team_box_score(id)

The source is in Japanese (team names, phases, play descriptions); the column documentation translates the vocabulary.

France and Great Britain: LFB and WBBL

Both run on Genius Sports.

wbbl_competitions()
wbbl_sched <- wbbl_schedule(season = 2026)
wbbl_pbp(wbbl_sched$match_id[1])
wbbl_shots(wbbl_sched$match_id[1])

lfb_schedule(season = 2019)    # Genius hosts the 2018 and 2019 LFB seasons

genius_competitions(org = ...) and genius_schedule(org, comp_id) reach other Genius-hosted leagues.

Germany, Spain and Turkey 

# Germany: DBBL (the default league for the scb_ family)
dbbl <- scb_games(season = 2026)
scb_game_actions(dbbl$game_id[1])
scb_game_players(dbbl$game_id[1])
scb_standings(season = 2026)

# Spain: Liga Femenina Endesa (group 4, the default)
lf <- feb_schedule(season = 2026)
feb_pbp(lf$game_id[1])
feb_shots(lf$game_id[1])
feb_player_box(lf$game_id[1])

# Turkey: KBSL (the default competition)
kbsl <- tbf_schedule(season = 2026)
tbf_pbp(kbsl$match_id[1])
tbf_shots(kbsl$match_id[1])
tbf_standings(season = 2026)

Latin America: Mexico, El Salvador and Panama

These Atrium sites carry men’s and women’s competitions. Find the women’s competition first.

lnbp_seasons()     # look for the LNBP Femenil competition_id
femenil <- lnbp_schedule(season = 2025, competition_id = "<competition_id>")
lnbp_pbp(femenil$fixture_id[1])
lnbp_shots(femenil$fixture_id[1])

lmb_seasons()      # El Salvador
lpb_seasons()      # Panama (LPB and the women's LPBF)

How do I call these sources politely?

  • Go slowly. The international runtimes wait at least one second between requests to the same host. Do not wrap them in parallel loops.
  • Expect classed errors. A game with no data raises a wehoop_no_data condition, a bad argument raises wehoop_bad_request, and anything else raises wehoop_asset_fetch. Wrap loops in tryCatch() so one missing game does not stop the run.
  • Finished games only. Several feeds (TBF, the W League) serve only final games and check that the answer matches the game you asked for.
  • Check the terms before you republish. Some sources are unofficial uses of public sites. The SCB (BBL and DBBL) and W League reference pages quote the relevant site notices; read them before you store or share the data.
  • No release files. Unlike the WNBA and NCAA, these leagues have no load_*() release loaders. Save what you pull.

Where to go next

  • Getting Started: the package layout and the glossary.
  • Shot charts: the plotting recipes there work for any *_shots() output once the coordinates are on a court frame. FIBA courts are drawn in meters with sportyR::geom_basketball("fiba").
  • Advanced metrics: the box score formulas apply to any league’s box scores.
  • The International Basketball section of the function reference.