Sports Reference

In early 2000, Sean Forman launched Baseball Reference, a baseball statistics database website. It started as part of the Big Bad Baseball Annual website and went online fully in April 2000. Originally, it offered a web interface to the Lahman Baseball Database, containing detailed career statistics and records for Major League Baseball (MLB) players and teams. This site laid the foundation for what would become Sports Reference.

Sean Forman, leveraging the success and structure of Baseball Reference, founded Sports Reference in Philadelphia in 2004. The company was created to operate comprehensive databases of statistics for multiple sports including football, basketball, hockey, and soccer. This marked the beginning of a broader sports statistics platform expanding beyond baseball.

Sports Reference was officially incorporated as Sports Reference, LLC in 2007. This formalized the company, setting a corporate structure that facilitated the expansion of its sports databases. By this point, the site covered multiple major sports and began to establish itself as a major resource for sports statistics research and history.

In July 2008, Sports Reference expanded to include a dedicated section for Olympic Games statistics, covering every edition of the Games from their inception to the present. This section aimed to provide comprehensive Olympic data, reflecting the company's goal of offering a broad and detailed sports statistical resource.

In December 2016, Sports Reference announced the upcoming shutdown of its Olympic Games statistics site due to changes in its data licensing agreement. Despite adding data for the 2016 Summer Olympics, updates ceased afterwards, and the site stopped covering subsequent Olympic events like the 2018 Winter Games.

On May 14, 2020, Sports Reference officially closed its Olympic Games statistics site. The Olympic data providers, known as OlyMADmen, subsequently launched Olympedia, an IOC-owned project for Olympic data. This closure marked the end of Sports Reference's direct involvement in providing Olympic historical data.

In 2023, Sports Reference extended its college basketball statistics to include NCAA Division I women's basketball, further broadening its comprehensive approach to sports data. Additionally, on July 11, 2023, Sports Reference purchased the baseball trivia game Immaculate Grid, integrating it into its websites as part of enhancing user engagement and diversifying content offerings.