nfl_groups

NFL conference, division and subdivision reference.

57 seasons (1970–2026) · 122 assets · 582 KB · last asset written 2026-09-27

Upstream source: the league's membership source and every source's names and ids for its groups (see the build repo).

Season key. the starting year (2025 = the 2025 season)

Note. A reference table, not observations. Four tables: groups (one row per SDV group lineage, {league}:{slug}), group_seasons (each group's name, abbreviation and parent as of that season), group_aliases (every source's ids and names for a group, with validity windows) and team_group_seasons (each team's subdivision, conference and division by season, one file per season). Historical names come from dated, cited rows: ESPN, stats.ncaa.org and CFBD all show today's names for past seasons. Schema: sdv-reference-data CONTRACT.md.

Files in this release

Format	Files	Name pattern
csv	61	{dataset}_{season}.csv
parquet	61	{dataset}_{season}.parquet

This tag carries 4 distinct datasets under one release: nfl_team_group_seasons, nfl_groups, nfl_group_aliases, nfl_group_seasons.

Direct download (no auth, no API key):

https://github.com/sportsdataverse/sportsdataverse-data/releases/download/nfl_groups/nfl_team_group_seasons_2026.parquet

How to load it

Surface	Call
Python	from sportsdataverse.nfl import load_nfl_groups load_nfl_groups()
Python	from sportsdataverse.nfl import load_nfl_group_seasons load_nfl_group_seasons()
Python	from sportsdataverse.nfl import load_nfl_group_aliases load_nfl_group_aliases()
Python	from sportsdataverse.nfl import load_nfl_team_group_seasons load_nfl_team_group_seasons(seasons=[2026])
R	no SportsDataverse R loader — read the asset URL directly
Any	pd.read_parquet("https://github.com/sportsdataverse/sportsdataverse-data/releases/download/nfl_groups/...") — the assets are plain files on a public URL

How it is produced

1. Capture — sdv-reference-data: fetch() in sdv_reference/leagues/nfl.py snapshots the sources into raw/nfl/.
2. Build — sdv-reference-data: scripts/pipeline/20_build_tables.sh nfl (offline, from raw/ and cited curated/ rows).
3. Publish — scripts/pipeline/30_publish_releases.sh nfl in sdv-reference-data uploads the assets to this tag.

The code that writes these files:

• sdv_reference/leagues/nfl.py  _{sdv-reference-data}

Automation

No scheduled automation is attached to this tag: it is refreshed on demand.

What depends on it

• sportsdataverse-py — sportsdataverse.nfl.load_nfl_groups() reads this tag directly (API docs).
• sportsdataverse-py — sportsdataverse.nfl.load_nfl_group_seasons() reads this tag directly (API docs).
• sportsdataverse-py — sportsdataverse.nfl.load_nfl_group_aliases() reads this tag directly (API docs).
• sportsdataverse-py — sportsdataverse.nfl.load_nfl_team_group_seasons() reads this tag directly (API docs).
• sportsdataverse-web — reads this tag in application code.

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Part of SportsDataverse. Every release in this repository is a public, versioned data asset: the files are stable URLs you can read straight from R, Python, or anything that speaks HTTP. Issues with the data belong on the producing repository listed above; issues with a loader belong on that package's repository.