--- title: "ESPN agent readiness: the 360 check | Agent Ready Crawlers" description: "ESPN on Ora's agent-readiness scan, read 2026-11-09: 51 of 100, grade C. What agents meet at the door, what they can read and do, and the fixes worth most." canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/blog/espn-agent-readiness site: "Agent Ready Crawlers" last_updated: 2026-11-09 date: 2026-11-09 section: "360 checks" --- # ESPN agent readiness: the 360 check | Agent Ready Crawlers > ESPN on Ora's agent-readiness scan, read 2026-11-09: 51 of 100, grade C. What agents meet at the door, what they can read and do, and the fixes worth most. Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/blog/espn-agent-readiness Site: Agent Ready Crawlers Last reviewed: 2026-11-09 Agent endpoints: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/llms.txt (index), https://agentreadycrawlers.com/openapi.json (API), https://agentreadycrawlers.com/mcp (MCP server), https://agentreadycrawlers.com/ask (search) Access: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/auth.md (no key). Pricing: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/pricing.md (free). 360 check, 9 November 2026 # ESPN: the 360 agent-readiness check In short ESPN scores 51 of 100 on Ora's agent-readiness scan, a C, read 9 November 2026. At the door, site accessible to 4 agent user-agents (ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot). 19 of 81 applicable checks pass; the gap worth most is OpenAPI spec published. The most agent infrastructure of any media company here, behind a page without an H1. ESPN is Disney's sports network and the most-visited sports site in the United States. On 9 November 2026 its public site scored **51 of 100** on [Ora's](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) agent-readiness scan, a C, in Ora's News & Intelligence category. Ora probes a site the way an agent would: it requests pages with the agents' own user agents, reads robots.txt, looks for the files agents read, and tries the API, MCP and payment surfaces. The check below walks through all 132 of its checks for this one domain, grouped the way an agent meets them. Ora's one-line summary: ESPN publishes sports data through GraphQL, but lacks OpenAPI specification and OAuth scope documentation. ## The score | Layer | Asks | Points | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Discovery | Can agents find and recommend it | 7 of 11 | 64% | | Access | Can agents read it | 22 of 49 | 45% | | Usability | Can agents use it | 33 of 68 | 49% | | Payments | Can agents pay | 0 of 0 | none apply | | Total | Grade C | 51 of 100 | 51% | ** 19 checks pass, 12 are partial, 50 fail and 50 do not apply to this site. Every check is defined in [Ora's catalog](https://ora.ai/api/checks?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) (read 2026-11-05); the result for each one is in the groups below, with what Ora saw where it said. ## At the door What the site answers when a request arrives with an agent’s user agent, and what robots.txt says to the crawlers in the Index. 1 check in this group does not apply to this site and is left out. Agents named in Ora's results, with their Index rows: [ChatGPT-User](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/chatgpt-user/), [OAI-SearchBot](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/oai-searchbot/), [Claude-User](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/claude-user/), [PerplexityBot](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/perplexitybot/), [Perplexity-User](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/perplexity-user/). | Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Not blocked by bot detection | Pass | 2 of 2 | Site accessible to 4 agent user-agents (ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot). | | Agent crawler reachability | Pass | 2 of 2 | Reachable to every agent we tested - ChatGPT-User: reachable, OAI-SearchBot: reachable, Claude-User: reachable, PerplexityBot: reachable | | robots.txt AI crawler policy | Pass | 2 of 2 | AI search crawlers: allowed in 3 of 3 checks (3 crawlers on 1 page). AI training crawlers: allowed in 1 of 2 checks (2 crawlers on 1 page), not scored. | | robots.txt agent-user policy | Partial | 1 of 2 | robots.txt restricts 1/3 evaluated page/crawler pairs. Checked 3 user-triggered agents (chatgpt-user, claude-user, perplexity-user) on 1 public page. Restricted: chatgpt-user at https://espn.com/ (Disallow: /, line 16). | | Homepage not hidden from search | Pass | 1 of 1 | No noindex on the homepage: no robots, googlebot or bingbot meta tag and no X-Robots-Tag header hides it from search. | | Redirect hygiene | Pass | 1 of 1 | Pages agents land on serve real content, not meta-refresh or JavaScript-only redirect stubs that strand non-JS agents | | Web Bot Auth directory | Fail | 0 of 2 | No /.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory found | ## What an agent can read Whether the text is in the first response, what the site publishes for agents, and how it describes itself to them. 1 check in this group does not apply to this site and is left out. | Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Content without JavaScript | Partial | 1 of 3 | 5853 chars of readable text, but no H1 tag | | Page token budget | Pass | 1 of 1 | All 1 measured page fit an agent context budget (largest ~2K tokens) | | Sitemap exists | Pass | 2 of 2 | Valid sitemap found at https://www.espn.com/sitemap.xml with multiple sitemaps entries | | Sitemap freshness (lastmod) | Fail | 0 of 1 | None of the 339 sampled sitemap entries carries a lastmod date. Add (W3C datetime) so agents can prioritize fresh content. | | llms.txt exists | Fail | 0 of 1 | No llms.txt found at /llms.txt or /.well-known/llms.txt. | | llms.txt formatting | Fail | 0 of 2 | No llms.txt found to evaluate quality | | Markdown agent docs | Fail | 0 of 1 | Missing markdown content negotiation. Homepage returned text/html when probed with Accept: text/markdown (expected text/markdown), and none of the well-known root paths (/llms.md, /auth.md, /agents.md, /developers.md, | | Markdown URL fallback | Fail | 0 of 2 | Homepage does not support the .md suffix. Probed https://espn.com/index.md and it did not return markdown (expected text/markdown content-type or a heading-led non-HTML body). | | Bot-UA markdown serving | Fail | 0 of 1 | No probed bot User-Agent (ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User) receives markdown when requesting HTML. Optional: detect AI-bot UAs server-side and serve them a markdown representation directly. | | Agent mode view | Partial | 1 of 2 | Agent mode view found at ?mode=agent (3 signals: api, agent, sdk) | | JSON-LD structured data | Partial | 2 of 4 | JSON-LD Organization found - missing description on this entity | | Organization schema completeness | Partial | 1 of 2 | Organization schema found but missing: contactPoint, address | | JSON-LD entity linking (sameAs) | Pass | 2 of 2 | sameAs links from your structured data to your official profiles (GitHub, LinkedIn, app stores). They let AIs confirm that every mention of you is actually you. | | Schema type breadth | Fail | 0 of 2 | No extended schema types found - AI can only answer basic questions about this entity | | Metadata completeness | Pass | 2 of 2 | All metadata signals present: canonical URL, lang="en", og:image, og:type | | Agent instruction / when-to-use | Fail | 0 of 3 | No agent instruction file with when-to-use guidance found | ## What an agent can do The surfaces an agent acts on: an API it can find and call, an MCP server, an agent card, a command line. 3 checks in this group do not apply to this site and are left out. | Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Public API with reachable endpoints | Pass | 7 of 7 | GraphQL endpoint at https://api.espn.com/graphql is reachable; introspection requires authentication (API key / OAuth), which is expected for agent access. Best-of-protocols score: 7/7. | | Public API/docs linked from homepage | Fail | 0 of 3 | No public API or documentation page linked from homepage | | OpenAPI spec published | Fail | 0 of 7 | No OpenAPI/Swagger specification found | | API catalog (RFC 9727) | Fail | 0 of 2 | No /.well-known/api-catalog found (RFC 9727) | | MCP server / manifest | Partial | 5 of 6 | MCP server detected at https://support.espn.com/mcp; it requires authentication. Presence is verified (5/6), but Ora could not inspect its tools or verify access scopes without credentials. | | MCP well-known discovery | Partial | 1 of 2 | MCP server at https://support.espn.com/mcp - list its server card, hosted on your own domain, in /.well-known/ai-catalog.json so MCP clients can discover it | | A2A / agent-card | Fail | 0 of 2 | No A2A agent card found at /.well-known/agent-card.json | | Agent discovery file | Fail | 0 of 2 | No agent discovery file found | | OAuth 2.0 support | Pass | 5 of 5 | OAuth authorization server metadata at https://support.espn.com/mcp/oauth | | OAuth Protected Resource metadata (RFC 9728) | Pass | 2 of 2 | Metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource (RFC 9728) that tells agents your auth requirements up front, instead of leaving them to trial and error. | | auth.md exists | Fail | 0 of 2 | No /auth.md found at site root | | WebMCP support | Fail | 0 of 5 | No WebMCP support detected - no document.modelContext / navigator.modelContext usage found | | NLWeb /ask endpoint | Fail | 0 of 1 | No NLWeb-conformant /ask endpoint found via GET or POST | | Rate limit response headers | Fail | 0 of 2 | GraphQL introspection auth-gated and no header convention documented on GraphQL-tagged pages | | Idempotency-Key support | Fail | 0 of 3 | GraphQL introspection auth-gated and no idempotency documentation found on GraphQL-tagged pages | | JSON error responses | Fail | 0 of 4 | API does not return JSON error responses (or no API detected) | ## Found and recommended Whether an assistant can find the company by name, confirm what it is, and see it in the registries agents read. 1 check in this group does not apply to this site and is left out. | Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Brand name discoverability | Pass | 3 of 3 | espn.com ranks #4 for "ESPN sports media" (search term updated) | | Wikipedia / Wikidata entity presence | Unverified | 0 of 4 | Wikipedia and Wikidata presence could not be verified - try rescanning | | Developer resource discoverability | Partial | 1 of 3 | Name search surfaced no pages on espn.com, although developer resources exist on the site (MCP server) - weak search indexing or transient search noise | | Listed in MCP registries | Fail | 0 of 1 | No verified entry in the official MCP Registry or on Smithery, and no npm or PyPI package of yours that runs as an MCP server. To pass, | | ChatGPT app listed | Fail | 0 of 2 | Not found in ChatGPT app directory | | Registry branding | Fail | 0 of 2 | No registry branding (name, icon, description) found | | Listed on skills.sh | Fail | 0 of 1 | No official skills self-published on skills.sh (26 community skills with potential relation to this domain found, but only self-published official skills count) | | ARD discovery | Fail | 0 of 1 | No /.well-known/ard.json, no same-site rel="ard" link, and no legacy /.well-known/ai-catalog.json | ## The fixes worth most points Ora attaches an estimate to each failing or partial check: how many points the site would gain by passing it. These are the 5 with the largest estimates for ESPN, with what Ora observed. The wording of each fix is Ora's job; the links go to the check in its catalog. OpenAPI spec published Fail, 0 of 7, about 4.8 points to gain. Ora saw: No OpenAPI/Swagger specification found Developer resource discoverability Partial, 1 of 3, about 4 points to gain. Ora saw: Name search surfaced no pages on espn.com, although developer resources exist on the site (MCP server) - weak search indexing or transient search noise Scoped permissions Fail, 0 of 5, about 3.3 points to gain. Ora saw: No declared OAuth scopes, security schemes, or scoped-permission documentation found WebMCP support Fail, 0 of 5, about 3.3 points to gain. Ora saw: No WebMCP support detected - no document.modelContext / navigator.modelContext usage found JSON error responses Fail, 0 of 4, about 2.6 points to gain. Ora saw: API does not return JSON error responses (or no API detected) ## Our read ESPN has more agent infrastructure than any other media company on this list, and the door to match: all four of Ora's test agents reached the home page, robots.txt allows the AI search crawlers on three of three checks and restricts one of three user-triggered agents, a sitemap index is in place, and Ora detected an MCP server behind authentication at support.espn.com/mcp with OAuth metadata, plus a reachable GraphQL endpoint at api.espn.com. That is why the Usability layer reads 33 of 68, the highest in the set. The page is the weak half: 5,853 characters without an H1, an Organization JSON-LD missing its description, and no llms.txt. The Wikipedia and Wikidata checks could not be verified on this read, which is a rescan rather than a fault. A C at 51 for Disney's sports network would be a B with an H1, a description and a plain-text llms.txt. ## Check your own door The scan above is free and needs no account: enter a domain at [ora.ai](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) and read the same four layers for your own site, then compare the door with the [Block Rate Report](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/block-rates/) for sites of your rank and kind. Our [guide to testing whether agents can reach your site](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/test-whether-ai-agents-can-reach-your-site/) has the curl commands for a manual check, and the [robots.txt builder](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/robots-builder/) writes a policy file from the Index. Payments did not apply to this site; a site that sells would read that layer against the [vendors at the door](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/ranking/). [Scan your own domain on Ora](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) [All 360 checks](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/blog/). One company a day; corrections to [the corrections page](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/corrections/). ** The check we recommend [Ora](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) scans a public URL: 16 Discovery checks and 42 Access checks, read from its catalog on 2026-11-05. Its Journey sends a real agent to the site. [How to run it](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/test-whether-ai-agents-can-reach-your-site/). **Limits.** Ora reads public URLs only, and what it records as blocked comes from its own network. It says the same scan run twice converges within a couple of points ([Ora's Deep Scan post](https://ora.ai/blog/introducing-deep-scan?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check)), and the pages we read give no repeat-scan figures. Its fixing product is behind a waitlist ([Ora's home page](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check)). ## Sources - [Ora's scan of espn.com, GET /api/score (vendor)](https://ora.ai/api/score/espn.com?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-09 - [Ora's check catalog, GET /api/checks (vendor)](https://ora.ai/api/checks?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-05 - [ESPN home page](https://www.espn.com/) read 2026-11-09 - [How to test whether AI agents can reach your site (this site)](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/test-whether-ai-agents-can-reach-your-site/) read 2026-11-04 - [Ora: Deep Scan v2 (vendor)](https://ora.ai/blog/introducing-deep-scan?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-05 - [Ora home page, waitlist (vendor)](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-05 Last reviewed 2026-11-09