Editorial & commercial policy

Matchday publishes two kinds of thing: data (scores, fixtures, tables, start times) and guidance (how to watch, what a format means). They are sourced differently, they go stale differently, and they are labelled differently. This page explains how each is produced, and what happens when it is wrong.

Last reviewed 20 August 2026.

Where data comes from

Every score, fixture and table on this site is requested by Matchday’s edge service from a public sports data feed, normalised once, and cached. Your browser never contacts the provider directly.

Every page that shows data carries a data basis line: when the snapshot was generated, how old it is in seconds or minutes, and its source. If the live feed stops answering, the page keeps showing the last confirmed data and says so in that line — it does not silently present old numbers as current, and it does not blank out.

A result is published only when the feed reports the match as finished with both scores present. Anything else is shown with its kickoff time and no scoreline at all. Where an archive is incomplete, the page says how incomplete: “a confirmed final score for 2 of 6”, not a confident-looking table with holes in it. We would rather show nothing than a made-up result.

Where guidance comes from

Broadcast guidance — which channel or service carries a match in which country — is compiled by hand against broadcasters’ and rights-holders’ own published information, and each such page carries the date it was last reviewed. Rights move, and regional blackouts are common; a review date is a claim about when we checked, not a guarantee about today. Where a page links to a broadcaster, that link is the primary source and you should trust it over us.

Format and schedule explainers (how a league phase works, how a bracket resolves) are evergreen and carry a review date rather than a timestamp.

Review cadence

• Live and near-live data — refreshed continuously; freshness is stated on the page in seconds.
• Broadcast and how-to-watch guidance — reviewed at the start of each competition and whenever a rights change is reported.
• Format explainers and archives — reviewed each season, and whenever the competition’s own rules change.
• Policies — reviewed at least annually and whenever what we do actually changes.

Automation, and what a human decides

Matchday is a small automated utility, and says so plainly. Scores, tables, brackets and start-time conversion are produced by software with no human in the loop — that is the point of it, and it is why the freshness and completeness labels exist. Editorial copy, broadcast guidance, format explanations and every page’s framing are written and reviewed by a person. No page on this site is an unreviewed machine-generated article.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, it gets fixed and the change is visible. Report it to kevynsgrin@gmail.com with the page address and what you expected — a link to the primary source helps most. Data errors are usually a stale or incomplete snapshot and are corrected at the source; guidance errors are corrected on the page, and the review date moves with the fix.

Commercial policy

Matchday is funded by display advertising through Google AdSense. Two rules follow from that, and they are not negotiable:

• Advertising never influences coverage. No advertiser or commercial partner has any say in which events are covered, how a schedule is ordered, which broadcaster is recommended, or what a result says.
• No advertising or non-essential storage before your choice is known where a choice is legally required. You can change that choice at any time from privacy choices.

Ad density is capped at one slot above the fold, and automatic ad refresh is off. See the privacy policy for exactly what an ad request involves.

Affiliate links

Matchday currently carries no affiliate links. If that changes, the standard is fixed in advance so it cannot be quietly eroded:

• A plain-language disclosure appears before the first qualifying link on the page, not buried in a footer: “We may earn a commission from links on this page, at no extra cost to you.”
• Every qualifying link carries rel="sponsored nofollow noopener".
• Editorial ranking is decided on usefulness to the reader and is never ordered by commission value.
• Country-specific options are chosen by you, from a visible control. Matchday does not request device location to do it.

What Matchday is not

Matchday is an independent tracker. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by UEFA, FIFA, the USTA, the PGA Tour, the NCAA or MLB. It is not a newsroom and does not publish match reports, transfer rumours or opinion. For exhaustive daily TV listings across every sport, its sister site Sports Always is the right destination; Matchday covers marquee events on your clock.