Official Sports Data vs a Market’s Resolution Source
TL;DR: An official data feed supplies a record. The contract determines which record counts, what period it covers and when the answer becomes final.
An official sports-data agreement can sound like the end of a prediction-market argument: the league supplies the result, so everyone knows what settles it. But a reliable record still needs a precise question. A full-game winner, a regulation-time winner and a first-half winner can all be read from the same game.
In a social prediction market, that distinction needs to survive the trip from the contract to the post people share. A league logo or a screenshot of the score cannot tell someone which version of the question they are answering.
Three layers to keep separate
Think of the data as evidence and the contract as the instructions for using it. A distribution or licensing agreement concerns how information reaches a service. A named resolution source identifies the record a particular market will consult. The outcome condition specifies what must be true in that record.
| Layer | The question it answers | What to inspect |
|---|---|---|
| Data supply | Where does the information come from? | The provider’s description of the feed and its scope |
| Resolution source | Which record governs this contract? | The named source and any source hierarchy |
| Outcome condition | Which fact would answer this question? | The event, period, threshold and exceptions |
These layers can line up neatly. They still do different jobs. Knowing that a service receives a league feed does not tell you whether a particular question concerns the entire game, one segment or a statistic.
What an official-data announcement tells you
In its October 26, 2026 announcement, Kalshi said its NBA partnership would bring official data distributed by Sportradar into the operation and settlement of authorized NBA markets. It also described integrity cooperation, restrictions on permissible markets and prohibitions on league and team personnel trading NBA contracts.
That is a dated account of an agreement’s scope. To understand an individual position, the useful next document is the contract. A partnership announcement and a market rule are answering different questions.
Read the contract’s source and time period together
Kalshi’s market-rules guide directs readers to the criteria and verification source for each market. The source matters alongside the condition it is being used to verify.
For a concrete rule document, Kalshi’s basketball game-winner contract terms put the governing league or association first in a source hierarchy. They distinguish an entire game including overtime from regulation-only and other specified periods. They also exclude revisions made after expiration from the expiration value.
Those details identify which record and slice of play count. A final score copied into a conversation leaves much of that definition behind.
One game, two different questions
Imagine the fictional Harbour and Summit teams are tied at the end of regulation, and Harbour wins in overtime. One hypothetical question asks whether Harbour wins the full game, explicitly including overtime. Another asks whether Harbour has more points at the end of regulation.
The same official record supports different answers: Harbour wins the first comparison but does not have more regulation-time points in the second. How a tied period affects positions depends on the particular contract’s tie provisions.
The disagreement in the feed discussion could be perfectly ordinary: one person means the full game, another means regulation. Before treating it as a dispute about the data, compare the questions.
Carry the definition into the conversation
When you share or discuss a sports market, keep enough context for someone else to reconstruct the question. A useful short description includes the actual event, the relevant period and a link to its governing terms.
Use three checks:
1. Identify the record. Find the named source and any priority order if several sources are listed.
2. Identify the comparison. Check the period, threshold and treatment of ties or other relevant exceptions.
3. Identify the cutoff. Find when the record is assessed and how the terms treat later corrections.
An official feed can be valuable evidence. Understanding the market means knowing which part of that evidence answers the contract’s particular question.