Show ExternalIDs not Unique for sports?

[tmiranda]

I'm writing a plugin that needs to keep information about specific Shows and I've discovered that some Airings that assumed have the same Show ExternalIDs do not. College Football is an example. I thought, incorrectly it seems, that all college football games have the same Show ExternalID but they don't.

Is this common or are sports the only Shows that may have the same title but different Show ExternalIDs?

I was hoping to use the Show ExternalID as a key into the database because that will be a lot cleaner than using the Show Title.

[Slugger]

Most sports events have an EID of SP*, which is never the same (for different events). It does repeat itself for different repeat airings of the same event. Definitely SP* EIDs cannot be used to try and group together sports events of the same "type". Title is your best bet as Tribune usually does a pretty good job of normalizing the titles for sports events. There are exceptions to that though, for example:

The title for all MLB games will be "MLB Baseball" during the regular season and playoffs, but during the World Series they use "yyyy World Series" (i.e. "2012 World Series"). Same with NBA and NFL and NCAA football. All good until the championship then the titles change.

Also, some events use EP* EIDs, usually if additional description is added (like Sunday/Monday night football will usually be an EP* id, but not always).

[tmiranda]

Thanks Slugger. I bit the bullet and changed the database key to the ShowTitle.