GameDayBot adds itself to your GroupMe chat. You no longer register a bot at dev.groupme.com or copy a Bot ID anywhere - you sign in with GroupMe once, pick your group from a list, and you’re done.
The whole thing takes about two minutes.
Before you start
- A GroupMe account.
- The group chat has to exist already. Create your league’s group in the GroupMe app first - the wizard lists the groups you’re in, and it can’t list one that isn’t there yet.
- Your league URL from ESPN or Sleeper. You’ll paste it in the last step.
Step 1 - Open your setup wizard
Right after checkout, the order confirmation shows a Finish setting up your bot button. That is the wizard.
You can get back to it any time - nothing expires:
- Bot Setup in the site menu, or
- My Account → Subscriptions → your subscription.
Step 2 - Click Connect GroupMe
The wizard asks Where should your bot post? and offers Discord, GroupMe and Slack. Under GroupMe, click Connect GroupMe, then sign in to GroupMe and approve the connection.
Step 3 - Pick your group
You come back to Which group should the bot post in?, listing every GroupMe group you’re a member of. Choose your league’s chat and click Add GameDayBot to this group.
Check the name above the list. That screen tells you which GroupMe account it is about to connect - worth a glance if you share a browser or you’re signed in as someone else.
Step 4 - Point it at your league
Next comes Which league should the bot follow?:
- Paste your league URL - ESPN or Sleeper. It’s checked against the real league before anything is saved, so a wrong URL tells you straight away.
- Choose the timezone your league lives in. Scheduled messages arrive on your clock, not ours.
- Click Finish setup.
Private ESPN league? The wizard notices and asks for two cookie values from your ESPN account. How to find your ESPN_S2 and SWID.
Yahoo leagues aren’t available yet - we’re waiting on Yahoo to approve API access. ESPN and Sleeper are ready now.
Step 5 - You’re live
A welcome message posts to your group right away - that’s your proof it worked. There’s a Send test message button on the same screen if you want to fire it again (once a minute).
From here the schedule takes over. See what arrives and when.
Changing things later
GroupMe has no slash commands, so everything lives on the website: My Account → Subscriptions → your subscription. From there you can change:
- the league URL and your ESPN credentials,
- the timezone,
- which messages you get, one by one,
- the close-scores threshold (ESPN leagues),
- and which group it posts in - Reconnect / move group walks you back through the picker.
Troubleshooting
“You’re not in any GroupMe groups yet”
The wizard can only show groups you already belong to. Open the GroupMe app, create your league’s group chat, then come back and click Connect GroupMe again.
“Your GroupMe session expired”
The sign-in is only held for ten minutes, on purpose - we don’t keep your GroupMe login. If you stepped away mid-setup, just click Connect GroupMe again and pick your group.
It connected the wrong GroupMe account
Sign out at web.groupme.com, then start the connection again and sign in as the right person. The group picker names the account it’s using, so you can confirm before you commit.
Someone removed the bot from the group
Go to My Account → Subscriptions → your subscription and click Reconnect / move group. The league settings stay as they were.
The messages look plain compared to the screenshots
They will. GroupMe has no rich formatting, so messages arrive as plain text rather than in the tidy boxes Discord and Slack draw. The content is identical.
I run more than one league
One subscription covers one league. Buy a second subscription and run through the wizard again - you can point it at a different group, or the same one.
What happened to the Bot ID?
Gone, happily. Setting up GroupMe used to mean creating a developer account at dev.groupme.com, registering a bot by hand and pasting its Bot ID back into GameDayBot. The wizard now creates that bot for you against the group you pick. If you made one the old way you can delete it - it isn’t being used.
Still stuck? Get in touch - tell us your group’s name and what the bot did or didn’t do.