Ask HN: Affordable sports stats services?

Have an idea for a product that relies on sports stats but having a hard time finding an affordable service to use. From what I've been reading, Stats.com is considered the leader in this area but they charge over $1000/month. Their competitors aren't much better, still charging several hundred dollars per month.

Where should an in independent developer turn for this kind of information? The obvious answer might be scraping the info but that's a legal gray-area I'd rather stay away from.