11/05/24
September 14, 2005
Fantasy Football Services: A Review: Designer Keith Robinson grades the fantasy football sites of ESPN (D-), Yahoo (C), and CBS SportsLine (B-).
posted by kirkaracha to culture at 01:54 PM - 11 comments
Nice to know that ESPN's fantasy football sucks so badly and they charge a mere $25 per team. I played ESPN's Fantasy Baseball this season and have been less than impressed with it. Not something I'll do again anytime soon. Yahoo's Fantasy Sports work pretty well for the most part for me and not just because I'm dead last in the ESPN league and winning two of my three Yahoo leagues.
posted by fenriq at 02:18 PM on September 14, 2005
Yahoo has a free league, and you can talk crap. That about does it for me.
posted by Turbo at 03:08 PM on September 14, 2005
I love the back-rub for Mike Davidson, like he was playing Operator #9 and personally connecting browsers to ESPN pages. When ESPN did their CSS overhaul, half the site stayed the way it used to be. But a blogger people have heard of never is at fault, just in charge of What Goes Right.
posted by yerfatma at 03:18 PM on September 14, 2005
Where is danostupostar? This seems like an excellent opportunity for him and his open source fantasy league software.
posted by billsaysthis at 03:40 PM on September 14, 2005
Sorry, reference
posted by billsaysthis at 03:40 PM on September 14, 2005
I also have been playing the Yahoo league for years and it works great for me. I did try the FOX sports league this year and it is terrible. I advise to stay away from that league.
posted by dukealicious30 at 03:41 PM on September 14, 2005
I've been doing Sportsline for a number of years and it work well. I just wish they would allow me to alter the draft order so we could account for traded picks. Argh... We've been asking for that forever now and it can't be that hard. ESPN sucks it. Yahoo is not terrible, but they lack some of the bells and whistles that I like. FoxSports is new to the game and they are the even worse than ESPN right now.
posted by 86 at 03:45 PM on September 14, 2005
I'm a big fan of Yahoo, except their new stat and game tracker only works on Windows/IE. It sucks, but the old one is still available, and they've added live scores elsewhere on the pages. I've only tried Sportsline's fantasy baseball, but I hated it so much I would never use any of their systems again. They'd have to pay me before I'd consider giving them another chance. The little exposure I had to ESPN's fantasy football (a mock draft) convinced me that I didn't want anything to do with it. It's terrible on so many levels.
posted by dusted at 04:02 PM on September 14, 2005
What dusted said. The fact that Yahoo's stat-tracker only works on Windows now blows, but it's still not enough to make me wade through more paperwork than an IRS audit on any of Sportsline's FL's. I've heard more than enough disparaging comments about ESPN to keep me away from them.
posted by Ufez Jones at 05:21 PM on September 14, 2005
ESPN always seems to be experiencing "technical problems." This really causes problems for individuals who can't be on their computers 24/7. I couldn't put in my claim for free agents this week because the site was down, then they end up moving the transaction period deadline to Thursday, etc. etc. I also play on both Yahoo and CBS.Sportsline. I've never experienced problems with CBS, but we do a live (in person) draft. I enjoy Yahoo's on-line drafts and have done them with football and baseball. As for stats, I usually just click back and forth on NFL.com when I'm on my computer to continue getting updates during games. With those being updated live, you can keep track of your players very easily and see who's producing and who's not. One problem I have in the Yahoo league I'm in, though, is they let you drop and pick up players even while games are going on. This puts me at a disadvantage if I'm not sitting right in front of a computer and tv all Sunday. A free agent running back breaks a long run and by the time the extra point has split the uprights someone has him on their roster already.
posted by dyams at 09:38 AM on September 15, 2005
I have never played CBS Sports line before- I have been playing Yahoo Fantasy for years and generally liked it because thats all I ever have known. I will agree with the comment and grade for ESPN. The online drafts are painfully slow. I'll stay with playing Yahoo its the one I am used too.