Should I create a modern, clean fantasy football site?

[Caveman_Nick]

In general, Nick is quite the dumbass, but this point is very valid. If you ask what people would like to see, I think you'll get a lot of very diverse and possibly contradictory requests, with most probaly not even knowing what they want. You need to put something out there and see what the reaction is, that will probably be the only way to gauge your results.

 

 

Me ======>

 

But, as the eternally wise (and ugly ======> (for the safety of everyone's eyes)) Hugh 0ne states, asking for design opinions is tough. Even people that work regularly with designers have a tough time knowing what they'll like until the see it.

 

EDIT: Let's just call him Hugh ne

Edited February 9, 2011 by Caveman_Nick

[delusions of grandeur]

Look, we get A TON of rookie posters linking us to this kind of stuff. If you're not a spammer, fine. But you have to realize linking us to a "demo" site that has a hit counter on it sends up red flags. Enough about that. "Flashy" sites with all the upgraded gadgets, or up-to-date as you refer to it, are nice and all. But to the hard core FF player, its meaningless. I could care less to be honest with you. I want a site that enables the league to customize with the ever increasing league options that the majority of us here at the Huddle play. And just to give you an example of a "flashy" site, Fanball folded its doors this year. Why? They did not listen to there customers when repeatedly asked to customize. I don't want huge graphic engines running on my FF site. In the age of cell phone access, its not viable. There was a group of ex-fanballers that engineered a massive exodus and created there own site, own software and all the jazz you are suggesting. It was a horrible program. Probably the worst I have seen and now they are in trouble as well. Don't fix whats not broken. I suggest you revisit MFL, go to the customize forums and see how good they really are.

 

This. It just needs to work.

 

To give an example, I have a site that we have released twice now. One time the site looked absolutely amazing, but it was going to kill us just to make simple/updates and changes, and it was never going to do what our customers wanted it to. For the other release, we cut down on the pizazz and focused on functionality for our users. Which one do you think has gotten more response?

 

So if you're looking to cater to the ESPN and Yahoo crowd, you might be onto something about putting together a flashy user interface, but there is no doubt with this crew that customizability of both rules and options is the feature we care about most, by far.

 

If you want to do some research, just take a 3 month trial with them and see just how many categories and subcategories of customization there are. There is nothing more important to me than being able to manage my leagues with vastly different rules and keepers/dynasties that can actually work once you get them set up. These type of leagues aren't even possible on the mainstream sites, but if you tell MFL you'd like a feature, they will see if they can do it.

 

I think it's funny you say that it would look more like "facebook", because their popularity is centered around the functionality of the network. It's only been recently that it's been even remotely flashy looking... But we're not looking for a site to take our wives to buy shoes. It just has to work, and that's where I think you'd have your hands full even attempting to do what MFL has been building for years (plus I think they have just fine design customization, such as your own banner, theme, full-sized icons and team picture . It just depends on how archaic the user is, to be able to get the most out of that feature, even with html code. Personally, my MFL leagues look bomb!)

[Big Country]

B-Man -

 

I think one way to get some response would be to list some of the ideas you have for features and ideas you have that are not currently available in the marketplace.

 

The biggest feature that will bring over the more hardcore FFers is customization, not just in layout, but in areas such as:

Scoring rules - (you need everything imaginable from the standard yardage and TDs to completion pct., targets, etc. and all sorts of defensive stats)

Draft/Auction Setup - One feature that most sites are lacking is a good live auction tool to integrate into the league management site. On top of that, options for live drafts, autodrafts, slow e-mail drafts, etc. are a must, including tracking of salary space, ability to trade current and futre picks

Roster Settings - Need ability to break down a roster into any breakdown needed, including position minimum and maximums, etc. Must handle IDP

Waiver Settings - need to be able to handle the more traditional fixed waiver wire setting (including rolling waiver order and resetting waiver order), blind bid and open bid settings, first come first serve, etc. and even the Yahoo style of waivers

 

 

 

If you want to go a little less ambitious than creating an entire site, perhaps take a look at the MFL customization and widget groups and, as they are open with their code, you could maybe develop a site that integrates with them to handle live auctions. You could import the league auction settings including importing in existing rosters and salaries for keeper/dynasty auction leagues, provide functionality to conduct a live or slow auction, and then export the results to MFL to update the rosters and salaries accordingly. I'm sure most in auction leagues would be willing to pay a few extra dollars for this. It beats the best option last year, which was to set up an ESPN league, manually enter in carry over rosters and salaries, conduct auction at ESPN, then manually enter the results at MFL.

 

Doing the above you would already have a captive target market, with a glaring need that you could fill. Use that as your foray into the market while developing your own league management side.

[Barleyman]

Sorry pal, I'm gonna have to stick to making fun of you, it requires less thought.

 

I appreciate that, my ego can get out of hand. And did I mention I am fat?

[Barleyman]

Delusions and Big Country,

 

Great feedback and I completely agree on presenting my ideas around features etc. I want to stress again, I do NOT want a flashy site plastered with banner ads, only one that does not look like the design is from 2003. I don't want to create a myspace where every look and feel is customizable, but more in tune to facebook where there is a consistent layout from site to site. But I do want to allow customization of content pieces, like avatars, custom menus on home page, etc etc. But I want to get beyond design for a second.

 

More importantly, I want to make it simple to understand, but yet customizable and flexible enough to allow veterans and beginners alike to use the site. I know how to improve live drafts and scale up over high traffic times such as draft season and prior to game times. Fanball, was laughable in that area. Over the years their site actually got worse, because they weren't doing some very basic things in that regard.

 

I think your ideas around building a small piece first such as draft, etc are good ones to get my feet wet and show what I can or cannot deliver.

 

Let me take some time to put together a real set of features and ideas and post a more detailed concept instead of arguing this or that.

 

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Barleyman

[CrazyOne]

FWIW Barleyman I understand where you're coming from and agree with your design perspective. I don't really have a feel for how successful it could be though.

 

We've been using MFL for several years. Now, we don't need the extreme customization for scoring and league format that MFL offers; we originally switched when Sportsline jacked the price up yet again and never looked back. A few of our new owners (after someone drops out) have sometimes expressed dismay at the MFL layout, but most get it. I would say it's not the most friendly site to use and it's certainly not pretty, but it does work. I think there's room for a nicer default layout and easier changes. But I get the feeling a lot of MFL users won't care as much about that as whether it works for their rules.

 

I play in one league at this point and thus haven't looked at Sportsline in years (the only other one I used was Yahoo, last time a couple years ago, and I didn't find that especially more appealing). So I'm not sure what it takes to lure Sportsline users. Cheaper alone is obviously not enough or they would all be using MFL. To lure MFL users it's going to take a ton of possibilities in league design/scoring and fairly extreme responsiveness to user support and feature requests.

 

Personally, I would switch from MFL to something that looked nicer and offered a clean, modern interface, for around the same price. (MFL maxes out at $80 I think for a typical league size, but if you buy early it can be $60.)

 

Don't overlook how big of a factor simple inertia is in why people wouldn't switch. In order to draw enough users you might have to make it free or very low cost at first. And/or if you can come up with a simple way to transfer existing leagues, that's going to help a lot as well.

 

It's an interesting idea and I wish you good luck.

[Scooby's Hubby]

But they still look like a HS kid made them in 1997. I think this guy is on to something because this topic has come up before. The hardcores don't care what it looks like, they just want to be able to make it handle any myriad scoring options and such. But many of us are in leagues with guys who are used to the flashy sites. I remember when I switched my local over to MFL, guys were bitching about it endlessly.

 

However, I think they complain far more about the lack of editorial content then the fact that it looks like crap. And that's a sort of hard part to include if you're not attached to CBS or ESPN or the like.

 

Ultimately, would I prefer a version of MFL that was nicer on the eyes and maybe more intuitively designed? Absolutely. Then again, I'm already on board with using a site that doesn't have a ton of articles and such posted. That, I think, is the thing that keeps most people using the big boys.

Detlef is spot on here. I switched our homer frm CBS to MFL last year and many in my league got pissed for the same reasons. I told them they can enjoy free Yahoo! in the future, which they will hate. I will never pay $149.00 for a fantasy website again.

[MikesVikes]

Look, we get A TON of rookie posters linking us to this kind of stuff.

 

 

I appreciate that, my ego can get out of hand. And did I mention I am fat?

 

 

[keggerz]

I am looking to do something to "revolutionize" the way that IDP fantasy football is played. I have emails into multiple sites (MFL included) currently there is no site that can accommodate what needs to be done....but if you don't want to work the entire off season on it then I don't think you will be able to help...it looks to be intensive but considering I haven't gotten any "NO's" yet I still have hope that MFL will be able to come thru for me.

 

I know there was another "new" poster here this year that said he was going to develop a site but I can't remember his name...if I could or if anyone else does let me know because I will contact him too.

 

 

and yes, I am serious.

[half_hennessy]

I am looking to do something to "revolutionize" the way that IDP fantasy football is played. I have emails into multiple sites (MFL included) currently there is no site that can accommodate what needs to be done....but if you don't want to work the entire off season on it then I don't think you will be able to help...it looks to be intensive but considering I haven't gotten any "NO's" yet I still have hope that MFL will be able to come thru for me.

 

I know there was another "new" poster here this year that said he was going to develop a site but I can't remember his name...if I could or if anyone else does let me know because I will contact him too.

 

 

and yes, I am serious.

 

Sounds interesting atleast maybe this could be an avenue for Barleyman

[whomper]

and yes, I am serious.

 

 

and dont call him Shirley

[wiegie]

build it with a live auction app and you might have something.

interesting thought

[BiggieFries]

I also contemplated doing this about a year or two ago as a side thing (I also do web dev work) and came to the realization that something this large would be one hell of an undertaking. It would have to be a full time gig for you. If you did it part time with all of the suggestions you're getting and options you want then this will take at a very minimum of a year (and I think more) and that's if you're reeeeally motivated.

 

Things you have to consider are: Where would you get the data for live scoring? Will you be getting the Sunday ticket and watching all of the games and updating the data yourself manually or will you be paying for live data from say the AP (not sure of the cost but I'm sure it ain't cheap)? Scalability (if the site gets enough traffic) during game days? Even MFL and CBS still have this trouble and they've been around for quite some time.

 

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it's a hell of an undertaking unless you're really going to devote a ton of time to it. Good luck if you do decide to go with it.

[MustOfBeenDrunk]

The only draw back I have found with MFL is using VP's

The site handles them fine in a 12 league format but they must be manually input in a 14 team format

 

Oh the other is accounting ,, the site does not track trade $$ to be deducted

It does handle FA pickups in a blind bid but ignores trades

[Barleyman]

I also contemplated doing this about a year or two ago as a side thing (I also do web dev work) and came to the realization that something this large would be one hell of an undertaking. It would have to be a full time gig for you. If you did it part time with all of the suggestions you're getting and options you want then this will take at a very minimum of a year (and I think more) and that's if you're reeeeally motivated.

 

Things you have to consider are: Where would you get the data for live scoring? Will you be getting the Sunday ticket and watching all of the games and updating the data yourself manually or will you be paying for live data from say the AP (not sure of the cost but I'm sure it ain't cheap)? Scalability (if the site gets enough traffic) during game days? Even MFL and CBS still have this trouble and they've been around for quite some time.

 

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it's a hell of an undertaking unless you're really going to devote a ton of time to it. Good luck if you do decide to go with it.

 

 

BiggieFries,

 

I agree with your post. I have been kicking around doing this for years. I realize it would be a huge undertaking. I work on this stuff on a daily basis utilizing the cloud for scaling and modern web-frameworks, ie. what groupon, twitter, etc use. Which lets developers build a site much more rapidly than using old tech.

 

- In regards to data feed, I have been researching and found what I consider to be a good source for reasonable amount of money.

- Scaling, I will utilize amazon EC2 to autoscale up and down server instances based on load. This is something old school companies like CBS are just now starting to understand how to do.

 

o.k. I am stopping now, before I get too nerdy

 

One thing I have learned from this discussion here, thehuddle community will not be my target audience. Most love MFL because of the extreme customizations, which is a very important but niche market. But it is not the market I would be targeting. I would be creating something with a smaller feature set (comparable to fanball) to start, but making sure it scales, doesn't crash constantly, the scoring is accurate, isn't plastered with ads, easy to use and has enough customization for 80% of fantasy users. The great thing about MFL is they can please the most demanding customers. The problem they most certainly have is all of those customizations make it very hard to upgrade their site as time goes along.

 

Bottom line, MFL serves extreme players like all of you here with much customization, where I would be targeting more main stream users with nice live draft tools, easy roster management, nice statistics to help choose starters, pulling in injury and player updates from the entire web, integrating with facebook for easy login and potentially taunting your friends, etc.

 

That is not to say I don't really value your opinions here, it just means you probably won't be my potential user.

[Square]

I have my main league in CBS even thought it is about twice the cost it should be. I can't get a bunch of (lazy/busy) 30 - 45 year olds to change to MFL. If the other site was attractive enough and cost affective, I'd be willing to give it a look and try to move a league.

[CrazyOne]

I wouldn't necessarily say all Huddle users won't be your target. Just that people who are posting here now, after the season is over, are the real diehards who are often into the most challenging leagues with the most unusual rules, etc. They won't be your target audience, that's true.

 

There are plenty of us Huddle members who play in more garden variety leagues who could be a target. Most of them probably aren't posting in the forum at this time of year, and there could be many who don't use the forum at all, only using the stats, news and other features that the Huddle is so known for during the season.

 

I'll be interested to hear of your progress, assuming you go forward with it. Good luck.

[osu1322]

But they still look like a HS kid made them in 1997. I think this guy is on to something because this topic has come up before. The hardcores don't care what it looks like, they just want to be able to make it handle any myriad scoring options and such. But many of us are in leagues with guys who are used to the flashy sites. I remember when I switched my local over to MFL, guys were bitching about it endlessly.

 

However, I think they complain far more about the lack of editorial content then the fact that it looks like crap. And that's a sort of hard part to include if you're not attached to CBS or ESPN or the like.

 

Ultimately, would I prefer a version of MFL that was nicer on the eyes and maybe more intuitively designed? Absolutely. Then again, I'm already on board with using a site that doesn't have a ton of articles and such posted. That, I think, is the thing that keeps most people using the big boys.

 

I hate to say this but that is the one thing CBS and ESPN have going for them. Rather than watch sportscenter over and over again to get the snip of news about one of ur players, it is right there on line up. The arcticles can still be read by people who haven't joined espn but when ur looking for pickups off the WW or how so and so looked in his last game, who has time to sit and watch every game??? That is why reporters and "experts" help FF owners by telling them their thoughts. We don't always listen or agree with them but that is what they get paid for lol...

[Ursa Majoris]

However, I think they complain far more about the lack of editorial content then the fact that it looks like crap.

With all due respect to your circle of FF friends, who I am sure are very nice to their moms and small animals but if they want editorial comment a la CBS, ESPN, etc, they are both lazy and foolish. Real FF editorial is available at real FF sites and none of the ESPN, CBS, Yahoo crowd could even remotely be classed as real.

[tazinib1]

With all due respect to your circle of FF friends, who I am sure are very nice to their moms and small animals but if they want editorial comment a la CBS, ESPN, etc, they are both lazy and foolish. Real FF editorial is available at real FF sites and none of the ESPN, CBS, Yahoo crowd could even remotely be classed as real.

 

+ 1 Billion

[tazinib1]

I hate to say this but that is the one thing CBS and ESPN have going for them. Rather than watch sportscenter over and over again to get the snip of news about one of ur players, it is right there on line up. The arcticles can still be read by people who haven't joined espn but when ur looking for pickups off the WW or how so and so looked in his last game, who has time to sit and watch every game??? That is why reporters and "experts" help FF owners by telling them their thoughts. We don't always listen or agree with them but that is what they get paid for lol...

 

Sorry but ESPN or CBS or FoxSports or any other "flashy" news media's player update and advice is vanilla at best. It doesn't take too much effort to open another browser while setting your lineups with a TRUE FF update site.

[Big Country]

With all due respect to your circle of FF friends, who I am sure are very nice to their moms and small animals but if they want editorial comment a la CBS, ESPN, etc, they are both lazy and foolish. Real FF editorial is available at real FF sites and none of the ESPN, CBS, Yahoo crowd could even remotely be classed as real.

 

 

To further address detlef's point, MFL does actually have links to articles from FF sites like TheHuddle, KFFL etc. directly from their player pages, which IMO are a bit better and more fantasy focused than the other sites.

[Cunning Runt]

I don't like MFL as site except for the customization. I'd be gone in a heartbeat if there were a site that combined that customization with some of the bells/whistles of some other sites.

 

MFL's only redeeming quality is that customization actually, but it's an important one. And I disagree with those who say they'll customize a feature for you at the drop of a dime. That's not been my experience.

 

As you can see, I'd very much be in your target market.

[tazinib1]

As you can see, I'd very much be in your target market.

 

Communist

[smithkt]

I'll throw my two cents in on the MFL appearance issue...

 

The level of customization possible using custom CSS and HTML actually does allow for the possibility of some very good looking sites. However, I understand that it is unreasonable to expect every league to have a coding genius available to do so, so the vast majority of the MFL customers are wholly dependent on the skins available through the setup page to find something they like. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the skins are not well thought out and not complete. As new modules are made available, those skins tend to fall out of date. New feature like the horizontal and vertical menus made the situation worse. Some of the more recent MFL default skins have looked much better than their first batch, but most of the older ones just plain suck. Those of you still using older skins might want to check out some of the newer ones to see if that improves your opinion of your league site. It might not, but I wonder how many of you are aware of the options.

 

If anyone who has commented on the outdated look would be willing to post a link to their league page, I'd like to see what skins and module layout you are using. Perhaps a few simple suggestions could make the page more pleasing and perhaps more functional.

 

It's quite clear to me that while the staff at MFL fully understands how to use CSS and HTML, they lack a little design flair and rely on the community to provide skin templates. I myself have submitted a few (the Huddle skins) which are also admittedly lacking.

 

The main problem is the guys who really have this design flair, have all decided to turn it into a profit center. Certainly their right. However this limits the number of quality skins available in the default list. I'd really like to see MFL hire someone to simply improve the selection of skins, leverage some new CSS3 techniques and I think it would eliminate the "made by a HS kid in 1997" type complaints.

 

I find the biggest mistake most of the people who customize their site make is trying to do too much. Overuse of flash, large graphics, overusing the tab feature to add every possible module, adding every third-party widget they can find, all contributing to slow page load times. While the page may look great, it sucks when you are trying to make that last minute change or just looking for a quick update on scoring. They lose sight of the important balance between appearance, responsiveness and functionality.

 

As for the original question, yes, if you think you can build a better mouse trap, I say do it. Competition is a good thing. It's a monumental task rife with a lot of pitfalls, but if you are confident you can make it work, scale appropriately and handle the technical support in a timely manner, then good luck to you.