League Hosting Sites

[Def.]

MFL has changed it's purchasing deadlines (April?!?) and pricing to some regard so exploring what the options are like out there now a days.  Just to note, would appreciate it if we can keep the MFL bashing to a minimum and instead focus more of the pros/cons of other hosts in general.   

 

Mainly interested in hearing about the current state of Yahoo, Sleeper, Fantrax or any other host that may not be as well known.  Most of us are well versed with ESPN and CBSSports and their flaws, but feel free to discuss regardless if you like. 

 

The league setup I'm exploring for is relatively simple, but there have been some hangups with other hosts that MFL worked better for.  So here's some of those potentials problems -

 

- Hybrid waivers environments running together.  Specifically, able to run 2 blind bid waivers days (Weds/Thurs) and then have FCFS availability until Sunday kick off.  This has generally been the hang up with most free sites when researching previously.   

- Custom Scoring Options.  Think this is pretty standard now but just in case.

- Roster and Injury Reserve options.  Again, should be standard would think.  IDP not a point of focus for me, but please feel free to discuss if desired.

- History.  Need to be able to see previously year drafts and transactions.   

- Multiple Player Pools.  More a point of curiosity for me.  My long time local has been using this feature from MFL for near 20 years now, is there even another option out there?   

 

Appreciate to hear some experiences with the other hosts. 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Def.

[Henry Muto]

The cost is the same as last year as long as you pay by the new deadline.  You actually can get an additional $10 off using this link as well then going on to your league.

 

If you do multiple leagues the first one ends up being $59.59 and all others $49.95 by using the $10 discount below plus the $30 discount before NFL Draft sign up and $10 multi league discount.  If you like being able to have a history to look back on nothing is better than MFL.  I would never ever play on ESPN or CBS I have used those platforms before helping a friend and they were god awful in every way.  RTS is nice but I don't know how much that costs to use but it wasn't great at storing your history but looks better than MFL for lineups but very limited in other ways.  Also if your a contract league leaving MFL will make your head spin trying to keep that handled.

 

http://home.myfantasyleague.com/our-partners/partner-fbg/

 

 

[Def.]

1 hour ago, Henry Muto said:

The cost is the same as last year as long as you pay by the new deadline.  You actually can get an additional $10 off using this link as well then going on to your league.

 

If you do multiple leagues the first one ends up being $59.59 and all others $49.95 by using the $10 discount below plus the $30 discount before NFL Draft sign up and $10 multi league discount.  If you like being able to have a history to look back on nothing is better than MFL.  I would never ever play on ESPN or CBS I have used those platforms before helping a friend and they were god awful in every way.  RTS is nice but I don't know how much that costs to use but it wasn't great at storing your history but looks better than MFL for lineups but very limited in other ways.  Also if your a contract league leaving MFL will make your head spin trying to keep that handled.

 

http://home.myfantasyleague.com/our-partners/partner-fbg/

 

 

 

Forgot about RTS, thanks for the info.  I really don't need convincing to stay on MFL, but my cousin runs that league and they've always been hoping for something more streamlined so I thought I'd preemptively ask the question I know is coming.  Other then the waiver requirements I'm sure it could be ran anywhere with just a little extra effort, but the league is low energy compared to what I'm use to with BoTH leagues or even my main local so the more easy mode the better I guess.  

 

Sleeper is the one I'm honestly most curious about.  The league is full of people that can operate a phone/apps but not a computer.  I'll never do CBS for that price point and have always found ESPN to be so basic.  Yahoo I hear mixed things about the app side, though that's not really saying much with MFL's 3rd party apps. 

[Henry Muto]

I have only done MFL for dynasty and RTS, FFPC, NFFC for redraft (and FFPC for "dynasty" but it is more like keeper league).

 

Sleeper looks decent to use but I have never done it no idea how it would be for dynasty and if your using contracts.

[Shaft]

Last year I played in leagues in MFL, Espn, yahoo, RTS, and Fantrax. Fantrax and Espn might have been the most user friendly. Fantrax has nice aesthetics, but the site is a little too "busy" for my liking. RTS is straight forward and easy to use. There are quite a few who like Fantrax and it's good especially if you like a nice looking website.

[Def.]

4 hours ago, Shaft said:

Last year I played in leagues in MFL, Espn, yahoo, RTS, and Fantrax. Fantrax and Espn might have been the most user friendly. Fantrax has nice aesthetics, but the site is a little too "busy" for my liking. RTS is straight forward and easy to use. There are quite a few who like Fantrax and it's good especially if you like a nice looking website.

 

Thx, does Fantrax have an app and/or how do the website look on a phone (if applicable)? 

[Shaft]

6 hours ago, Def. said:

 

Thx, does Fantrax have an app and/or how do the website look on a phone (if applicable)? 

Yes, Fantrax does have an app. It looks okay on the phone. Once again I feel like it's trying do too much, but I prefer simplicity. I want to stress, I use their site the least out of the others I mentioned, but I've never walked away pissed off like I have with MFL. 

Here is their FAQ:

https://www.fantrax.com/faq/other

 

[Dcat]

On 3/31/2022 at 5:34 PM, Def. said:

MFL has changed it's purchasing deadlines (April?!?) and pricing to some regard so exploring what the options are like out there now a days.  Just to note, would appreciate it if we can keep the MFL bashing to a minimum and instead focus more of the pros/cons of other hosts in general.   

 

Mainly interested in hearing about the current state of Yahoo, Sleeper, Fantrax or any other host that may not be as well known.  Most of us are well versed with ESPN and CBSSports and their flaws, but feel free to discuss regardless if you like. 

 

The league setup I'm exploring for is relatively simple, but there have been some hangups with other hosts that MFL worked better for.  So here's some of those potentials problems -

 

- Hybrid waivers environments running together.  Specifically, able to run 2 blind bid waivers days (Weds/Thurs) and then have FCFS availability until Sunday kick off.  This has generally been the hang up with most free sites when researching previously.   

- Custom Scoring Options.  Think this is pretty standard now but just in case.

- Roster and Injury Reserve options.  Again, should be standard would think.  IDP not a point of focus for me, but please feel free to discuss if desired.

- History.  Need to be able to see previously year drafts and transactions.   

- Multiple Player Pools.  More a point of curiosity for me.  My long time local has been using this feature from MFL for near 20 years now, is there even another option out there?   

 

Appreciate to hear some experiences with the other hosts. 

 

Same here.  After many years at Yahoo, my leagues gave RTS a try.  One and done for a zillion reasons.  Particularly poor management by RTS  of injury status, IR eligibility and consolidating the gameday inactive lists with IR eligibility (which they refuse to do for no logical reason).  So if you had a player you were waiting on who was "questionable" during the week, and he is declared inactive Sunday morning, you won't be able to put him on IR and make a pickup, without the commish manually doing it.  They will not integrate inactives with IR eligibility.  Their "solution" (haha) was for me to change the IR requirement from our by-laws "doubtful or out" to "questionable" and they actually thought that would solve the problem. THEIR problem.  Never mind that it would open up dozens of players to go on IR at the last minute who weren't eligible.  The only support we ever got were bandaids and non-intuitive work-arounds the defects in their platform.  That should be enough for most of us to run from that place. Great draft app though. I'll miss it.  Most importantly, RTS phone app is vastly inferior to Yahoo's and ESPN (from what I'm told).  Site has the feel of "we're waiting to be bought by a big company, so we won't bother improving the site or make any changes while we wait."  

 

I want to hear about ESPN. I hate CBS.  Not sure where to move my leagues.  I really want a site that gives me as much customization as possible, particularly with my playoff formats and interleague play between multiple leagues.  A site that is not MFL.  Been there, done that. No.

 

p.s.  one more major negative about RTS..  My leagues use Tuesday, midnight waivers and the the GMs like to peruse the options and start submitting their waiver claims at leisure during Sunday games and Monday as well as Tuesday.   RTS only opens waivers after MNF.  In other words, every GM has to submit all his waiver claims on Tuesday.  Just keep a written list thru Sunday and Monday?  Wow.  That pissed off nearly all my GMs.  Brought it up to them and they actually mocked us for not wanting to be stuck on Tuesdays only to enter a waiver claim for Wednesday.  That was the straw that broke the camel's back.  They were absolute a-holes about this annoying flaw in their FF platform.  Forget RTS.  Not worth it, even if free.

 

edit:  one of my GMs sent me this to simplify it:

Quote

 

My Review.

Blows Donkeys.

End of Review.

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Dcat

[Trojanmojo]

On 3/31/2022 at 2:34 PM, Def. said:

MFL has changed it's purchasing deadlines (April?!?) and pricing to some regard so exploring what the options are like out there now a days.  Just to note, would appreciate it if we can keep the MFL bashing to a minimum and instead focus more of the pros/cons of other hosts in general.   

 

Mainly interested in hearing about the current state of Yahoo, Sleeper, Fantrax or any other host that may not be as well known.  Most of us are well versed with ESPN and CBSSports and their flaws, but feel free to discuss regardless if you like. 

 

The league setup I'm exploring for is relatively simple, but there have been some hangups with other hosts that MFL worked better for.  So here's some of those potentials problems -

 

- Hybrid waivers environments running together.  Specifically, able to run 2 blind bid waivers days (Weds/Thurs) and then have FCFS availability until Sunday kick off.  This has generally been the hang up with most free sites when researching previously.   

- Custom Scoring Options.  Think this is pretty standard now but just in case.

- Roster and Injury Reserve options.  Again, should be standard would think.  IDP not a point of focus for me, but please feel free to discuss if desired.

- History.  Need to be able to see previously year drafts and transactions.   

- Multiple Player Pools.  More a point of curiosity for me.  My long time local has been using this feature from MFL for near 20 years now, is there even another option out there?   

 

Appreciate to hear some experiences with the other hosts. 

 

Fantrax does allow for all of these. I do believe the multiple player pool thing requires a paid acct but it's cheaper than the MFL option. I have found fantrax to be very buggy with the multiple player pool option though and that led to us moving to MFL.