Geeks of the gridiron
Dear PropellerHeads: They just made me commissioner of our new fantasy football league. I have to find a website to host our league. Any ideas?
A: They made you commissioner? Next time, I guess you'll show up for the meeting.
You're in luck. You happened to catch a PropellerHead who is also a fantasy football nut. I have been playing for 25 years with the same group. We're still going strong, but we all wear reading glasses now.
Your timing is also pretty good. This is about the time many fantasy football players begin researching and planning for the annual draft. Drafts typically take place in early August up until kickoff for the first regular season game. This year, there is a real threat that the season may open late if the NFL and the players don't find agreement on their contract. The prospect of a shortened NFL season is unsettling to fantasy football addicts, like me.
Fantasy Football dates back to the '60s, but has really only become widely popular in the last decade under the perfect storm of the NFL's huge rise in popularity and the growth of the Internet. Most weekly NFL pre-game shows include a fantasy football player analysis as a regular component. NFL's RedZone (redzonetv.nfl.com) real-time scoring highlights show is like crack for a fantasy nut. Many NFL players regularly talk about their fantasy football stats.
Fantasy football lets dweebs like me, who can't play football or own a team, pretend to manage an NFL team using actual player statistics. I also get to emasculate my league opponents with my dazzling strategy and play. Most leagues involve entry fees and expenses that can be claimed by the league champions.
Way back when my league started, we accumulated stats by reading USA Today and compiling a league report on a spreadsheet. Luckily, phones had been invented, so we exchanged data between phone calls and snail mail. We then migrated to an online data service that gave us raw stats that we compiled, then to a desktop application. Now most leagues run on Web-based software.
Many website services are available to manage your league. Like anything else, they vary in cost and features. Features you should look for include:
• Automatic stats calculation (points, win/loss, standings, player comparisons)
• Draft planning and live/automated draft day management
• Draw draft, auction draft and legacy (keeper) support
• Flexible rules (scoring) set-up including basic scoring, PPR (point per reception) and individual defensive player capabilities
• Playoffs
• Accounting (fees, payoffs)
• Historical (league champions, multi-year stats)
• Mobile access
• Owner chat boards, forums, trash-talking support
• News feeds, projections, projection surveys
• Scoring and fee correction support
• Standard league rules templates
• Team home page customization
There are a number of very good websites that support most of the above features at no cost. They include Yahoo! Sports (football.fantasysports.yahoo.com), CBS Sports (cbssports.com/fantasy/football), ESPN (games.espn.go.com/frontpage/football) and the NFL (nfl.com/fantasy). Their hope is to keep you on their site to support their advertisers, and they typically have premium (cost) features that can improve your odds. These sites can be used to manage your league, and they have a large number of public, open leagues that form organically from strangers who want to play but aren't part of an established league. They also typically host contests that will let you win prizes for a small entry fee.
When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.