We had
the chance to play a complete 2006 season of Fantasy
Football on the CBS Sportsline system and to say the least
we were impressed. CBS Sportsline has put together a
fantastic fantasy football league site with everything the
rookie and veteran manager would need to succeed. As to any
Fantasy Football League, there will be pros and cons, and we
will discuss them both in detail. For CBS Sportsline
however, the pros outweigh the few cons greatly
Draft Tools
We
utilized the online draft provide by CBS Sportsline. We
were impressed by the draft layout, and presentation. Even
options like pausing the draft, and commissioner control to
cancel a pick were useful. The only problems we had were
exactly the reasons why pausing the draft and canceling
picks were so useful. The draft did hang-up several times,
and some players lost connections or had to reboot. I can’t
say whether this was the fault of the individual user or
CBS, but it wasn’t good. The draft process was also very
slow because of the delay issue, but in the end it worked
out fine. There was also plenty of draft information
provided by CBS including great Cheat Sheets. All in all, a
very good CBS Sportsline drafting experience, especially for
the first time using this system.
League Homepage
Next, we
were impressed with the amount of information that CBS built
into the homepage for the league. Not only did the sheer
volume of information impress us, but that it was completely
customizable. Granted, the page took more time than usual
to get use to and the navigation was a major learning curve.
Lets
start with the information. Unlike other major or minor
league sites, CBS provides up-to-the-minute fantasy football
news. What makes theirs even more special is they breakup
the news into two sections, “Players” and “My Players”
meaning you can view news just on your players if you
choose. The home page also contained news articles, and
professional stats/rankings for the league managers to use
at their disposal. Many people might say that the homepage
has two much on it, but that is where the customizing comes
in to play. If you didn’t want to see “Players” news, they
customize your homepage and remove that section. If you
want to move league transactions to the top of the page,
that can be done as well. The page is very busy with
scattered navigation, and there are too many menus in our
opinion. Also, the way the standing were handled using
abbreviations instead of team names didn’t look good.
Overall, we were very impressed with the league’s
homepage.
League Setup and Functionality
Then
there is the actual functionality of the league. Setting up
the league was a breeze, and developing league scoring and
other rules was very easy. The CBS scoring system was very
liberal and had more options then any scoring system we’ve
seen. Coming from Yahoo! we were more than pleased with how
many different ways we set up our league. We were
particularly happy with the setup of the league in
divisions, creating our own schedule, and controlling our
playoffs.
The
player listing was phenomenal, with updated player news and
stats. Grabbing a free agent or using the waiver system was
easy, and there were many tools such as articles, player
news, roster trends, and ranking to help determine the best
pickup. Seeing what other people are doing in other leagues
with the same player is very helpful is making a tough
decision. With the wealth of information provided by CBS
Sportsline, grabbing a player from free agency or just
finding info on a taken player was easy and insightful
Commissioner Tools
The
Commissioner tools got the job done. All the commissioner
tools are in one concise tab oriented page. Whether you are
signing up/inviting managers, setting up the waiver rules,
deciding roster limits, devising the league scoring system,
or collecting fees everything could be done from the
commissioner control panel. Features that we liked the most
was the ability to allow more than one commissioner,
archiving the scoring system (incase you mess it up and need
to restore the old one), setting/editing the schedule
manually, and most of all editing rosters before, during and
after games by the commissioner. This has been a problem in
many leagues, where someone either can’t edit there team, or
needs help for one reason or another. In the past you had
to give up your team password to allow a fellow manager to
help. In any case with any problems, now that issue is gone
with CBS Sportsline commissioner tools.
Conclusion
Overall
we found CBS Sportsline to have one of the best league
systems we have used. To compare it to the competition, its
got far more options than Yahoo!, and blows ESPN out of the
water and even hangs with ESPN’s fantasy football content.
Also, when you need league support, unlike with Yahoo!,
which you are lucky to get a response in time or ESPN where
support is highly unlikely, CBS Sportsline has great support
that will answer your call for help with 24 hrs. We are not
sure what the prices will be in 2008, but they are always
cheaper than Yahoo!, and they are the overall best value of
all the Pay league sites, and offer a tremendous value over
the free leagues.
Written By Fantasy Football
Search Staff
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