ESPN - what's the catch?

[BALCO All-Stars]

I normally run all of my baseball leagues on Yahoo, mainly because it's free and easy to use. However, last year we decided to turn our leagues into keeper leagues, and Yahoo doesn't let you enter keepers pre-draft, which is a problem. I just noticed on ESPN that it looks like you can establish keepers pre-draft, plus setup divisions, determine how many teams make the playoffs (h-2-h), and how many weeks each playoff week is...basically it's Yahoo plus all of the stuff that Yahoo needs...and it's free??? Am i missing something?

[Alcooo]

I think the reason people dislike ESPN is because they have errors with their live scoring every now and then. But hell, its free! Personally, I use ESPN and I love it. I've had less problems with them than I have for Yahoo. I think ESPN is all around better than Yahoo for Free Leagues, although I know that very few people feel the same way.

[BALCO All-Stars]

I did a free mock draft on ESPN tonight, and your post seemed to echo what I heard there...Yahoo's stattracker is a lot better, but ESPN is better in most other facets. But with keepers, Yahoo isn't even an option, which more then trumps the stattracker issue.

Anyone else?

[Alcooo]

ESPN's Live Scoring was adequate during the Fantasy Football season. It was flaky for two weeks, but again, it's free. But it worked very well, and any errors they had in the live scoring were quickly sorted out. I think ESPN just has a bad reputation, and Yahoo benefits from a very strong one. But in my Fantasy Hockey team this year on Yahoo, I've had nothing but difficulty, with Lineup Screens not loading (making me unable to make lineup changes), which can be very annoying.

[mj85]

My only problem with ESPN is that their free public leagues are 10 team leagues. I prefer 12. Other than that, I love ESPN's fantasy system.

[BALCO All-Stars]

My only problem with ESPN is that their free public leagues are 10 team leagues. I prefer 12. Other than that, I love ESPN's fantasy system.

Hmmm...I just made a 12 team, 3 division H-2-H league with up to 4 keepers...no problem.

[mission27]

ESPN had some BIG issues last year witch I will go over but it does have the best overall system and FREE live scoring!

- About a week into the season last year the waiver wire was having major problems. ESPN reset ALL rosters back to the April 1st rosters therefor reversing all transactions and only giving teams stats from the players that were on their rosters on April 1st.

- Complaints about WW problems went on for another couple of weeks but after that it seemed to be resolved.

- There have been numerous problems with ESPN's live scoring but personally I have found it ok and better than having to pay for it on Yahoo!

The first two problems were addressed, and fixed, and the last one is, as I said, not as big of a deal as some would make it out to be. I use ESPN for my keeper league so I would say, go for it!

PS about the standard leagues, those don't apply to Custom leagues so thats fine.

[Trojan Pony]

I used Yahoo! for many years, and still play in a Y! league now, but started using ESPN last year for the league I commish. There were some really bad technical problems at the start of last season but since then everything has been pretty smooth sailing. The live scoring is a little glitchy sometimes, but it's eventually corrected, and most of the time it works fine. ESPN is great for the flexbility it allows in league configuration, handles features that most free sites don't offer such as keepers and some less common statistical cats, and even has a free 1-800 number to call with any questions. All of these are huge advantages over Yahoo. ESPN has won me over and I plan on continuing to use them unless they start charging or somehow manage to screw everything up. Even if they started charging, I would consider paying if the cost was reasonable (but Shhh... don't let anyone at ESPN hear that).

[flloyd]

Yahoo doesn't let you enter keepers pre-draft, which is a problem.

Why don't you just make a list of everybody's keepers and tell people not to draft them. Then for the first X rounds of the draft each person just drafts the players from their keeper list. Should work good enough. Or am I missing something?

[BALCO All-Stars]

Thought about that...but if one team doesn't do that (or for some reason there computer locks up, etc), then the whole draft could just be thrown off. I've switched my leagues to ESPN (setting up divisions is a nice bonus)...