CBS vs. ESPN for 2009

[Court Jester]

What about live scoring? Our league (a basic 5x5 non keeper league) is also discussing the ESPN vs CBS differences and one would have to think there has to be some substantial item ESPN is missing that the pay sites have. After all Yahoo is decent but doesn't have live scoring unless one pays for it. As I haven't seen that mentioned in this thread can anyone advise on this function?

Thanks

[Bloody Sox]

What about live scoring? Our league (a basic 5x5 non keeper league) is also discussing the ESPN vs CBS differences and one would have to think there has to be some substantial item ESPN is missing that the pay sites have. After all Yahoo is decent but doesn't have live scoring unless one pays for it. As I haven't seen that mentioned in this thread can anyone advise on this function?

Thanks

I'm pretty sure ESPN has free live stats/scoring.

[Bloody Sox]

Balco, you mentioned that with 4 keepers the first four rounds of the draft are full. We plan on using a penalty chart for our keeper set up. So if you're keeping a player you drafted in the 10th round you forfeit your 8th round pick. Could ESPN do something like that? Could CBS do that for that matter?

In CBS, guys who were kept basically just stay on their respective team's rosters and they do not even show up in the draft pool. You cannot slot them into a specific draft position (I wish we could, because we do something similar).

But now that I say that, if I were to switch to ESPN, what options would I have for even setting keepers on team's rosters?

[cbssportsleagues]

Thank you all for the great discussion.

I will use ESPN for the regular leagues I can do with basic scoring. For more complicated systems I will use CBS, such as 20 + teams in a league, Free agent bidding, and more complex keeper systems.

[Bloody Sox]

Balco, you mentioned that with 4 keepers the first four rounds of the draft are full. We plan on using a penalty chart for our keeper set up. So if you're keeping a player you drafted in the 10th round you forfeit your 8th round pick. Could ESPN do something like that? Could CBS do that for that matter?

In CBS, guys who were kept basically just stay on their respective team's rosters and you can specify what round they are being kept in. During the draft, those draft spots show up as "No Pick"

But now that I say that, if I were to switch to ESPN, what options would I have for even setting keepers on team's rosters?

[Court Jester]

What about live scoring? Our league (a basic 5x5 non keeper league) is also discussing the ESPN vs CBS differences and one would have to think there has to be some substantial item ESPN is missing that the pay sites have. After all Yahoo is decent but doesn't have live scoring unless one pays for it. As I haven't seen that mentioned in this thread can anyone advise on this function?

Thanks

I'm pretty sure ESPN has free live stats/scoring.

Thanks for your thoughts - Can anyone change the pretty sure to a definite yes for ESPN live scoring?

And someone else mentioned free agent bidding - does anyone have first hand experience with ESPN FAAB? That is a must.

CBS has a reliability edge in that we know it works, but I am a little teed off that they are substantially raising fees in an economic downturn. Its not the money as much as the principle. Guessing CBS is still the safer choice and I should prolly try a free league there before moving our $ league.

Any and all thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

[BALCO All-Stars]

ESPN has free live scoring. In a nutshell, I'm compare free ESPN = Yahoo Plus (which you pay for).

I'm unsure if ESPN has FAAB (I will be looking when the leagues are available).

Again, with keepers in ESPN, they have your roster from last year, so each team gets to select whatever keepers they want. But, as commish, you do need to doublecheck that the keepers selected follow your league rules, but that's no biggie.

[koondog]

The $30 increase at CBS really upset me this year. I am really tempted to switch to another service, but at the end of the day, I couldn't pull the trigger. I have not used ESPN, and didn't want to chance it. But I definitely going to follow the progress of ESPN this year and might switch next year if it can support all of my rules.

So once the season starts, I would love to hear everyone's feedback on ESPN.

[Bloody Sox]

I just read this on the leftovers forum - can anyone confirm/deny this is the case for baseball?

I don't know how the baseball is for ESPN, but I think their basketball setup is very poor.

The commissioner can't make any changes to anything retroactively, and they do not keep your stats week by week for you, or show you how your guys have done when they are active as opposed to on the bench. You can't look at past standings from last week or last month, only current.

[Grouperman941]

I just read this on the leftovers forum - can anyone confirm/deny this is the case for baseball?

I don't know how the baseball is for ESPN, but I think their basketball setup is very poor.

The commissioner can't make any changes to anything retroactively, and they do not keep your stats week by week for you, or show you how your guys have done when they are active as opposed to on the bench. You can't look at past standings from last week or last month, only current.

The part about your team stats and standings is true, or at least was last year. It may be possible and just buried/hard to find and use. It is also difficult to look at other teams' stats, and I found it awkward researching players, either for trades or FA. Not really bad, but the worst of the three services.

The Lineup page is the best of all three services, IMO, with a slick drag and drop, but that is the only thing I really liked. I played in one CBS pay, one Yahoo Plus, and one ESPN free last year, so I was on each site just about every day.

I did not commish, so can't help with that part.