# ESPN.com Fantasy Sports deserve to be nuked! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 1, 2005, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555 "2005-09-01T05:52:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/1 "2005-09-01T05:52:12Z")
OK, so I set up my personal fantasy football league on [ESPN.com](http://ESPN.com). It’s a money league, and our draft was supposed to be a live online draft this coming Tuesday night. I got a email tonite at 11:45PM indicating that they will be changing all leagues that are not enrolled with their premium EDGE package (which costs a cool $100) will be switched from a live draft to a auto-draft. Here’s the exact text of the message: > [@](#): > > As an ESPN Fantasy Football user, please keep in mind that the start of the season is rapidly approaching. > > According to our records, you are a team owner in one of our free Customizable Leagues. Based on the overwhelming popularity and demand for [ESPN.com](http://ESPN.com)’s Live Draft, we need to limit draft slots to EDGE leagues only. Please upgrade your league with the EDGE before your draft date to use [ESPN.com](http://ESPN.com)’s live draft application. If you decide not to upgrade your league, it will automatically be switched to an Autopick draft. > > This will give you the necessary time to prepare your team. We recommend Pre-Ranking your players at the earliest convenience. > > Good luck and enjoy the fantasy season. > > – ESPN Fantasy Games Commissioner > Please do not reply directly to this e-mail as it will not arrive at a monitored address. > > For all questions, please refer to: > [http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?page=fflrulesindex](http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?page=fflrulesindex) Now it doesn’t get any lower than that. To change their policy with less than a week before the start of the season. Long after there is any possibility of arranging other options. This is quite simply extortion. They know damn well that I will not be able to make other arrangements at this point. If anyone ever considers using ESPN for fantasy sports, or have an existing memebership, I highly recommend you reconsider and take time to ensure that your league isn’t also affected. I highly intend to rant and rave about this for an extended period of time. At a later date you can expect a louder and more profanity laced rant in the pit. Fuckers… ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/2 "2005-09-01T06:06:54Z")
One more thing. Anyone have any ideas where I might track down a website to administer our league on at this late date? So far both Yahoo and [NFL.com](http://NFL.com) don’t have any live draft slots for any of the evenings of next week. This couldn’t suck any harder. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/3 "2005-09-01T19:51:16Z")
Wow, the empathy from my fellow FFLers is astounding… ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/4 "2005-09-01T21:01:37Z")
/sympathy Other than that, I don’t know what to say. I’m not a big fan of the whole “ESPN is free this year!” for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which I just plain like the way Yahoo works better, for the most part. It’s pretty crappy of them to make the switch like that, but then again, it’s pretty crappy that none of the major FFL providers has come up with a draft app yet that can use the commish (or someone designated by the commish) as a host server, and signing up for draft slots be damned. [ESPN.com](http://ESPN.com) has been switching as much as reasonably possible to pay services over the last year and change, and the bait and switch doesn’t really surprise me. Oh, and ESPN autodrafts suck even more ass than Yahoo autodrafts. I had an ESPN league this year that was auto, and through some quirks in the rankings and the fact that it has no concept of position need, I got either a WR or a RB in each of the first 11 rounds. I had some damn good picks there in some pretty nice slots… but Brian Griese was my starting QB, among other crappy things, until I did some dealing. Good luck getting something at this late a date… hopefully, you don’t end up running into the start of the season. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/5 "2005-09-01T22:31:01Z")
[http://www.xpertsports.com/index.php4](http://www.xpertsports.com/index.php4) Very user friendly and customizable. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/6 "2005-09-01T23:50:36Z")
It gets worse. they are deleting all negative comments posted in their message board for fantasy football. This is the lowest thing I have ever seen. Wow, for a guy that loved all thing ESPN I’m so rethinking all of that. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/7 "2005-09-02T00:39:34Z")
I used to work for ESPN/Disney as a customer service rep, and I cannot begin to tell you how many irate customers we’d get calling in every time a new season of Fantasy \_\_\_\_\_ started up. I swear our sole function was to pacify FFL’ers. This was about 4 years ago, and their live drafts didn’t work then. If you haven’t paid anything, it’s lame, but at least now you know for next time. If you have paid something, call in for your refund as soon as possible. They’ll give you 30 days, or up until the very second the draft begins (whether it works or not) to get a refund (that’s how it worked then, YMMV). ESPN is owned by Disney, so that should give you a good idea of what sort of business they are. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/espn-com-fantasy-sports-deserve-to-be-nuked/319555/8 "2005-09-02T02:34:09Z")
I hear ya, but it’s not so much about the money. It’s the 11th hour changes that have created such a headache. I just said screw it and signed up for a Yahoo PLUS league. It’s expensive, but at least I got free range of draft slots. And most importnatly ESPN won’t be getting a dime of my money or any of my ad impressions. I’m going to send a pissy letter to Goodyear, their sponsor, and see that they know what kind of a product the put their name on.