Best sites to run a league?

[thepil]

Guys I am the commissioner of a couple of keeper leagues and we have had a couple of difficult years finding stat providers who have a decent setup. We were on TQ Stats for about 4 years but the year before last they changed software and it was horrendous. At the beginning of last year it didnt look to be improved and we switched to CBS Sportsline which was probably worse for what we were looking for.

The leagues are 18-20 team auction leagues. We have an in season salary cap of $300 for the starting lineup that we would like to be able to track automatically and give an error message if someone tries to go over. The FAAB bidding needs to be good and detailed with multiple if then else scenarios and the bid amounts need to be set to go in as the players' salary against the cap. A waiver process is needed as well so dropped players can be picked up for a week prior to going back into the bidding process. Automatic trades would be nice but not necessary as I can enter those if needed. Other bells and whistles are nice but those are the main things that we need.

Does anyone have that has experience running a league have any useful advice on a good site or sites? Many thanks.

[shif6]

I would make sure to check out onroto.com. It is run by the people who started TQStats.com. A glance at the roster indicates the total salary of the active players. I think their FAAB was in beta at the end of last year, but it should be up and running this year. It is a great site with knowledgeable people running it. Not sure about the trades. My guess is the Commissioner has to enter them.

I am commissioner of a couple of rotowire leagues which is excellent for many purposes, but will not presently accommodate free agents and waivers. Aside from that it is an excellent no frills site. It's salaries and contracts tab allows you to check the total salaries of the active rosters. Commissioners must enter trades. It's FAAB allows all the if then options, but the Commissioner has to determine who won the players. The software makes it easy to do that, and it is even fun, but it not automatic as it used to be in TQStats

[Todd Zola]

I'm going to second the suggestion to look into OnRoto. I have no personal experience with the service but they come highly recommended from good friend and new papa Rob Leibowitz.

Plus while I might not have used the service, I am very friendly with the guys that run it from Tout Wars and they are top-shelf in terms of people.

[viper]

At Ron Shandler's First Pitch Forum in Arizona this last October, stat services was one of the breakout sessions. I felt that Ron anticipated thisdiscussion to go in one direction but it clearly went somewhere else - to an extensive discussion on the good and bad things of the few sites people used. I attended this session and it was clear that ONROTO was an overwhelming favorite of the 60 or so people there. Several in that session had used it last year and were exceedingly pleased. It is the old TQStats group under a new name - not those who took the site over and made most people of intelligence leave two years ago.

Some others were discussed but for price and features ONROTO seemed to be a the overwhelming site of choice.

[alleyoops]

Used TQ for many years, bailed when CDM messed it up, went to Rotowire that year, moved to CBS last year. Rotowire lacked some features that made it tough on the commish (me) - no default salaries for FA's, maintaining contracts and salaries on separate screens, how it handled players dropped during the week (or in FAAB if it wasn't on the day starting the new week). CBS was fine for us. The owners really liked the live scoring/standings updates. It's pricier than the others (unless they lower the price this year, which I doubt). ONROTO was getting up at the time we had to commit last year, and we didn't want to chance it, even though TQ was sorely missed. This year it will clearly be between them and CBS, and my guess is we'll go to ONROTO if they have most of the old TQ features, for the price savings.

Another plus of CBS was that it included free use of FantasyAuctioneer, and import of the results into the leagues. FantasyAuctioneer worked well for us, and we'll likely use that again in 1 of my 2 online auction leagues, whether or not we're on CBS.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who used ONROTO last year, especially a comparison of planned 2009 features vs the old product's.

[shif6]

Not pushing rotowire at all. But salaries and contracts are on the same page (perhaps they were not before). If you use FAAB weekly, players dropped will be free agents in the next week's list of free agents. Free agents are linked to rotowire news and data.

[cwk1963]

I use CBS for 2 different auction leagues. One is a live auction with standard FA (no FAAB) where our salary cap is done manually since it doesn't include minors and DL players but does include bench players. The other is an on-line auction through CBS with FAAB and the same type of salary cap situation which CBS can't handle up to this point so I can see your problem with that. Other than that, CBS works well. But I'd like to take a gander at ONROTO.

[alleyoops]

Not pushing rotowire at all. But salaries and contracts are on the same page (perhaps they were not before). If you use FAAB weekly, players dropped will be free agents in the next week's list of free agents. Free agents are linked to rotowire news and data.

Sounds like some of the issues that I had with Rotowire were addressed. I sent Peter S a "laundry list" of stuff, but we opted to go to CBS before I saw Rotowire's final 2008 product. On the FA/drops, our problem was that our FAAB ran on Sat night, and our week started on Monday. Any active player who was dropped in FAAB lost his stats for Sat and Sun, and I had to undo the FAAB trans and redo it manually, prior to Monday. That was probably my biggest issue. I also didn't like having to figure who got which player in FAAB - thought the software should be smart enough to do that. On the plus side, their responsiveness in support was great, and there were no apparent "bugs".

[shif6]

I think they must have responded to you Alley. They have made it possible to specify the date in which FAAB will be effective.

[thepil]

Thanks for all of the great feedback. I looked at the onroto site and they have a working league up that you can fiddle with and it looks really nice - as long as they get a nice looking FAAB bidding system up and running by the start of the season. The stuff the have up now looks just like the old TQ/CDM which was the best I have seen. I dont know where all of the old programming went but when CDM was bought out (or whatever) that bidding program went away on the baseball commish and 2007 had no bidding software. I dont know what TQ was like last year because we went to CBS but its interesting that the similar software is still used by TQ on the football commish and it works great. But for whatever reason the baseball was crap. Either way if onroto will have a good bidding tool they look like the leaders in the clubhouse to me.

[alleyoops]

I've been in touch with Onroto. They plan to include pretty much all of the old TQStats features for this year, AND to try to add live standings. That was the one thing about CBS that made it much more attractive to our owners than the old TQ. Their old FA processing was as good, or better than CBS. They cautioned that the Sample League does not yet demonstrate all of the features currently in the product. Pretty sure we'll be there in one of my four leagues (the one that I run), and possibly three of them.

[Tig]

anyone know the cost for onroto? cbs went up to $149.99 this year. loved tqstats, so thinking Id really like this new one.

[Todd Zola]

OnRoto is $99.

I am going to be talking with them this week, likely discussing some cross-promotional efforts.

[alleyoops]

Yes, I also heard $99. I hope you can work something out with them, Todd.

[momige]

Does anyone know if On Roto will be able to handle drafts?

[Todd Zola]

Do you mean host a draft and have it automatically have the rosters loaded to the league scoring site?

I don't believe so, but I can check.

[momige]

yes. If not, can anyone recommend a site to host a draft so I can then use onroto for the season?


Thanks

[viper]

Mock Draft Central has an option for $19.95. I know nothing about their hosting of drafts for non-NFBC leagues but it says it is controlled by the league commissioner. The NFBC uses MDC for all its satellite leagues. I've draft about 8 or so satellite leagues on it. The fact that you can pause the draft is great especially if someone loses internet connect. Not recommending it but that is where I would check first.

[alleyoops]

I would have said FantasyAuctioneer, if you're doing an auction rather than a draft, but apparently they're taking this year off for a rewrite after being acquired.

If it's a draft, I'm not sure why you even need a site to host it, actually (i.e. a chat would seem to work fine for that). I don't think Onroto will have either draft or auction capability, but not 100% sure. I suspect they might offer an option to load rosters from a spreadsheet for you, since I think they used to do that at TQStats (for a small charge).

CBS says they will have auction capability this year. We'll probably wind up doing auctions in a chat in 3 of my leagues this year. That works, but it can be a challenge.

[Todd Zola]

FWIW, CBS has purchased Fantasy Auctioneer.

[cwk1963]

FWIW, CBS has purchased Fantasy Auctioneer.

...and they are doing auctions on their site this year. I'll be doing 1 there but it won't be until March 27.

[msugray]

FWIW, CBS has purchased Fantasy Auctioneer.

Todd,

Is this a recent development?

I read a press release from Jan. 27, 2009, that said Fantasy Auctioneer had agreed in principle to be acquired by RotoExperts.
I read another press release that said Fantasy Auctioneer would probably not be re-launched until 2010.

Did that deal fall through and CBS step in, or is RotoExperts somehow affiliated with CBS?

[Todd Zola]

I just deleted a couple of my posts to alleviate any further confusion.

Fantasy Auctioneer has indeed been purchased by rotoexperts, but they are re-writing the software for 2010 launch.

Sportsline has its own auction platform, though they used Fantasy Auctioneer last year.

[50 Desert Eagles]

Hey Todd, why don't you (if you don't already) host atleast one big mixed league...I don't know as well as many others in here, but I would go against ya (sometimes people OVER 40 forget stats)

[Todd Zola]

We'll definitely be hosting a subscriber league -- undecided if Gary and or I will participate, I know personally my plate is getting pretty full.

[50 Desert Eagles]

I smell something...is it chicken, nope must the Ben-Gay Just let show me the dotted line and I am in......

[Todd Zola]

I smell something...is it chicken, nope must the Ben-Gay Just let show me the dotted line and I am in......

You really want a piece of me? There's still space in the NFBC high stakes auctions.

[rotonut]

Sportsline has its own auction platform, though they used Fantasy Auctioneer last year.

Based on past experiences, this statement has all of the ingredients for a major auction day disaster.

[50 Desert Eagles]

Is that a live draft or ???? (NFBC high stakes auctions) and high stakes usually mean high entry fee...I am a poor boy....

[Todd Zola]

There are simultaneous live events in New York, Orlando, Chicago and Las Vegas.

There are also on-line leagues for as low as $125, sponsored by the NFBC.

The entry for the main event for a shot at 100K is $1300. There are auctions for $650 and $1300, AL, NL and Mixed.

I too am not exactly rolling in money, as I believe the anniversary for my day-job unemployment is this Sunday. But I did win the $1300 to enter NL-only auction last year which helped.

[50 Desert Eagles]

KEWL!!! I agree on the freebie there...maybe you can clean up on the next one....I would have butterflies with every pick though.....stupid CHOO could cost you the pot!!!