Toronto Raptors Ramblings

ESPN - A Kick to the Nuts

Thinking about switching up your fantasy league provider this year? Tempted to join ESPN, figuring since they charge money it must be good. Think again my friends....think....again.

Last year ESPNs fantasy hoops seemed like a sweet dream come true. Free. Loads of extra features, generous draft times, only a semi intrusive contstant 'upgrade' sales pitch and naked stripper mascots for every team. Well at least that was a good idea someone in my league had.

The Monkey Den (my league), decided it was time to leave Yahoo and take a trip down ESPN's sweet fantasy lane, as their NFL leagues are great. It all quickly collapsed. ESPN failed to realize that massive advertising on billboards across the States and on every single web hit on their site site might actually attract a few people. So what do they do? A few days before our draft send an email to only our league GM (who was on vacation) letting us know that we could no longer do a live draft. Sorry, they were too full. If you want to do a live draft you just have to sign up for the edge they tell us, it's only $40 each. So i guess they aren't that full. Just too full for everyone who followed their mass advertising campaign to their site.

Are you freaking kidding me ESPN? Do you have any idea what it means to sabotage a league's live draft? It's not like you're an unreliable internet service provider, a rickety computer, that often screws one guy in each draft, or even a nagging lady friend (side note: isn't it great when one guy keeps coming in and out of a draft and you just know he's panicked. His sytem's giving him trouble and he hasn't done anything with those pre-rankings. He's freaking out, knowing all too well that the kid who did the pre-rankings, bumped Amare into the top 10, just to reward those guys who show up. Welcome to microfracture surgery hell. Anyways...we all love that guy.) But I digress. ESPN You are supposed to be our safe haven for a few hours a year, on glorious glorious draft night. And you pull this crap?

Needless to say we moved into panick mode, found out we could live draft on sportingnews for free, and then manually moved our teams over to ESPN. That's a lot of work to stick with ESPN who just jammed it up our collective shoots. And after all that it turned out the league was mediocre. For that effort and pain ESPN should have been sending VIP passes this year. What do they do instead? Decide just to charge everyone this year. Atta go ESPN. Way to suck us back in.

Needless to say The Monkey Den is safely back where she belongs, in the hallowed halls of Yahoo's mediocre fantasy service. Safe from any kick's to the nut sack.

Next up....Raptors 2007 Sleeper Picks....or is that Pick.

posted by WG @ 6:57 PM