MyFantasyLeague.com

In addition to our ADP Rankings that we discussed last time, there is also another great resource integrated into your league for owners to use for assistance on making their draft picks.  It is the FantasySharks.com Draft Coach.  The Draft Coach was developed quite a few years ago by Tony Holm over at FantasySharks.com, and it was integrated into MyFantasyLeague.com and has been available to assist with draft picks ever since then.  It uses our Open Developer’s API to fetch league information for your specific league, including the scoring rules and roster requirements and draft info, and then it uses the player stat projections from FantasySharks.com and combines it with ADP Rankings and other info to help make recommendations about which player to select next in your draft.  Very cool stuff!

You can access it from the Live Draft room in your league, and from the PreDraft screen as well.  Note that it is part of the “Fantasy Links” section of your league, so if you don’t see the link to the DraftCoach, be sure to ask your commissioner to turn that option on in the “For Commissioners > Setup > Menu Setup” screen (it is on by default).

Now is about the time that most fantasy football owner start realizing that they are not as well prepared for their draft as they should be.  We’ve all been through it.  Life is happening all around you, and then suddenly your big draft day is upon you in a flash.  With that in mind, we wanted to make sure you were aware of our Average Daft Position (ADP) Rankings! Click on the link to check out the latest player rankings from all of the drafts that have already taken place on MyFantasyLeague.com. You can slice and dice the data in various ways, such as by position, by league size, or by scoring system.  You can also choose keeper or non-keeper drafts, and mock or real drafts.  And you can specify the time frame, and choose to view data only for recent drafts instead of all drafts in the system.  It’s a great resource to help you prepare for your draft to get a feel for which round players have been drafted in by other leagues, especially if you have faith in the wisdom of crowds.

And if you’re a coder that likes to manipulate data like this, you can use our Open Developer’s API to grab the data from an XML feed to do whatever you want with it.  We also have an ADP Home Page Module that you can add to your league so all of your team owners have quick and easy access to it.  And we have an ADP  Widget that you can put on any web page.  Use the “Reports > League > MFL Widgets” screen for more info on doing that.

We’re happy to announce a new feature and a partnership with the LeagueSafe.com web site to help commissioners relieve themselves of one of the biggest burdens for commissioners…  collecting league dues before the draft and paying out league prizes after the fantasy playoffs.  Any commissioner knows about the annual nuisance.  You have to hound your team owners in the weeks leading up to the draft to make sure they remember to pay the annual league dues before the draft.  Then for the two or three owners that forget, you have to continue to nag them all season long until they finally pay up.  And it doesn’t end there. After the season is over, you have to figure out how to contact the winners and get them their prizes in a timely manner.

Enter LeagueSafe!  It was conceived and developed by Paul Charchian, who has been involved with fantasy football leagues for over 15 years as a radio show host and as a co-founder of Fanball.com.  So he has thought through the process thoroughly and come up with a great solution for leagues that want to have someone else manage their finances.  You can read a Wall Street Journal article about it, or read the Press Release for more information.

For leagues that want to take advantage of the LeagueSafe service, we’ve made it very easy to do with the new option under the “For Commissioners > Setup” screen called “Manage League Finances Using LeagueSafe“.  Just click on that option in your league and follow the steps on that screen, and then you’ll be all set.  You won’t have to worry about the hassle of collecting dues from your owners, and all of your owners will be able to rest easier knowing that their money is being held by an FDIC insured account, and that it will only be used for paying out the league prizes (and optionally the league hosting fee on MyFantasyLeague.com).

That’s the other great thing about this service.  If the commissioner doesn’t want to pay for the MyFantasyLeague.com league up front, he can designate that as an option when signing up for LeagueSafe.  Then when owners start paying their league dues, the cost of managing the league on MFL will be taken care of automatically as well.  Be sure to visit LeagueSafe.com for additional info or details.

It’s not every day that you hear about a fantasy football movie, so we wanted to pass along the news about a feature film focusing on our favorite topic. Check out the web site with the details at 10yards.com. Here’s the description…

10 YARDS: FANTASY FOOTBALL - THE MOVIE From Award-Winning Filmmakers, Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell (10 MPH, 2007) comes the hilarious, offbeat, and all-encompassing portrayal of fantasy football. 10 Yards captures the phenomenon of fantasy football in our society with specific focus on wacked-out j.fred’s INTERGALACTIC CHAMPIONSHIP League, where the top prize is a box of Twinkies. As the season progresses, filmmakers Hunter & Josh (both members of j.fred’s league) travel the country interviewing a variety of diverse fantasy football leagues, NFL players, commentators, and the guys who started it all in 1963. From all women’s tackle football to Mexican mariachi bands, get ready for some of the best camaraderie ever in this 90-minute fantasyland.

That pretty much says it all. You can download the movie for free from iTunes for a couple of weeks, too.

Continuing on the theme of third party applications that work with MyFantasyLeague.com, we wanted to mention FantasyAuctioneer.com as well.  While they haven’t implemented full integration of the auction results with our system, we have worked with them for the past several years to allow completed auctions to be transferred to your league.  You’ll just need to contact our support team to make it happen.

For what it’s worth, FantasyAuctioneer has been offering the ability to conduct live, on-line auctions for several years, and they still are about the only option available for that type of auction format.  Hopefully in the next year or two we’ll have complete integration with their system, and/or a separate live auction option built into MyFantasyLeague.com!

Yet another third party program that has been updated this season to include some integration with MyFantasyLeague.com is the Draft Dominator from Bruce Henderson at Footballguys.com.  It now has a league import option that utilizes our Open Developer’s API to import your league settings.  This will save you a ton of time entering your league rules and configuration as  you prepare for your draft.

So if you use the Draft Dominator to help you draft your team, be sure to check out the Footballguys.com web site for the latest version and updates, including the optional Import program.

Another company that has taken advantage of our Open Developer’s API is MockDraftCentral.com.  They offer a flash-based live draft web application that can be used to conduct mock drafts or real drafts.  They worked with us to integrate an option to transfer the results of a fantasy football draft that was conducted at MockDraftCentral.com to your league on MyFantasyLeague.com.

So if you have used MockDraftCentral in the past, or you prefer its interface for any other reason, you  now have  a way to conduct your draft there and then quickly and easily transfer the draft results to your league on our system.

MyFantasyLeague.com has its own integrated draft room for conducting a live, on-line draft. And we also have our own free off-line draft program (FFLM). But there are still other ways to conduct a draft if desired. Because of our Open Developer’s API, there are several third party draft tools that you can use to conduct your draft or to enhance your draft experience.

For an alternate off-line draft program that works similar to our own FFLM program, you can use FanDraft, a program from FanSoftMedia. They have integrated one click ability to import your league into FanDraft so it is really quick to get set up. Then after you draft is completed in FanDraft, you can transfer the draft results back to your league with another click. You do of course need to enter your League ID and password, but otherwise it is all very automatic! Thank you to Randy over at FanDraft for working with us on this integration ability.

If you’ve used FanDraft in the past, or you prefer its interface for any other reason, you now have a great way to quickly transfer the draft results into your league on MyFantasyLeague.com.

Now that fantasy football draft season is in full swing, there will be thousands of drafts conducted every day from now until kickoff. Some leagues will conduct their draft on-line using the live draft room capabilities of MyFantasyLeague.com. But a lot of leagues will make it a social event as well by gathering all of the team owners at the same physical location, such as a house or a bar or a conference room. If that’s the scenario that you are looking at for your league, then we want you to be aware of a great option to enhance your draft experience while keeping track of your draft picks and making it really easy to update your league when the event is done: FFLM!

Fantasy Football League Manager

We discussed the the FFLM program recently, so click here for some background on it. But for now, all you really need to know is that it is a Windows program that can be used to conduct your live draft. All you need is a PC with Windows at your draft event. You don’t even need an internet connection. Just be sure to download and install the program ahead of time, and then follow these steps to prep for your draft ahead of time:

1. Use the “File > New League” menu item in FFLM to create a new league file.

2. Use the “File > Import from MyFantasyLeague.com” menu item to import all of your settings into FFLM.

3. If you already set up your draft order, then you’re ready to start. If you want to create or edit your draft order, then use the “Draft > Set Draft Order” screen in FFLM.

4. When you are ready to start the draft, click on the “Draft > Interactive Draft” menu item.

From there, FFLM will guide you through the process by showing the current round and pick in the upper left, and a timer bar on the left side, along with a list of available players to choose from in the center of the screen, and the rosters of each team as the draft progresses. It even includes player rankings as provided by TheHuddle.com based on their cheat sheets, as well as the latest ADP Rankings from MyFantasyLeague.com. So you can quickly see which players are remaining with the highest rankings. You can sort the player list by these values, or narrow down the list to only show certain positions. And you can Find any player quickly just by typing their last name. In short, it provides you with an always up-to-date list of players to choose from during your draft. As each pick is made, the players are taken off the list, and the rosters are updated accordingly.

Now for the fun stuff… You can optionally include announcements of each pick by downloading and installing the FFLM sound files. If you install these ahead of time, and then turn the Audio options on, the computer will announce each player as he is selected during the draft. So when you click on a player to draft them, you’ll hear something like this over your computer speaker: “Team 1 selects Tom Brady, Quarterback for the New England Patriots. Team 2 is now on the clock. Team 3 is on deck.”

In addition to the audio, you’ll also see a countdown timer to keep the draft on track, and the system will announce when there is one minute remaining, and 30 seconds left, and then it will say “Please make your selection” in an ominous voice to let owners know when their time is up.

Another fun part to all of this is letting everyone else view the draft program by projecting it onto the wall or a screen. If you can borrow a projector or a large monitor from work or home, or use the equipment at whatever location you are conducting your draft, it makes for a great way to keep everybody on track and informed throughout the draft. There are several views of the draft in progress that you can toggle between, including the available player list with the various rankings and stats, and the rosters of each team, or the draft summary that shows the last 20 or so picks that have been made. And if you have an auction instead of a draft, there is also a view of each team’s funds spent, player count, and remaining funds and the minimum bid based on how many open spots you have left to fill your roster.

Be sure to check out FFLM if you plan to conduct your draft in a social environment where all of your owners will be in the same location. The best part is that after you are all done with your draft, you use the “Exchange” button in FFLM to transfer your draft results to your league in MyFantasyLeague.com with just the click of a button.

Last month we talked about our new and improved player news and content from a variety of sources.  That plan has come together very well, and hopefully you are enjoying all of the in-depth fantasy football player news coverage in your league now.  Checkout the full Press Release that came out today for more details.

If you have a fantasy football news or content site, and you’d like to start getting the word out to thousands of rabid fantasy football fanatics, drop us a line to see how we can help you integrate your information into our leagues.  Or if you want to build tools for fantasy football players using our Open Developer’s API, we’d be excited to discuss that with you as well!