Fantasy Football is Won on Tuesdays

So you may ask yourself, “Why in the hell would I pay for Fantasy Football if I can get it for free?”. A good and valid question. If the paid for service just offered the same options as a , then I would say you would be dumb to pay for it. What the paid for Fantasy Football League Services offer is additional or different services to the mainstream systems like .

Fantasy Football used to be a group a guys getting together for a draft day with pencil and paper. Next they came up with software to help the process and then it went online. Now its mainstream and you have lots of options without having to pony up money for the service. Now if you want a more old school feel you could look to Fantasy Football Commissioner
.

Fantasy Football Commissioner offers “Your League, Your Way!”. They claim that “Our fantasy football league manager will give you everything you need to run your fantasy football league.”. This if for the guys (and gals) who want to run their league rather have it run for them. This system has all the feel of an old school league with all the customization and technology of a modern system.

If you are looking for a better scoring system than the traditional Head to Head (you play another player and most points that week earns a W) or League points (a weekly ranking of whose team has scored the lost points), then head on over to AntSports Fantasy Football Leagues. They have come up with an innovative way to score that takes the best elements of both systems and leaves out the worst parts. If something different and or more fair is what you are looking for then head over to AntSports Fantasy Football Leagues.

Some need more excitement than just the competition. If you are looking for all that Fantasy Football has to offer plus the excitement of prizes and giveaways then you will have a many options. A couple of the very best from this category are Dime Sports Fantasy Football and the Ultimate Fantasy Football League. Dime Sports Fantasy Football has a $100,000 grand prize and $2,000 in weekly cash prizes. The Ultimate Fantasy Football League offers a $250,000 total prize purse. If one of these two doesn’t get you excited then you have no pulse.

The Big dogs have upgrades to paid services too. , The top pick from the Free Services has an enhanced version too. has the most customization, comprehensive analysis and research tools, and real-time scoring updates with StatTracker®, Advanced Commissioner Controls, League Prizes, Wireless Access.

So if you are looking for more than the free league have to offer you clearly have a choice of a variety of options from old school look and feel, a unique scoring system, to prizes or an overall enhanced version of the free systems. Good luck and don’t forget, no one says you can only play in one system. Variety is the spice of life.

-Chris

Its not too late to get in a Fantasy football league. You can play for free at a number of different sites. From veteran to novice these sites have something for everyone. It used to be unless you were a die hard you stayed away from fantasy football because of the learning curve and because the veterans would make you feel like a moron. A rite of passage that is not for everyone. Then there was the time factor. Fantasy Football used to be life consuming but now the services have made them so easy to play that they can be a hobby instead of a career.

There are leagues that you pay to play in and they usually serve a specific audience, have a specific feature such as prizes or have a proprietary system. We are going to look at three of the top free services. These have everything you need and won’t leave you feeling cheated. I will look at , MSN/Fox and CBS SportsLine.

I must first disclose that I participate in all three of these leagues. I have found these three to be the cream of the crop of the many free services out there including some big names you may notice missing. If you want the quick analysis, you really can’t go wrong with any of these three. If you want a more in depth look, read on.

What they have in common is that they give you options right from the onset. You can join a private league of you and people you know or join a public league. You can look to match interests and/or skill levels. You can choose to let the system automatically draft your team or play in a league that lets you have a manual draft.

You can expect great articles and expert analysis from all three sites. They all offer tons of sortable stats both past and present. They all have things like injury reports and weather.

All of them let you communicate with the other players in the league some how whether it be a message board, optional IM or you can choose to display your email. They all allow trades and picking up free agents from the waiver wire.

FOX Sports on MSN has come a long way in a few years. Just a couple seasons ago they had some technology issues that almost made me dump them but I’m glad I stayed. They have a fun mascot builder for creating you team logo as well.

CBS SportsLine has a great interface and lets you do a bit more customizing to the look and feel including the site and team logo.

has always been an innovator and this year is no different. They are using some of that great Yahoo! technology to let you do so much more, so much easier. You can drag and drop players around, which I have to say is very user friendly and very cool.

The real test of the three really comes down to game day. Here is where the analysis breaks down a bit. Hands down, the best game day interface I have ever used is on . The problem is that it is usually free for only the first couple weeks and then they hit you up for $9.99. IMHO, it is worth every penny but as this article is about free services I’ll say the best game day interface goes to CBS SportsLine but really its a distant second. Fox is not far behind CBS.

I do play on all three services as I like the variety but if I had to choose just one, it would be Yahoo! They have consistently had the best technology and best user experience. Yes, I would also pony up the ten bucks for StaTracker® as that greatly enhances my game day experience and come on, its ten bucks, thats like less than 15 cents per game I’ll watch with it running.

In any case, if you haven’t signed up, get moving. Click here to sign up for

-Chris

Legal: Copyright © 2007 CBS Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. SportsLine is a registered service mark of SportsLine.com, Inc., Copyright © 2007 FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC and its related entities. All rights reserved., Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.