Do so at your own risk. I've heard of people having trouble getting their sandbox subscription cancelled.
fade, are you having a baseball league this year? or are we gonna join Behad's? I will play in both if the two of you have leagues. If you are, where will it be? Yahoo? Sandbox? If Yahoo how will we draft?
Complete details on Monday of next week. Hopefully this will work out to make it an easy experience for everyone.
beenhead, i played my first season on fantasy baseball this past year, so i might be interested. Smeg
It's called FanStar 2003. The link will lead you to a tour of the software. The cost is minimal to me ($79), and of course our baseball league will be free to play. Down the road a bit I'm planning on hosting a number of leagues at a small fee, with plenty of prize money to make it worthwhile. Just something I'm working on. One question I would like to ask everyone. There are two options: an online version and an offline version. The only real difference is online offers real time stats, whereas offline offers more customizable formats. Check page 5 of the tour to compare the two versions.
THat looks pretty cool Behad. I would be interested in getting in on that. as far as online offline goeas that wouldn't really make a difference to me.
Yeah, that looks neat. I guess we'll make Behad's league our "official" baseball league. We can't go back to Sandbox and Yahoo has a weird H2H format, so this looks to be the best option. If it offers a head-to-head format that uses fantasy points with two games per week, then I think the online version is the way to go. I like the idea of every team having its own custimizable home page too.
Let me clarify the "online" versus "software" question. This from the site: ONLINE vs DESKTOP What they have in common: 1) Both have the same web site with realtime functions. 2) Owners can do transactions online and update immediately. 3) Realtime/Daily stat automatically updated. Desktop Software: 1) More customability with scoring and league rules 2) Run more than one league for the same coin 3) Commissioner must update final week results with PC/MAC based software. Online Version: 1) All controls are online and accessible your commish control panel. 2) Stats and results are done for you. 3) Nearly handsfree maintenance. I want the software version to allow me to run multiple leagues. BUT... the online version is less maintenance AND can be updated while I am at work. If I use the software version, and an owner needs an emergency roster change and I am at work...well tough. I can't install this at work. However, the software allows for more options for rules and scoring and games (head to head, twice a week). What should we do? I'm really leaning to the software version.
Behad, I downloaded the (sample) software way back at the beginning of Basketball season. It took me awhile to figure out how to work everything. In the software version, stats are only updated once a week. Online version is updated daily (live). I suggest going with the online version to see how everything works. Then if everything turns out ok, you can switch to the software version where you can run baseball, football and basketball leagues. I was on this path as well, so we would no longer have to be slaves to the Sanbox's and Yahoo's of the world. We can run our own leagues our own way and have a blast. If you need any assistance figuring anything out let me know, or you can post on their message board. They are excellent at answering any and all questions. They even have a phone number so you can get answers immediately.
Bob, notice this line from the comparison of the two versions: under What they have in common: 3) Realtime/Daily stat automatically updated. I believe it does do a daily update with a registered copy vs. demo version. I'm still trying to find out how often I have to update (ie. "pay") the program...either once a year or every season. I think (not sure) that the software version is once a year, while the online version is for each season.
What they mean is stats are updated daily on the web site, you still have to download the stats and run them through the software to keep the season stats updated. Visit the home page (http://www.fanstar.com/), scroll down to the bottom and you will see; basketball stats, hockey stats...etc. These are the stats for the week that you have to download and run through the software. I was running our basketball league through the demo version. You pay once a year. The first year is $79 and every year after that you pay a renewel fee (I think it's either $39 or $49) At the beginning of the Basketball season they offered a free trial version of the online version. This is what a teams web page will look like: http://www.fantasybasketballone.com/
Here is a Fantasy Football League (not mine) from Fanstar. Look around and tell me what you think: http://www.fantasyfootballfour.com/~seajkey/index.php
Yeah, I saw the update stats buttons. That's not a problem for me. In fact I do it daily now for our league. As long as the manually run updates do a daily update, then stats shouldn't be a problem. BUT...here is a biggie for me that you don't get with the online version: 2) Run more than one league for the same coin ...I have a couple of leagues at work that want me to do this, and I can make some money with the software. Plus, you don't get to customize the scoring in the online version.
I see what you mean by updating the webpage only...you can update your webpage with the software OR update your software with the webpage. Yes, it's manually done, but not a big deterrent for me.
If you will be running more than one baseball league this year, than yes, the software version is the way to go. You can only run one league with the online version, but you can run up to 50 (I think) leagues using the software version.
You didn't think I was spending $79 dollars because I like you guys, did you? There's money to be made here. Maybe not much, but I can recoup my initial investment with just the leagues from work. Anything else will be gravy.
