The Fantasy Product Blog : CBSSports.com Blogs

College Fantasy Football Commissioner

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 17:09:04 EDT

Well folks, it was only a matter of time. Once we got individual players and live scoring for College Football teams it was only a matter of time before we gave you the full commissioner experience for College Fantasy Football. We now have live scoring for ALL Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Div. 1A) schools. Basically, if you love College Football, this is the best Fantasy experience you can have with it and best of all, it's FREE. You can choose which conferences you want to use as your player pool, set the rosters up anyway you want to, and customize your scoring system just like any of our other commissioner products. I have to say that I was skeptical of Fantasy College Football at first. I barely knew the players on the teams I rooted for let alone try and figure out who the good players are throughout College Football. But since there is really good content and projections, I've drafted some really great teams in recent years which, in turn, has actually elevated my interest in all of College Football. I find myself watching WAC games until all hours of the night, just to root on my guys. It's done for me, what Fantasy has done for Pro Football. So, get your buddies together and start a league. Check it out here .

How Do You Access Your League and Why?

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:02:41 EDT

It's been kicked around here for a while now that the League Homepage might not be the most ideal experience for team owners. We've always looked at it as sort of a one stop portal into your fantasy league. You can get a lot there - content, player news, see your team and standings, league message board, transactions, and view your commissioner's message - but you can't really do anything there. I already know that the lineup page is the most important page in Fantasy, so are we doing you guys a disservice by not giving it to you right away? Are we getting in the way of you accomplishing your task? On the other hand, there is a lot of communication that goes on inside of a league. And we need a way to let you know what is going on. So, what would be the ideal experience? If you could design the page that you see when you come into your league? What would it be?

Weekly and Rest of Season Player Rankings

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:31:54 EDT

I posted a previous entry about our AccuScore projections and how we're using that data. We've made an update to include weekly and rest of season player rankiings based on that information.

You can get general rankings on our Fantasy News site by clicking here . Or better yet, you can get them specific to your league's scoring system by clicking the link under the Cover Story on your league homepage. I'd post the link here, but it is specific to each league.

Here is the description by our editorial team...

We've combined statistical projections from AccuScore with your specific scoring system to provide you with the most accurate rankings possible for your format. These rankings will be updated multiple times DAILY, taking into account matchups, past performance and news developments. You can choose to either view our rankings for the next seven days for immediate lineup advice or for the rest of the season to get a broader view of how we think each position might shake out for the remainder of the year.

Daily, Weekly, and Rest of Season Projections

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:29:00 EDT

I know it's been a while since I've updated the blog. A lot has been going on that will make the site better that you all should start to see over the course of the next few months. But in the meantime, we're adding a really cool feature for the start of Baseball season that we're hoping will add to your roster management experience. We've partnered with AccuScore to bring you in-season projections for all of your Fantasy Baseball players. In the past we've given you our own pre-season projections for every player. And these are very useful in making decisions around drafting and pre-season pickups. But as the season wears on, we all know that things change. So looking a pre-season projections becomes pretty useless after a point.

AccuScore has a unique system, explained in detail here , but basically they simulate every play from every game 10,000 times to determine the best probability of what will happen. Through this method, they will be feeding us daily, weekly, and "rest of season" projections for every player. So, on your sortable stats pages, you'll now find selections for the projections for the upcoming day, scoring period, and a players projections for the rest of the season (or from that day on). Also, on the player pages, you'll now see projected points for a player on the Fantasy Trend component for Head to Head leagues, and projected stats for a player in Roto leagues. You'll also notice a 'Next 7' as an additional lineup view on your Set Lineup pages.

Baseball Scoring System Changes - 2010

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:03:32 EDT

Folks,

I remember how passionate most of you were about the changes we made to the standard Head to Head scoring system last season. Without further adieu, I'm going to point you to a column that Eric Mack wrote about the changes for this season. We took a lot of your feedback, even from this forum into consideration. Please don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts. You can check it out by clicking HERE .

Preview Page Questions

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:17:16 EST

I was recently checking a report that shows what keywords users are searching for in our help center database. I was a little surprised when I saw that many of the features of the Preview Page (Live Scoring/Preview in your leagues) were on the report. To be honest, it had been a while since these features were examined and I even had to do some homework so I could remember how each component was determined. The bottom line is that I can see how people would have questions about things such as how the coach rating is determined, so we're going to be including some explanations on that page in the future. But until then, this will have to suffice. If you have any further questions, ideas of ways to make this better, or ideas for additional items you'd like to see on this page, please feel free to drop them into the comments section.

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Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:17:16 EST

Who is the Guru?

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:30:23 EST

Throughout the years, we've had many incarnations of and therefore, questions about the Guru. The Guru, as it was designed, was a formula that was supposed to give an indication of how well your player will perform in the upcoming week's football game. It appears on every team's 'Set Lineup' page. It used to take into account the player's past performance, some projections, injury status, and opponent. We would tweak the actual formula from time to time. It wasn't perfect, but we thought that it served its purpose.

Our content team, including but not limited to Dave Richard and Jamey Eisenberg, apparently used to get some emails from readers who thought that they were the 'Guru' offering this advice. And when it didn't work out for that particular reader, those emails could get pretty nasty. I guess those guys had just about enough of that when they came to us last year and said that if they were going to take flack from the readers that they at least wanted it to be based on their own weekly projections for each player so that they could defend their decisions. It seemed like a daunting task, but they were up to the challenge. So now those Guru numbers you see on your Lineup page are the result of those guys projecting out a weekly stat line for each player. Each site then applies those stats to your league's specific scoring system and spits out what your score would be with that stat line. If you want to see the stats that go into your 'Guru' number, just click "Weekly Projections' at the top of your 'Set Lineup' table.

League Chat is Up!

Thu, 26 May 2011 10:19:01 EDT

I realize it's been a while since I last posted, but Phase One of our League Chat is up and running on the site and wanted to let you know about it and what you can expect out of it in the future.

Basically, we've taken the chat from the Draft Room and Scoreboard and made it available on every page in your league. It pops-out so it can stay open with you as you move about the site. it will show you which of your league members are also online and allow you all to chat in a chat room or you can privately chat with individual members.

In your league navigation menu (the same place where you access 'My Team', 'Live Scoring', etc) look to the right and you'll see 'League Chat'. Simply click on it to pop it out and start chatting with your league mates.

What Are You Searching For?

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:01:08 EDT

A lot has been made of 'Search' lately. Microsoft and Yahoo! have teamed up to form a search giant to try and tackle Google. Twitter has become a viable search tool to find out what people are saying about a specific topic. They've made search the focus of their homepage. Facebook has even taken strides to make their search more usable than it had been in the past.

I've always felt that seachh, in the context of Fantasy, was pretty straightforward. Basically, you are searching for players. And the search result is a 'player page' with all of the relevant content you would ever need to make a decision about that player. But with all of the recent developments in search and the progress of the algorithms over the years, is there more we could be offering to serve your needs?

The Dog Days of Summer

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:55:28 EDT

Well, it is that time of the year when many Fantasy players find themselves looking for something else to do on the site. 65% of the Fantasy Baseball players are likely too far out of it by now and have given up. Fantasy Football drafts are just starting to pick up now, but we're still over a month away from regular season games. You've proven that you're not too interested in the topics I've tried covering over the summer. So, I'll just use this space to give you a few suggestions for things to occupy your mind as you try to beat the heat...

Fantasy Football Mock Drafts - We relaunched our Mock Draft product a few weeks ago. It's now easier than ever to get into a draft. You can select the position that you'll actually be drafting from so that you can get a real feel for the decisions you'll have to face in your real draft. We made some changes to the logic that the auto-pilot uses to make picks for empty draft slots so that it will give more realistic results. We've also added mock Auction Drafts this year, so if you participate in an auction, you can practice in there. It's totally free and you can use it as many times as you like. For the record, there's a good chance you'll be practicing against me...I've been using it to prepare for my drafts (rather than write blogs). Another great tool to help you prepare for your draft is the Downloadble Draft Kit . It has lots of quality content for your draft, takes seconds to download, and is also free. You could be a force to be reckoned with heading into uyour draft if you use these two products in conjunction with one another.

Fantasy and Social Behavior - Part II

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:05:07 EDT

Last month I wrote a little bit about the social features within the context of your league. But with the web becoming ever more social, is there a need for the fantasy player to be able to port their fantasy league experience outside of their league? I expect the people that participate in these discussions to be able to give me some good feedback here. You guys are already part of the CBSSports.com community. You are social beings by and large. I'm assuming that many of you not only use this site to communicate with others, but use the other social sites on the web that are popular right now like the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. It seems like there is a need for people to be able to express themselves on these sites, to let others know who they are are and what they are all about. I've noticed people listing out their favorite musicians/bands, favorite quotes, favorite movies, favorite books, etc. They list recently read books and recently watched movies. They take quizzes and post them to their profiles all so they can show people how much they know about the Michael Jackson memorial ceremony and other trivial topics.

College Fantasy Football...We've Come a Long Way!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:56:22 EST

The road towards making College Fantasy Football a true 'viable' fantasy sport has been a long and, at times, painful one. From concept to execution it has taken nearly 4 years just to get it to a point where it is up to par with our other Fantasy products. We started from some very humble beginnings. So, I'd like to lay out for you where we started and where this product is now, just to illustrate the commitment we have to College Fantasy Football .

Statistics

Where we started...

The first year we rolled this product out, the concept of College Fantasy Football was so new that we had a difficult time just finding someone to provide stats for the game. The stats were inconsistent all season long at best. You could check out one source for college football stats and find one number and check out another source and see another number. The problem is that there is no one set official stat provider for College Football.

There Isn't an App for That

Fri, 07 May 2010 15:59:36 EDT

With the iPhone and all of its applications being all the rage right now, I started to wonder what all of the fuss was about. Our company email is apparently not supported on an iPhone, so they are not an option for us to have here at work. Larry Rubio our product manager for mobile products gets to have one and he helped to develop the current iphone app we have. Lucky for me (definitely not for him) he sits across from me and I get to play with his iPhone from time to time and check it out.

The best applications I've seen so far are the applications that help you when you are out and about. Something that has value in the real world. Sure, there are a bunch of apps that are fun to look at and fun to play with, but we could probably get by without having a pretend fish tank on our phones. I'm trying to apply this to figure out is what would make a great application on your fantasy site, not your phone. What are you going outside the league for? What do you need to open multiple pages for? What would make your experience within your league that much better?

The Voice of the CBSSports.com Fantasy Draft Room

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:37:19 EDT

I received a few questions during Fantasy Baseball Draft season about the new voice in the draft rooms. For those of you in a typical "snake" style draft, the voice lets you know when you are on deck to pick, or when you are on the clock to make your pick. If you are in an "auction" style draft the voice lets you know that time is running out on the current auction by saying "Going Once", "Going Twice", and "Sold" once a player is sold. It also lets you know when it is your turn to nominate a player.

We've gotten some good feedback on it. A lot of people wanted it so they could leave the room during a draft, turn the volume on their speakers up, and the voice will let them know when they are on the clock. Some people have gotten annoyed with it, but we do offer an easy way to turn it off. But most of the feedback we've gotten is about who the voice is. Many people thought it sounded familiar to them, but that they could not place it.

The Social Aspect of Fantasy Sports

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:12:06 EDT

I'd argue that Fantasy Sports, in it's most basic form, needs to include these 6 features:

Draft

Set Lineup

Transactions (Add/Drop, Trade)

A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:12:06 EDT

Rested and Ready...to Fantasy Blog

Tue, 18 May 2010 12:12:47 EDT

Well I'm back from my honeymoon. I take it from the overwhelming response to my pre-honeymoon column that you'll all now be able to finally get some sleep and carry on with your lives knowing that I have returned safely and will now be resuming my blogging duties. For anyone who is interested, Wifi access was sporatic at best. Most hotels offer it, but at an exorbitant rate. Some cities actually had public free hotspots which was really nice, but I still had to tote my laptop to that public place and find a comfortable place to site for a few minutes. Internet cafes were fewer and further between than I had expected. So, between all of those options, I was able to check on my teams a few times...much to the dismay of my new wife. But we are still married, so 'no harm-no foul'.

Honeymoon? But What About My Fantasy Teams?

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:34:02 EDT

So, I'm getting married this weekend. And that's all well and good. I can get scores and even make add/drops on my phone this weekend if I need to. But it turns out that my wife-to-be wanted to go on a honeymoon, too. I've tried explaining to her that Fantasy never sleeps. That I can't just pick up and leave for any extended period of time. In the 9 years that I've been here, I've never been away from this office for more than 5 consecutive working days.

We actually had to pick the wedding date around our Fantasy Sports cycle. January through the start of April was out of the question because of the start of Baseball season and March Madness. And since we were rolling Football over right after the NFL draft this year, the end of April was out as well. We fully launch Football at the start of June and that time though the first few weeks of the NFL season are out in terms of going away...it's just not going to happen during that time. Then Hockey and Basketball launch. So the end of September through the first week of November are out. By then you are into Thanksgiving and Christmas and before you know it, we're back at January. So basically, there is a window where we (barely) slow down in early May. I saw the window and decided to take it.

Football Commissioner 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:39:37 EDT

I know most of my traffic right now is coming from Fantasy Baseball leagues, but I thought I'd let everyone know that Football Commissioner 2009 will be "rolled over" to the 2009 season this morning. Basically that means that if you had a league with us last year, the site will be updated with the 2009 schedule, 2009 player pool, and 2009 projections. All of the rookies that were drafted during this past weekend's NFL draft have been added to the site.

For anyone who is new to the Commissioner products, we leave the sites up year round so you can make any changes you need to during the offseason. As soon as it makes sense, we "roll over" to the upcoming season so that you can begin preparing for the next season. All of the previous years' standings, schedules, transactions, rosters, and league history are archived and easily accessible on the site.

How 'Usable' is Our Site?

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:44:21 EST

One of the problems about being the most customizable product in the industry is having to figure out where to put all of the features. We have always prided ourselves on being the most customizable and that presents a difficult challenge. The features that 99% of our users love, need to be a lot more prominent than the features that only 10% of our users value. On the other hand, we also feel the need to make everyone aware of all the great features that we offer. For years, even though our product has evolved, we’ve kept the same interface and have continued to cram features into it.

For you commissioners, you’ve probably noticed (or maybe you haven’t) all of the ‘Advanced Features’ in your league setup area or in other places around the site. This was the product of us adding features that appeal to a smaller set of our users and needing to find a place to put them. Some of them aren’t even advanced features…they are features everyone should have/use. Anyway, I mentioned in my previous blog that we are doing ‘usability’ testing on our products for the first time in a long time and it’s something that is long overdue. The results have been eye opening to say the least.

How Many Ways Can You View a Lineup?

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:52:54 EDT

I apologize for not getting a blog up sooner this week, but I have been on the road. I've been attending the usability tests that are being conducted on our Fantasy Commissioner setup process in San Francisco. I'll be doing a blog about this whole experience early next week. But suffice it to say that since these tests, I have been looking at our products in a whole new light.

So, today I went to set my lineup and was wondering is anyone uses the additional "lineup views" that I use so regularly. The lineup views are the little links on the upper right hand corner of your lineup on the Set Lineup page. For example, they say 'Schedule', 'Matchups', 'Yesterday', 'Last 7 Days', 'Last 14 Days', 'YTD Stats'. So, to answer my own question about the blog, accoriding to us, there are 6 ways to view your lineup.

Thoughts About Roster Trends

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:26:55 EDT

I tend to trust people until they can no longer be trusted. This goes for individuals as well as groups of people. I buy into the theory of "The Wisdom of Crowds ". Because of this belief, my favorite feature of our site is the Roster Trends (Stats/Roster Trends for those of you following along at home) area. It used to be that you had to scour the boxscores each day to see who was playing well and who wasn't. Roster Trends changed all of that. Now there is a place where I can come to quickly gauge what is going on in the Fantasy Baseball world.

First, I'll usually check out 'Most Viewed Free Agents' to see if there is anyone that is worth a pickup in my league. Then, as I dig a little deeper, I check out the 'Most Added and Dropped'. When I am making lineup decisions, I'll check out 'Most Activated/De-Activated Owned' players to see if there are any red flags I should be concerned about. Finally, the 'Most Traded' is probably the most engaging part of the site because I can see what the open market value of my players is. I am always shocked as I dig down and see some of the trades that get made on this site. I never seem to be able to pull off those kinds of trades. For instance, I'm checking out the Most Traded area right now and I am looking to see what Brandon Morrow is going for. I see a trade in an AL-only Commissioner league where Morrow, Gio Gonzalez, and Brandon Wood were traded for A-Rod and Papelbon. Really? If anyone in my league will give me A-Rod and Papelbon for Morrow and a couple of prospects, you know where to find me. Regardless, I can still look around that page for hours. Fascinating.

Slight change to the Fantasy Baseball scoreboards

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 0:22:43 EDT

I thought I'd let you all about a slight change we made to the live scoreboards in Fantasy Baseball last night. Up until last night, the scoreboards would show you every scoring category(assuming it scores live) your league uses. So for instance, if your league used the scoring category 'Hits' and a player went 2-3 with a single, a double and an RBI, it would show 2-3, 2H, 2B, RBI. And if your league used the scoring category 'Singles (1B)', it would show 2-3, 1B, 2B, RBI. We always got complaints that showing the 'H' or the '1B' was redundant and confusing. If a player is 2-3 it is already known that he had 2 hits. And further, if a player is 2-3 and one of those hits is a Double (2B), then it is assumed that the other hit was a single. Basically, we removed 'H' and '1B' from the stat lines so now, the line described above will be displayed in the traditional way of 2-3, 2B, RBI. I hope this doesn't cause any confusion.

Remarks about the scoring system changes

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:44:47 EDT

Man, it is good to know you guys are alive! When things are going great on our site, as they have been for just about the whole Fantasy Baseball preseason into the regular season, nobody says a word. It is too quiet around here. We start to wonder, "Are they having a good time?" Sure, some users will write in to tell us we're doing a great job. But for the most part, if you are satisfied, you don't tend to chime in.

Well, it seems you have an opinion about the changes we made to the scoring system in Fantasy Baseball head to head leagues. And for the record, they are not all bad. We have actually gotten a lot of good feedback from users who are glad that we "cleaned up" what was a system that was littered with inconsistencies.

Run a Masters Pool

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 9:57:47 EDT

I realize that it's Baseball season and that the last thing you probably want to hear about is Fantasy Golf. So, I'm not going to talk about it. But if you're anything like me, you like golf on a casual basis, and maybe even a little more at times. Well, The Masters (on CBS...a tradition unlike any other) is one of those times for me. In fact, my friends and I used to run a Masters pool every year where we'd each kick in some ummm, marbles, hold a draft, pick 5 players, and the lowest aggregate score won. And this was great until Tiger came along. Then it was all about who got the first pick in the draft. So the last few years, we've been using our own Fantasy Golf Challenge to run the pool. The game play changes a little bit because it is a salary cap style game, but the premise is the same. Basically, each golfer is assigned a predetermined salary and each participant has $1,000,000 to spend on 5 golfers. Use the "buddy group" functionality to invite your buddies so you can all compete against each other. We do the rest of the work. The winner is the person whose 5 golfers earned the most amount of money in the tournament, It's been working really well for us and the best part about it is that ANYONE can have Tiger if they so choose. And who knows, you might just win one of our weekly prizes in the process. Lineups lock on Thursday at 6am ET, so there isn't a whole lot of time.

Start of Fantasy Baseball Season

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:45:20 EDT

For those of you who aren't aware, the CBSSports.com office is in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Many people seem to assume that we work out of New York, but that is not the case. Anyway, one of the many benefits of living down here is that we have spring training right in our own backyard. Literally, in fact because Ft. Lauderdale Stadium, where the Orioles play, is less than a mile from our office. So occassionally we head over during lunch, catch a few innings, drink a couple of ummm...sodas, and if we're not too worn out we'll head back to work. On Wednesday, our Senior VP took our whole group to the Marlins /Orioles game for the afternoon. It also happened to be 'Seniors Run the Bases Day'. The game got out of hand early. I know Jeremy Guthrie had a decent year last year and he is actually owned in 41% of our leagues, but he had the type of "stuff" that had some of the seniors in attendance thinking that maybe their dream of playing in the majors was not over yet. He got rocked for who knows how many runs, but it was during the shelling that I had decided I was going to run the bases with the seniors.

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Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:45:20 EDT

Put Me In, Coach

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 3:45:25 EDT

For most of our users, this is one of the most exciting times of the sports year. The NCAA Tournament is in full swing, the NHL and NBA regular seasons are winding down with some intriguing playoff races, and spring training is giving 30 baseball teams, their fans, and their fantasy owners a renewed hope. Just on the horizon is The Masters, the NBA and NHL playoffs, and the NFL draft. But I cannot stand the time between my Fantasy Baseball draft and the start of the regular season. For one, it gives my players too much time to get hurt. Can you hear me, Ervin Santana? But secondly, it is time to see what the guys who actually do make it to the regular season can do. I usually try and schedule my drafts the day before the season starts, no matter what sport it is. But Baseball is always tough when you work here . My high-stakes baseball league is comprised mostly of people in this building and March is not the most conducive time to hold a draft here. In addition to preparing for the upcoming Fantasy Baseball season, CBSSports.com also produces March Madness on Demand (which is an incredible experience by the way and totally worth checking out if you haven’t already). But the amount of effort that goes into developing and producing it is overwhelming, so resources are limited and finding time for the draft can be a challenge. So I take what I can get and this year we held it on March 16. That is just waaaay too early for me. So, now I am paying the price by having to wait.

Allow Myself to Introduce...Myself.

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 9:28:17 EDT

If you're reading this, then the world is in some sort of post-apocalyptic state and you are a survivor looking through lost artifacts trying to find out what life was like before all this happened to our world. Fantasy Sports was the focus of our culture and the winners of Fantasy leagues were kings in our society. Seriously though, you can imagine my surprise when I was asked to start blogging about the CBSSports.com Fantasy Products. Would people really want to read about this stuff? Well, I thought about it for all of 5 seconds when I decided, ABSOLUTELY. If people were going to treat a free utility such as Facebook like it slept with their wife just for changing their layout a little bit, then users certainly will be interested in what the product team has to say about their Fantasy products. If it’s one thing we know about you guys, it is that you are extremely passionate about Fantasy. And what I’m hoping to show you through this blog is that the CBSSports.com Fantasy Product team is as passionate about Fantasy Sports as our customers.

The Fantasy Product Blog : CBSSports.com Blogs

College Fantasy Football Commissioner

How Do You Access Your League and Why?

Weekly and Rest of Season Player Rankings

Daily, Weekly, and Rest of Season Projections

Baseball Scoring System Changes - 2010

Preview Page Questions

A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

More Thoughts on Predictive Content

Who is the Guru?

League Chat is Up!

What Are You Searching For?

The Dog Days of Summer

Fantasy and Social Behavior - Part II

College Fantasy Football...We've Come a Long Way!

There Isn't an App for That

The Voice of the CBSSports.com Fantasy Draft Room

The Social Aspect of Fantasy Sports

A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

Rested and Ready...to Fantasy Blog

Honeymoon? But What About My Fantasy Teams?

Football Commissioner 2009

How 'Usable' is Our Site?

How Many Ways Can You View a Lineup?

Thoughts About Roster Trends

Slight change to the Fantasy Baseball scoreboards

Remarks about the scoring system changes

Run a Masters Pool

Start of Fantasy Baseball Season

A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

Put Me In, Coach

Allow Myself to Introduce...Myself.