Finding the Best Website for Your Fantasy Football League

There are a myriad of options for running your fantasy football league. But the old days of searching through newspaper box scores with pen and paper are long since gone. Providers big and small offer software platforms through which you can manage your league and your owners can manage their teams for a relatively low cost.

Larger companies such as Yahoo!, CBS Sportsline, and the Sporting News offer their own systems, often for free, while upstart, fantasy-focused sites have developed proprietary software that offer more information and more options for more sophisticated, and more obsessive, fantasy football players.

Here's a look at some of the leading fantasy football management platforms and their advantages and disadvantages.

Yahoo! Sports
Website: football.fantasysports.yahoo.com
Price: Free / $124.99 for premium Football PLUS! platform

Advertised as the #1 free fantasy league, Yahoo! offers free and paid versions of their commissioner software. Football PLUS! sports a fee of $124.99 for up to 20 teams. This paid version allows the commissioner to create custom specifications for the league - but the only upgrades relative to the free program are the allowance of divisions within the league and a few specific waiver rules. Even when split 20 ways, the $125 is better spent toward prize money to make your league more interesting.

The free Yahoo! management program runs through their free site - simply select "Create a League" within their free fantasy football program and you can set up a password-protected league. The free version allows for a number of customizations, including roster size and composition and varying scoring systems. For most leagues, the free Yahoo! version is more than sufficient.

CBS Sportsline.com/NFL.com
Website: www.sportsline.com/fantasy or www.nfl.com
Price: Free / $129.99 (limited time) - $149.99 for premium Fantasy Football Commissioner

CBS Sportsline (and, by extension, NFL.com, whose fantasy games are run by Sportsline) offers a free fantasy football game through its www.sportsline.com website. Commissioners can create their own team and then create a league within the confines of the free game. Unfortunately, there are no customization options - standard scoring and head-to-head competition are the only types of leagues allowed (you can choose between live and automated drafts). For a casual fantasy football league, the Yahoo! free platform is a better choice.

The upgraded Fantasy Football Commissioner, however, offers additional features of interest to hard-core fantasy football enthusiasts. FFC offers "keeper" capability, the ability to create a budget for free agent and waiver acquisitions, as well as the ability to trade draft picks for other picks or for players. While Sportsline's premium product is superior to that of Yahoo!, it still is required spending only for sophisticated fantasy football players.

Sporting News
Website: fantasygames.sportingnews.com
Price: $89.99 (early bird) / $99.99

The Sporting News' Fantasy Football Commissioner is similar to the products offered by Yahoo! and other, smaller competitors, though they do not have a free game through which a league can be managed. Each league can have up to 20 teams, many variables are customizable (including waivers and scoring), and they offer live scoring and insider access to their online scouting reports. The Sporting News also offers 15-team leagues in their Ultimate Fantasy Football game, a salary-cap based game that offers league, national, and weekly prizes.

The Sporting News' program is cheaper than that of Yahoo! or CBS Sportsline, but overall it is sorely lacking compared to the products of the smaller companies listed below. For a mid-level fantasy football league that doesn't need all the bells and whistles of complete customization, Fantasy Football Commissioner may suffice, but overall other programs are either cheaper (i.e., the free Yahoo! leagues), or significantly more advanced.

RealTime Sports
Website: www.rtsports.com
Price: $89.95 (Gold) / $149.95 (Premium)

RealTime Sports offers a detailed, sophisticated fantasy football league manager program through its rtsports.com website. RealTime's Gold service ($89.95) is the best value; with up to 30 teams per league, and the ability to customize literally every aspect of your fantasy football league, RealTime's Commissioner Service is one of the best league manager programs online. The Platinum version ($149.95) allows up to 50 teams, while including a free playoff league and the option of creating conferences within your leagues (both versions allow divisions).

MyFantasyLeague.com
Website: www.myfantasyleague.com
Price: $89.95

Much like RealTime Sports, MyFantasyLeague.com offers a sophisticated program to run your fantasy league. Like RealTime, MyFantasyLeague.com costs a flat fee of $89.95 per year (there are discounts available if you are switching from another program to MFL). MFL offers a free trial, and all the bells and whistles of RealTime's platform: essentially, the ability to customize every aspect of your league.

But MyFantasyLeague.com goes even further, with a league size up to 64 teams, with four conferences available. Even cooler, MFL offers up to 28 different positions, including the ability to draft and play individual defensive players, or a team's defensive backfield or defensive line together. For the large league full of fantasy football junkies, there is no better choice than MyFantasyLeague.com.

Homegrown Sports
Website: www.homegrownsports.com
Price: $49.95

Homegrown Sports' Fantasy League Manager is another proprietary league manager with extensive customization capability. While it uses templates, as opposed to the pure customization available on MFL and RealTime Sports' programs, Fantasy League Manager offers some additional features not found on those programs. Homegrown Sports offers transaction fee tracking, for leagues that charge fees in-house (the site is not charging the fees, simply tracking them for the commissioner). For year-over-year leagues, Homegrown Sports is ideal, with "keeper" capability and historical stats kept for the life of your league. At only $49.95, Homegrown Sports' Fantasy League Manager is the best online program on the market, especially for long-term leagues with constant membership.

To wrap up, if you're looking for a free, basic service for a casual league, Yahoo! Sports is probably your best bet. If you play with dedicated, sophisticated, fantasy football players, the smaller companies listed here offer excellent service, advanced products, and a wealth of choices for your league. No matter which league you choose, enjoy the season and best of luck!