When it comes to fantasy sports, there are some clear giants in the space, ie. ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sports. However, these are not the only players in the game. As an avid fantasy player, I am always looking for an app that will allow me to switch things up and keep things interesting. It can be tough to branch out and try something new for a few reasons. One, it is a season-long commitment, the shortest of which is football at about four months. Two, you have to drag at least nine of your friends through this journey. Three, having to relearn a system when the old system is “just fine” can be a little annoying.
With a gentle nudge from my wife, we decided to look into a few of these other apps to see if they provide a little something that the big three don’t. I have played fantasy baseball, football, and basketball for the last twenty years, so maybe it’s time to have an open mind.
The first app we looked into is called Sleeper. Sleeper covers fantasy football, basketball, League of Legends, and March Madness. According to the website, the developers were tired of the big and made a better, faster, ad-free app. Over the weekend, my wife and ten of our friends hit the download button and created a Sleeper fantasy football league.
As the Commish
Signing up and setting up a league was pretty painless. It had the option of creating a dynasty, redraft, and keeper league. Most of the settings were run of the mill. You can set up reverse standings for the waiver wire ads, which I like. Another thing that I liked was the ability to trade draft picks. It has the option to pre-set the scoring as ESPN or Yahoo default scoring, or you can customize how many points to award or deduct. They do have a lot of bonuses if you’re into that kind of thing.
Generally speaking, I preferred the user experience from my phone over my laptop, although I didn’t have issues with either. The leagues look like they are invite-only. I didn’t see an option to join a random league.
Sending out invites for the league was straightforward. The app generates a link to your league for you to send out, and none of our friends had any issues getting into the league either. From experience, I know that it can take a few tries to get a Yahoo invite to work. Each invite was sent once.
Sleeper touts their emphasis on communication, and they delivered. The message board is pinned to the main page, so no one missed any messages. It gives you the option of creating in message polls, which is a lot nicer than having a separate group chat or text message everyone individually. We were able to work out a draft time quickly and were ready to draft right away.
Draft Day
Pros
Any respectable fantasy owner knows you don’t go into a draft without running through a couple of mock drafts first. You have the option of going in solo or inviting other league members to join you. The mock drafts are quick and painless.
The draft board was by far my favorite thing about the draft experience. It had a presentation board, which is much easier to read and know who had been taken. Yahoo released a presentation board this year, but you have to switch between pages to draft. In Sleeper, you see the draft board as you draft. Each position is color-coded, and the tally of how many of each position you have drafted is front and center. On other fantasy apps, this isn’t as easily accessible.
The other thing that I thought was awesome was the voice lounge. It made drafting more fun; we were all able to talk without taking space from the draft interface. The entire league can join the voice lounge, which gives you the feel of a live draft while social distancing.
Cons
The only con we experienced was a few of our league members said the app crashed on them but were able to get back on before their next pick. This does happen on other fantasy apps as well but still an unwelcoming experience for a new user.
Moving Into Week 1
So far, Sleeper has provided a sleek platform, solid inter-league communication and the first football Sunday of the season will be the true test. How timely are news updates affecting game-time decisions? How well will the message board facilitate trades? Should make for a fun gameday experience and an exciting first week of action.