Due to low readership, and using other means of keeping in contact with folks, we’ve decided to retire this blog. To keep up-to-date on all MyFantasyLeague.com happenings, be sure to check out the following sources:

1. MyFantasyLeague.com on Facebook.
2. MyFantasyLeague.com on Twitter.
3. MyFantasyLeague.com site news.

MyFantasyLeague.com has its own integrated draft room for conducting a live, on-line draft. You can also conduct an email draft over the course of days or weeks directly from our site. And we also have our own free off-line draft program (FFLM). But there are still other ways to conduct a draft if desired. Because of our Open Developer’s API, there are several third party draft tools that you can use to conduct your draft or to enhance your draft experience.

For an alternate off-line draft program that works similar to our own FFLM program, you can use FanDraft, a program from FanSoftMedia. They have integrated one click ability to import your league into FanDraft so it is really quick to get ready for your draft. Then after you draft is completed in FanDraft, you can transfer the draft results back to your league with another click. You do of course need to enter your League ID and password, but otherwise it is all very automatic! Thank you to Randy over at FanDraft for working with us on this integration ability.

If you’ve used FanDraft in the past, or you prefer its interface for any other reason, you now have a great way to quickly transfer the draft results into your league on MyFantasyLeague.com.

Now that fantasy football draft season is in full swing, there will be thousands of drafts conducted every day from now until kickoff. Some leagues will conduct their draft on-line using the live draft room capabilities of MyFantasyLeague.com. But a lot of leagues will make it a social event as well by gathering all of the team owners at the same physical location, such as a house or a bar or a conference room. If that’s the scenario that you are looking at for your league, then we want you to be aware of a great option to enhance your draft experience while keeping track of your draft picks and making it really easy to update your league when the event is done: FFLM!

Fantasy Football League Manager

FFLM is a Windows program that can be used to conduct your live draft. All you need is a PC with Windows at your draft event. You don’t even need an internet connection. Just be sure to download and install the program ahead of time, and then click on the “Update” button in FFLM after you run it to make sure you have the most recent player updates. Then follow these steps to prep for your draft ahead of time:

1. Use the “File > New League” menu item in FFLM to create a new league file.

2. Use the “File > Import from MyFantasyLeague.com” menu item to import all of your settings into FFLM.

3. If you already set up your draft order, then you’re ready to start. If you want to create or edit your draft order, then use the “Draft > Set Draft Order” screen in FFLM.

4. When you are ready to start the draft, click on the “Draft > Interactive Draft” menu item.

From there, FFLM will guide you through the process by showing the current round and pick in the upper left, and a timer bar on the left side, along with a list of available players to choose from in the center of the screen, and the rosters of each team as the draft progresses. It even includes player rankings as provided by TheHuddle.com based on their cheat sheets, as well as the latest ADP Rankings from MyFantasyLeague.com. So you can quickly see which players are remaining with the highest rankings. You can sort the player list by these values, or narrow down the list to only show certain positions. And you can Find any player quickly just by typing their last name. In short, it provides you with an always up-to-date list of players to choose from during your draft. As each pick is made, the players are taken off the list, and the rosters are updated accordingly.

Now for the fun stuff… You can optionally include announcements of each pick by downloading and installing the FFLM sound files. If you install these ahead of time, and then turn the Audio options on, the computer will announce each player as he is selected during the draft. So when you click on a player to draft them, you’ll hear something like this over your computer speaker: “Team 1 selects Tom Brady, Quarterback for the New England Patriots. Team 2 is now on the clock. Team 3 is on deck.”

In addition to the audio, you’ll also see a countdown timer to keep the draft on track, and the system will announce when there is one minute remaining, and 30 seconds left, and then it will say “Please make your selection” in an ominous voice to let owners know when their time is up.

Another fun part to all of this is letting everyone else view the draft program by projecting it onto the wall or a screen. If you can borrow HDTV, a projector or a large monitor from work or home, or use the equipment at whatever location you are conducting your draft, it makes for a great way to keep everybody on track and informed throughout the draft. There are several views of the draft in progress that you can toggle between, including the available player list with the various rankings and stats, and the rosters of each team, or the draft summary that shows the last 20 or so picks that have been made. And if you have an auction instead of a draft, there is also a view of each team’s funds spent, player count, and remaining funds and the minimum bid based on how many open spots you have left to fill your roster.

Be sure to check out FFLM if you plan to conduct your draft in a social environment where all of your owners will be in the same location. The best part is that after you are all done with your draft, you use the “Exchange” button in FFLM to transfer your draft results to your league in MyFantasyLeague.com with just the click of a button.

With the season right around the corner, members of the Fantasy Football Industry are flocking to MyFantasyLeague to host their leagues. Here are some recent expert drafts held at MFL…

KFFL Expert Analysis Draft
FanEx: The Fantasy Experts League
FESL ALPHA
Fantasy Premier League Championship Series
SOFA IDP Fantasy Football League

Here at MyFantasyLeague.com, we’re still busy working on the site for 2011 to ensure that your league
experience is better than ever before. Some of the many enhancements that we’ve already completed
for 2011 include:

1. 8 New Holiday-Themed Skins – Your Select A Skin page has been updated to include 8 new holiday-themed skins.

2. Owners Can Now Be In Control Of Their Own Player’s Positions – If your league allows owners to be started at positions other than the default MyFantasyLeague.com position, the Change Player Position page has a new field on it called Allow owners to change the position of these players back and forth between the MyFantasyLeague.com default position and your custom position via the “For Owners > Change My Player Position” page. If the commissioner turns that option on, each owner will be able to use the new For Owners > Change My Player Position option to change the position of any player on his roster back and forth between the MFL-default position and the commissioner-specified position, any time he sees fit.

3. Twitter Feed – The For Owners > Franchise Setup > Contact Info page has been updated so each owner can enter their own Twitter username. If an owner does do this, his Franchise Information report will be updated with a link to his Twitter account. In addition, the Home Page Modules And Tabs Setup page has a new home page module on it called Twitter Feed which will display the feed of everyone in your league, and also the MyFantasyLeague.com Twitter Feed

4. Get Notified Only When It’s Your Turn To Draft – If you’re in an email draft, but don’t want to be overwhelmed with too many emails or text messages, there is a new option on both the For Owners > Franchise Setup > Contact Info page and the For Owners > Franchise Setup > Wireless pages called “When I’m On The Clock For My Draft” which will allow you to only receive emails or text messages when it’s your turn to draft, as opposed to when each pick is made.

5. Youtube Video – To make it easier for commissioners to post Youtube videos to your league home page, there is a new For Commissioners > Setup > Appearance Setup > Youtube Video page that allows you to set up a Youtube video on your league home page. Once you’ve set it up, be sure to include the actual home page module called Youtube Video, available from your Home Page Modules And Tabs Setup page, onto your league home page.

6. Player Salaries Based On 2010’s Fantasy Points – If your league is a salary cap league, and you’d like to have player salaries calculated based on 2010’s final, end-of-season player scores, the Select Packaged Player Salaries page has a new option to allow you to do that.

7. Randomize Divisional Alignment – If you’d like the system to randomly assign divisions for each franchise in your league, the Division/Conference Setup page has a new option to allow you to do this.

8. Many More New Home Page Modules – In addition to the Youtube Video and Twitter Feed home page modules mentioned above, the Home Page Modules And Tabs Setup page has several new available home page modules, including:
1. League Events To Schedule – to make it easier for owners to be aware of the league events you might be trying to schedule.
2. MFL Tips – so everyone in your league can keep up-to-date on some of the MFL Tips we’re issuing to help you make the most of our your MyFantasyLeague.com league.
3. Newest Commissioner’s Article and Newest Owner’s Article – for leagues that like to write a lot of league articles, and want to have more than one article on their league home page at a time.

9. Custom Players Can Now Be Designated As Rookies – The Enter Custom Players page now allows a commissioner to indicate if the custom player he’s entering is a rookie or not.

10. Manually Lock Players – If your league locks players, the “Reports > Player > Locked Players” report will now allow the commissioner to manually lock a player if necessary.

11. Customize Scrolling Text Speed – The Scrolling Text Setup page now allows the commissioner to specify the speed (Slow, Medium or Fast) for the scrolling text.

Don’t forget to take full advantage of our Customer Referral Program, which allows you to earn
big discounts on your 2012 league purchase with us!

And if you had a league with another league management provider in 2010 (CBS, Yahoo, Fanball, ESPN, etc.) we offer significant discounts for moving that league to us in 2011, as well as the ability to automatically import your league history from many of those sites – see this page for more details.

For more frequent updates on site news and other related topics, be sure to “Like” us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MyFantasyLeague and follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/MyFantasyLeague.

Now that the official NFL schedule has been released, and the 2011 NFL draft is in the books, all 2011 leagues (but not 2010 or prior season leagues) have been updated to show the real 2011 NFL schedule and 2011 NFL draftees.

As always, please let us know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for the site!

Sincerely,
The MyFantasyLeague.com Team

This past Monday night, MyFantasyLeague hosted 12 Fantasy Football experts for the first post-lockout draft of the offseason. Those 12 experts in drafting order were…

1. Lou Tranquilli – BFD Fantasy Football
2. Keith Hernandez – KFFL
3. Andy Miley – Fantasy Alarm
4. Jana Kimmel – Fantasy Football Sherpa
5. Geoffrey Stein – MyFantasyLeague
6. Matt Schauf – Draft Sharks
7. Tony Holm – Fantasy Sharks
8. Mike Stein – Fantasy Judgement
9. Herbie Teope – Time Warner Cable
10. Jim Day – GOAheadScore
11. Mike Krueger – Fantasy Football Today
12. Doug Schwartz- MyFantasyLeague

The aforementioned participated in a 16-round, point-per-reception (PPR) league that starts one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one Flex (RB, WR or TE), one kicker and one team defense.

Full results can be seen here.

Just a note that all Facebook Friends Leagues in August will include point-per-reception (PPR) scoring.

To join a league, simply give MyFantasyLeague a “Like” on Facebook.

Due to the uncertainty over the 2011 NFL season, we’ve decided to extend our early bird discount deadline indefinitely, until the NFL and NFLPA are able to work out their differences. Once there is a resolution to the NFL labor situation, we will announce when our early bird discount is over. See this FAQ for more details on our policy as it relates to the 2011 NFL season.

Here at MyFantasyLeague.com, we’re still busy working on the site for 2011 to ensure that your league experience is better than ever before. Some of the many enhancements that we’ve already completed for 2011 include:

1. Reveal Starting Lineups At Kickoff Of Each Player’s Game – Your For Commissioners > Setup > Players And Rosters > Starting Lineups Setup page has a new option for the “Hide starting lineups from all owners until:” setting called “Kickoff of each individual player’s game.”
2. Automatic FantasySharks.com Draft Coach Picks – The For Commissioners > Setup > Draft Setup > General Draft And Timer Setup page has a new option for the “When the timer expires:” setting to allow picks to be made automatically using the FantasySharks.com Draft Coach
3. Hundreds of New, Higher-Resolution Helmets, Logos and Icons – We’ve added hundreds of more modern, higher resolution icons, logos and helmets to the site to give your league pages a cleaner look.
4. League News Feed Home Page Module – The For Commissioners > Setup > Appearance Setup > Home Page Modules and Tabs Setup page has been updated to include a new home page module called “League News Feed” which merges different types of league-wide news into one home page module in a chronological order.

Don’t forget to take full advantage of our Customer Referral Program, which allows you to earn big discounts on your 2012 league purchase with us!

And if you had a league with another league management provider in 2010 (CBS, Yahoo, Fanball, ESPN, etc.) we offer significant discounts for moving that league to us in 2011, as well as the ability to automatically import your league history from many of those sites – see this page for more details.

For more frequent updates on site news and other related topics, be sure to “Like” us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MyFantasyLeague and follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/MyFantasyLeague.

Now that the official NFL schedule has been released, and the 2011 NFL draft is in the books, all 2011 leagues (but not 2010 or prior season leagues) have been updated to show the real 2011 NFL schedule and 2011 NFL draftees.

As always, please let us know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for the site!

Sincerely,
The MyFantasyLeague.com Team

June was an exciting month at MyFantasyLeague’s Facebook page as we gave away a spot in a magazine draft and our second Expert Draft of the year to Bob Ruby and Andy Snider, respectively.

MyFantasyLeague also offered our 3,100-plus friends the chance to win great prizes at no cost with Facebook Friends Leagues. All together in June, MyFantasyLeague ran 15 drafts featuring football fanatics from all over the globe participating in live and 12-hour drafts.

Here are the results from those 15 drafts (some still in progress)…

No. 1
No. 2
No. 3
No. 4
No. 5
No. 6
No. 7
No. 8
No. 9
No. 10
No. 11
No. 12
No. 13
No. 14
No. 15

Some interesting notes from those drafts…

-Four different players have been selected with the first overall pick: Arian Foster, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson and Michael Vick.

-After declaring his knee at 80-to-85 percent in a recent interview, Maurice Jones-Drew has fallen from a sure top-5 pick to a late first-round selection.

-Calvin Johnson is the Facebook Friends’ wide receiver of choice, as his Average Draft Position (ADP) is lower than that of Andre Johnson. Both pass-catchers were selected in Round 1 in 14-of-15 drafts.

-Daniel Thomas is the rookie to have — usually leaving the board in the fourth-round. Other popular freshman running backs include Roy Helu, Ryan Williams and DeMarco Murray.

-In addition to A.J. Green and Julio Jones, rookie wideouts Greg Little and Leonard Hankerson are receiving quite a bit of love.

If you’re not already, give MyFantasyLeague a “Like” on Facebook and join a July league. Drafts start almost daily…

A couple of links regarding this past Thursday’s expert draft.

Fantasy Phenoms’ Jason Sarney talks about his draft from the No. 1 overall spot…

Tony Holm shares his draft with the Fantasy Sharks community…

John Tuvey of The Huddle and others discuss his draft…

More to come.