So last night was my fantasy football draft. I have taken over the commissioner of the league this year. It could not have been a bigger debacle if I tried. We have always used Yahoo for our baseball and football leagues and honestly I have never had a problem like the one's we experienced last night.
It started about 15 minutes before the draft when people started telling me that they could not log into the draft, they were being told they were not registered in this league and other various messages. I had 3 friends at my house who were experiencing the same problem. By the time the draft starts at 8:30, 4 guys were unable to access the draft, so Yahoo decides they are going to auto-pick for those teams not present. Before long, a few other managers including myself, were kicked out. By now the draft is whipping along since at least half the teams are no longer actively participating in the live draft. I then decide something needs to be done, since trying to get 12 guys (13 if you count the two guys co-owning a team) back together on another evening.
So I start a Yahoo Messenger chat room and begin to invite the guys I see online. Half the guys are completely computer illiterate, and I need to walk them through installing the IM client onto their computers. We are also desperately calling a few guys that were obliviously drafting away, not realizing that most people are no longer on Yahoo. Eventually we get everyone online and start a real live draft around 9:30. Not quite the same as being together in person, but a good time. We finally finish 15 rounds around midnight and I start poking around the Yahoo site, looking for support.
Now, this is the Fantasy Plus league, which means we have paid $125 for additional features and one would presume services as well. I find a place to call customer service and find out that they only work 6 am - 6 pm (Pacific Time). Now apparently people don't use Yahoo after 9 pm Eastern Time. I eventually found an online form to lodge my complaint. Who knows where this mailbox goes and who is actually going to read it. I make an incorrect assumption that there would be at least a generic message on the fantasy sports page, saying they did in fact screw the pooch and they are working on remedying the situation, but I find no news and no response to my email form.
I then call Yahoo Customer Service to find out what is going on, and I am told that Fantasy Sports have no customer service and all I can do is send another email to a different email address. I lodge another complaint asking the nice representative how come I pay for a service and go absolutely no support for this service. I realize it was not her fault, but what kind of fuck show are they running there. Having been a consumer of Yahoo for years, and having been fairly satisfied and comfortable with their interface, I was not in a hurry to rush to another service like ESPN or CBS, I wanted time to let Yahoo make it right. As the day progressed, I heard nothing. I start doing some Google searches to see if there is any news on this, and to see if anyone else encountered similar problems and came up with this and this. I am amazed that the mainstream media does not seem to care when a major content provider screws up royally.
Finally around 3 pm, I make the call that ESPN will be the recipient since Yahoo is seemingly doing nothing to communicate their issues to their paying members. I am thinking I need to call my credit card company to protest this charge, cancel the league, figure out how to trade players, essentially anything to make it right, and yet still no communications from Yahoo. I manually enter the draft results onto ESPN and invite everyone to join the league. I then start getting emails and calls, how do I get to the league. Aarrrgh!!!!
Then around 5, I get an email from Yahoo asking if they can reset the league, which I quickly reply with an affirmative. I have since received two more emails with the same request. I guess responding to each email I sent. So without further ado, here is the team I drafted.
Shaun Alexander - RB - Sea
Chad Johnson - WR - Cin
Brandon Jacobs - RB - NYG
Lee Evans - WR - Buf
Jamal Lewis - RB - Cle
Lamont Jordan - RB - Oak
Todd Heap - TE - Bal
Ben Roethlisberger - QB - Pit
Jaguars Defense - Jac
Matt Leinart - QB - Ari
Dominic Rhodes - Rb - Oak
Matt Schaub - QB - Hou
Neil Rackers - K - Ari
Matt Jones - WR - Jac
Jesse Chatam - RB - Mia
Let me know what you think?
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2 comments:
That sucks. We had trouble with a draft on Yahoo! also, but that was mainly due to all of us actually meeting at one house and trying to have 12 laptops on the same connection. Too many and no dice.
I think Big Ben will have a good year after last years debacle.
I'm in 3 leagues, which makes it hard to know who to root for.
if you had 12 guys in the same room, not sure why you relied on yahoo. Just do it off line and be done with it. I would love to get all 12 guys in our league in the same room for the draft.
I agree about Big Ben. Everything I see and read says he is going to have a monster year. The only thing that concerns me is a new coach and a new system. Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?
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