I'm heading into my 6th year of FF, having only played on Yahoo, and ESPN.com. To make this short, I'm sick of playing in deadbeat leagues, full of deadbeat owners, with deadbeat commish's.
I'm looking to find a league full of active owners, and possibly even join a keeper league, though I've never been in one.
Any suggestions as far as good sites for active play? If I did pay to join a league, how do I know that I'm not getting ripped off? How is the money handled? Who pays out the winnings? These may be silly questions, but it's new territory to me.
The only way really is to scout the league, the comissioner and the members. Talk to them, take a look at the league message board if available. I'm not sure there's any other way to know what your getting yourself into really.
A good place to look though, is certainly here in the Cafe. Many, many leagues are run through the message boards, including league discussion, the draft, referendum's etc. For people you don't know the players are as rock solid as they get and since most of the league is run through the forum you can easily sift through it and see if it's the league for you.
A lot of the leagues here are probably looking for members, be it replacements for an existing league, or a new one starting up. I suggest looking through the Draft Rooms forum for leagues that need new blood.
Your best bet is joining an "official" Cafe league which has a forum hosted here at the Cafe, where it's extremely unlikely that a commish would rip anyone off and jeopardize their status here at the Cafe. You may still however run into deadbeat owners - I had to leave a Cafe dynasty league this year because more than half the owners in this 12-team league were starting injured players or players on bye on a regular basis.
Be very careful of joining leagues formed in Classified. I joined a $50 league advertised here last year and won 3rd place, but the commissioner bounced a check to me and went MIA from January through March, completely ignoring PMs and e-mails. (Apparently his internet was even turned off) He eventually sent a money order, but now that I want to leave the league, he refuses to give me my entry fees for this year back.
I pretty much agree with what Lung said. Personally I wouldn't join a money league here, for the same reasons Lung said. I try to get i leagues with Cafe Vets only. Lot's of really good and experienced guys here.
There are numerous FF forums and websites where you can come across leagues that are open, but there will always be people who want a try on a scam or not pay up......I'm not alone in having fallen victim to such things. If your going to join a money league, your best bet to ensure your not ripped off us to play in a league that uses leaguesafe.com to handle all the finances.
I'm not replying to your message to plug my own leagues that I've started this year. viewtopic.php?t=436524 After playing in a dynasty league last year where a deadbeat commish ran off with all our money, I decided to start some of my own leagues where we would do things right, trying to gather quality owners from all around the world. To do this it's crucial that a 3rd party manages the finances so Leaguesafe.com handles all our transactions. I'm not sure if IDP is your thing but we have a redraft & keeper league that might be up your alley so check us out. We have an extremely active group of owners, a number of which have already played together in multiple leagues over the past few seasons. Drop me an email at doopfantasyfootball@gmail.com if you have any questions or are interested.
The Lung wrote:Your best bet is joining an "official" Cafe league which has a forum hosted here at the Cafe, where it's extremely unlikely that a commish would rip anyone off and jeopardize their status here at the Cafe. You may still however run into deadbeat owners - I had to leave a Cafe dynasty league this year because more than half the owners in this 12-team league were starting injured players or players on bye on a regular basis.
Be very careful of joining leagues formed in Classified. I joined a $50 league advertised here last year and won 3rd place, but the commissioner bounced a check to me and went MIA from January through March, completely ignoring PMs and e-mails. (Apparently his internet was even turned off) He eventually sent a money order, but now that I want to leave the league, he refuses to give me my entry fees for this year back.
I'm sorry if this is a really dumb question, but where would one go to join an "official" Cafe league?
As evident by my 1 post so far, I'm new to the Cafe. I've played fantasy football through both Yahoo and ESPN and decided this year I'd like to look for a league with owners who take their teams as seriously as I do. After reading through some of the threads here, it's apparent that the knowledge level here is head and shoulders above the ESPN fantasy football message board.
Thanks in advance for helping a beginner out!
Tejones8
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I'm sorry if this is a really dumb question, but where would one go to join an "official" Cafe league?
A couple things:
1) Sometimes leagues will post an advert on Classifieds that they are starting a new league or looking for replacements. A quick read of the post is an easy way to tell if it's hosted on the Cafe.
2) Go through the "Draft Rooms Inside" forum, pick out leagues you like the sound of. Most existing leagues will probably have a Check In thread. There's the most obvious place to see if they need replacements. Shoot a PM off to the commish or post in the thread that you're interested in taking the team on.
There's no real requirement to join most leagues (though some do like Noobaholics etc), you've jsut got to seize the moment really.
I commish 11 different EXTREMELY active leagues at MFL. I have an open team in 3 leagues. If you'd like, email me, and I'd be happy to have you sign in to just talk with other owners, check things out, etc. But I hear ya OP. I had a guy "adopt" 2 of my teams this Feb. He said ALL the right things, he was active, loves to trade, responds to offers quickly, etc. Its now been 43 days since he has logged in. Needless to say, the 2 teams he adopted are up for sale again.
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by BBQandFootball » Fri May 01, 2009 4:35 pm 
