Fantasy Sports-Who's the Best Free Service?

I know this isn't technically a rant, but I thought about the plethora of free fantasy sports services being offered and wondered which was the best.  So, I joined three different services, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, and CBS Sports, and I'm going to review their various services and user compatibility throughout the upcoming NBA season.  I choose a head to head format on each service with a snake-style draft.  I'm going to rip through the services and notifications and tell you where to play your fantasy sports in the future.  First, let's check out the formatting on the pages.

This is old, but it honestly hasn't changed much 

other than the drag and drop option for roster changes.

The format of a fantasy page can tell you a lot about the experience you're about to have.  Let's kick things off with Yahoo! Sports.  Their page is very...bleh.  They don't have much in the way of bells and whistles, but everything is functional.  The big issue with Yahoo! is the fact that there is nothing visually appealing of distinguishing about their service.  You could be playing any fantasy...well, anything, and you really wouldn't see any difference in the way the service functions.  While that's wonderful for continuity, it sucks from an enjoyment standpoint.  That said, everything is easily accessible, highly functional, and easily utilized.  Add on the fact that they include plan language and this is a highly user friendly format.

 This is it folks; it doesn't really get much better either.

CBS Sports is even more generic, if that's even possible.  Unfortunately for them, they are less user friendly too.  On Yahoo!, you can alter your roster through a drag and drop feature that allows you make the change and clearly see where your viable options for who to replace are located.  For CBS, they just have an series of drop boxes that are incredibly poorly formatted and don't do anything other than give you a series of warnings when you attempt to make changes.  There are great features too, like their GameTracker which provides quick access to scoring during matchups and the player news, but they simply don't have the kind of user compatibility that Yahoo! did.  This is not a service I would recommend to a first time fantasy player.

  This is the basic page for roster changes,

which is easy to use for even first timers.

Leave it to ESPN to do it the best.  While they aren't spectacular in their appearance, they are above and beyond anything I've seen on any other site for user compatibility and help services.  ESPN condenses everything down into a quintet of links with subsections below them, which change depending on which of the five categories you select.  That's three fewer sections than Yahoo! and four less than CBS.  Although the ESPN sections don't have drop downs like the other two, that's actually a benefit considering the fact that the drop downs on the others have a tendency to get in the way.  Although I'd like the links for the subsections of each category to be larger and stand out more, that's a small complaint.  The FantasyCast for ESPN is amazing, allowing you to follow individual matchups, the players from every team, etc.  You have to try it!  As far as  making changes to your roster, this isn't quite as simple as Yahoo!, but it's damn close.  Worried about not being able to figure things out?  Just call the fantasy help hotline or use their online help services.  This is the service I would recommend to any first time user!

In a couple of days, I'll be letting you know about the draft processes, so check back in to learn more!

Corey S. out!