Is it worth purchasing a membership to a premium online fantasy service such as Fantasyguru.com?

Question

I'm in a VERY deep fantasy league, there are 20 teams and we have 26 starters including IDPs. I'm fairly experienced in fantasy football and usually just stick with magazines for my pre-season analysis. Is it worth paying $30 for a membership to Fantasyguru.com? Does it really help and are there any other services or magazines that you would recommend. All help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Will,

Let me preface this by saying that I have never used Fantasyguru's services.

With that said, it seems this decision really boils down to a) how much time you want to invest and b) what site you currently use to host your league.  

Most fantasy owners are satisfied with printing someone else's fantasy football cheat sheet and using it at their fantasy draft; it that works for you then that is what you should do.  Personally, I like doing research on each individual player and creating my own cheat sheet accordingly.  The site that I use to host my leagues (CBSSporstline) provides player news and I take time to research each player individually.  If you pay for a similar site then you may have all of the information you need right there.

Because I already do my own research (and spend some time on FF forums) I don't gain much from any of the paid services as most of what they tell you is common knowledge on the web.  If were I lazy, and had the cash to spend, then I guess it wouldn't hurt.  I just wouldn't get any satisfaction from winning a fantasy league if my players were essentially chosen by someone else, know what I mean?

If you want to get an idea of how I create my own fantasy cheat sheets (using drag and drop), you can check out my website (which is completely free) in the link in my source.  

My cheat sheet creation tool provides a wealth of information for free: statistics, bye weeks, rankings, team information, all for free.  I personally review information from other sites and forums, then just update rankings accordingly on my site.  Works well.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

While Fantasyguru.com is widely considered one of the best fantasy sites out there, Yahoo Fantasy is free and definitely serviceable.  It all depends on your experience and level of interest in the game, also how much you're willing to pay for a fantasy team.  It's your decision.

Answer 3

No, not at all.

There are a million fantasy sites out there that will tell you what "experts" they are predicting and analyzing.

You can do for yourself anything they can do.

I use NFL.com and yahoo for my information. The information you need is all right there for you just like it is for those "gurus" out there.

The secret is knowing your matchups and keeping up with all the developements in the league. (transactions, injuries, roster moves...etc)

Any self proclaimed "guru" is guessing just like everyone else when it comes right done to it, they are just making an educated guess base on their research.

If you do the research on your own, you don't need to spend good money for someone to do it for you.

In my opinion, those fantasy sites such as Fantasyguru.com are for those people that just don't want to put in the time and effort to do the analyzing for themselves, and want to spend the money for someone elst to do it.

That way they can ignore their team all week and log in Sunday morning to see what the "guru" says they should do.

Good luck.