Need Help selling MFL (1 Viewer)

[AcerFC]

OK, So I go through all the work of collecting info on different host sites (see sig). I finally decide that MFL is by far the best. However, I have a few owners who are blasting me for switching sites and how MFL is not user friendly and make a new message board post on how the site sucks every few days.

Now I agree, its not as user friendly as CBS, or ESPN but I have created tabs for every important thing that an owner would need.

Has anyone else run into this problem. The league is a local league, friends and relatives with a $235 buy in.

Here is the link to the league in case you notice something that I have missed. We used to have one of the great new templates but owners had problems with blank screens so I had to get rid of it.

I think the major issue is that when you click on a player it does not have all the news info on that player like the major news network sites.

Anyway if anyone has had this problem, how did you deal with it

 

[Anthony Borbely]

They will get used to the site. The important thing to me is mfl doesn't seem to have near as many serious problems as the other sites, and they are MUCH more customer friendly.

If you want to convince them, link them to 10 or so threads here regarding complaints about cbs, fanball, espn, etc.

 

[FFdork]

I've had the same problem. MFL has great features, but it is an ugly, clunky user-interface.

 

[AcerFC]

They will get used to the site. The important thing to me is mfl doesn't seem to have near as many serious problems as the other sites, and they are MUCH more customer friendly. If you want to convince them, link them to 10 or so threads here regarding complaints about cbs, fanball, espn, etc.

I agree, but they have leagues on each of those sites. I try to explain that getting on the site on Sunday and actually being able to change lineups and see the scoring is a major benefit and that the 4 years we were else where was a hassle to say the leastHopefully you are right and it is a non issue next season, or by the end of this one

 

[chidoy]

I personally love MFL.. I have been with Yahoo, CBS, etc... and though it's not as "user friendly" it does have the same features and then some. Once you get familiar with the site, everything you need is there. Plus I love that it is so customizable. You can add your own logos, signatures, banners and what not to "pretty" your site up. You can use templates to change the overall look and feel of your site and each owner can customize how their own page looks.

Live scoring is a plus and MFL has a thing called "MFL Gameday" which is it's own program for live scoring that you install on your computer. You can set it so it can alert you with a sound when someone scores. It's cool because when someone scores, a voice comes on that says who scored, and the details of the score.

Plus, MFL never seems to have any problems with live scoring, ww problems, lineup changes and so forth that the "major" sites do. Well, we've never had any problems anyways. No hassles and Excellent customer service.

Again, I prefer MFL for all its features and customization, but I see how people can dislike it since it's not as "user friendly"...

HTH

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

I had the same problem at first with the guys in my league. We have been around for 13 seasons and we had been with CBS sine I can remember it coming out. Well after the first two weeks of CBS (last year) and the absolute horrible service they were providing I started to run MFL and CBS at the same time. By the 5th week everyone had agreed to use the MFL site and we havent looked back since. Even our oldest owner (he is over 65) has little to no problems moving around the site.

As for selling it:

#1 - Live Scoring that works on Sundays

#2 - The ability to track future draft picks, as a keeper league this was huge

#3 - The ability to customize the site in almost any manor possible

#4 - 0 Down Time - To my knowledge I am not aware of any down time we have had over the past year

 

[chidoy]

As for selling it:

#1 - Live Scoring that works on Sundays

#2 - The ability to track future draft picks, as a keeper league this was huge

#3 - The ability to customize the site in almost any manor possible

#4 - 0 Down Time - To my knowledge I am not aware of any down time we have had over the past year

I agree with Buddy Ball 2k3 on this one. GREAT feature. I used it a couple times in the offseason with trades for this years draft picks. Got an extra 5th and 6th rounder this year and MFL kept track of it!

 

[3C's]

Maybe KKids isn't as smart as he thinks he is.

 

[Wu-banger]

MFL for the most part is not freindly to the casual fantasy player.

They don't post Who to Start artilcles and like stories that help the non-FBG.

Their web design and such leave somethig to be desired, where as it is customizable but most people dont want to bother with that.

I use MFL , and have no problem with it but can see how some dont like it.

These boards pump it up like it's the greatest and dump on Sportsline and other like they are the worst... the truth lies somewhere in between.

 

[The Reytheist]

I'm in an MFL league, and it's still difficult for me to use. Picking up free agents is difficult, as they are just listed in alphabetical order. Figuring out how to properly configure the home page to get what you want isn't easy. But the scoring is highly customizable and I've never had a technical issue with it. That's a big plus.

I'll post in your other thread regarding another site I tried.

 

[Warehouse Nasty]

I'm in an MFL league and an ESPN league and for my money ESPN is infinitely better and more user-friendly. I've been in this MFL league for 2 years now and I still don't know what the hell I'm doing.

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

I'm in an MFL league, and it's still difficult for me to use. Picking up free agents is difficult, as they are just listed in alphabetical order. I'll post in your other thread regarding another site I tried.

Quick suggestion, do not pick up players from the screen you are trying to. Go to the report that shows highest scoring players and pick them up from there. This report is easily broken down by position etc etc and you can then just add the player you are looking for from there.

 

[Pipes]

I had the same problem at first with the guys in my league. We have been around for 13 seasons and we had been with CBS sine I can remember it coming out. Well after the first two weeks of CBS (last year) and the absolute horrible service they were providing I started to run MFL and CBS at the same time. By the 5th week everyone had agreed to use the MFL site and we havent looked back since. Even our oldest owner (he is over 65) has little to no problems moving around the site. As for selling it:#1 - Live Scoring that works on Sundays#2 - The ability to track future draft picks, as a keeper league this was huge#3 - The ability to customize the site in almost any manor possible#4 - 0 Down Time - To my knowledge I am not aware of any down time we have had over the past year

You forgot cost. It's alot cheaper than CBS.

 

[chidoy]

These boards pump it up like it's the greatest and dump on Sportsline and other like they are the worst... the truth lies somewhere in between.

I never "dumped" on CBS and the others, I just said I prefer MFL and it's features. I agree that it doesn't have an easy user interface but if you just sit down one day and go thru everything, I think that people will find that it's not as hard as it seems.

 

[Dreamer]

Tell them to give it a year, no complaining.

 

[RC94]

RTSports is the best IMO and much more customer friendly than MFL.

 

[Wu-banger]

These boards pump it up like it's the greatest and dump on Sportsline and other like they are the worst... the truth lies somewhere in between.

I never "dumped" on CBS and the others, I just said I prefer MFL and it's features. I agree that it doesn't have an easy user interface but if you just sit down one day and go thru everything, I think that people will find that it's not as hard as it seems.

don't think I ever referred to you specically , cause I was not.There are numerous threads of this type either hyping MFL or trashing others.

 

[bentley]

AOL is still free. Why pay?

 

[Squinting Cyclops]

ESPN this year is free too...but I have had it with their down times and now their smakc boards are "being upgraded" and will be back in week 5.....WEEK 5!!!! what were they doing in the 6 month off season and why disable them for 5 weeks...just upgrade them on wednesday night when they are ready so the smakc boards are functional for the first 5 weeks...ESPN is the pits

I have 4 leagues in ESPN and 1 in MFL

this year is my first year with MFL and I love it...I plan on switching at least 2 of the 4 ESPN league over to MFL next season (2 of 4 only b/c I am the LM in those 2 only)

I will agree that the user interface on MFL is clunky but the customization and reports are awesome.

RC94 : what is so great about RTSports? how are they better than MFL?

 

[AcerFC]

Lets try to stay away from the Use this site and not this one stuff. Lets focus instead on how to get others to realize the great things that MFL has to offer over some of the cookie cutter sites out there.

Someone mentioned the who to start articles not being on MFL. I am starting to think some of the casual players are upset over stuff like that. Thanks for all the feedback so far

 

[Squinting Cyclops]

Lets try to stay away from the Use this site and not this one stuff. Lets focus instead on how to get others to realize the great things that MFL has to offer over some of the cookie cutter sites out there.Someone mentioned the who to start articles not being on MFL. I am starting to think some of the casual players are upset over stuff like that. Thanks for all the feedback so far

maybe you could run some helpful MFL reports and create links to them and post them on the message board so that the casual player or site navigation challeged player can just go to one place and click on the linkI have been working on the ESPN guys already this year warning them that the switch to MFL is emminent and I have been sending them links to reports...the repsonse has been 90% positive

 

[Anthony Borbely]

How about taking some serious time and writing some kind of report/tutorial to help the other owners get used to the site, and take advantage of the benefits of it. Something like this would help.

 

[Diamond]

I think the major issue is that when you click on a player it does not have all the news info on that player like the major news network sites.

But it does. When you click on a player at MFL, you get his stats broken down game-by-game, followed by all the latest news on that player. MFL uses KFFL and Rotoworld as sources.As commish, you might need to enable this in the settings (For Commissioners->Setup->Other Settings, select Yes for 'Display NFL News Articles?').

 

[shuke]

MFL interface sucks.

 

[jeremyx13]

I have been in a CBSSportsline league for 8 years and have very few problems. It is costly compared to other sites and has the occasional glitches (they made up for it this year with 1/2 off discount) but even the FF guppies can use it without much difficulty. And as a news site it does offer player info which FBG's can manipulate against the other owners because CBS rankings are not always the best. I took over a team in a league on mycommish.net and recommend that site going the way of the Dodo bird because it sucks harder than any site I have ever been on. The site is down more than it is up. Do yourselves a favor and never join a league or start a league there. I could talk about other sites but I only played in leagues on Fanball and ESPN one year each. They were good but I would be a small sample size for an opinion on those.

 

[AcerFC]

How about taking some serious time and writing some kind of report/tutorial to help the other owners get used to the site, and take advantage of the benefits of it. Something like this would help.

Was thinking of doing this

maybe you could run some helpful MFL reports and create links to them and post them on the message board so that the casual player or site navigation challeged player can just go to one place and click on the link

What exactly do you mean by this. Just looking for specifics

 

[PhillySwampAss]

As a commish I absolutely loved MFL. They provide the best customization features around and allow us to run our league exactly how we want. They got blind bidding right and handle salaries as we'd expect. And there customer support is second to none.

Unfortunately the user interface is awful. It boggles the mind that they've gone 3 years with out updating the UI. It is clumbsy to use and even with 3 years of experience with 3 leagues using MFL I still get lost.

So to your question, I've dealt with the same situation before and unfortunately left MFL to go back to CBS. My commish side hates CBS and really regret the move, but overall the league is much happier with CBS.

What I'd love to do is organize a group to work with MFL to improve the interface so I can bring my two leagues back. They certainly have the functionality so if they could just improve the end user exprience they would be golden!

 

[stevegamer]

How about taking some serious time and writing some kind of report/tutorial to help the other owners get used to the site, and take advantage of the benefits of it. Something like this would help.

Was thinking of doing this

maybe you could run some helpful MFL reports and create links to them and post them on the message board so that the casual player or site navigation challeged player can just go to one place and click on the link

What exactly do you mean by this. Just looking for specifics

You could show them a week-by-wekk scoring breakdown on a player with news article links.You could show them the week-by-week scoring for all players on their team at once - top performers, pikc one team, set the # on the left to cover whole roster.All the leagues I'm in now use MFL - one guy wanted to know waht I thought, since I was playing on it, and I gave it a good recommendation.As a user, I can control how well I interface with a site by getting skilled at it. If the site doesn't work, I can't do anything to imporve it's functioning.

 

[Squinting Cyclops]

What exactly do you mean by this. Just looking for specifics

here are a few examples :http://football34.myfantasyleague.com/2007...38&FID=0010

http://football34.myfantasyleague.com/2007...=53327&O=22

http://football34.myfantasyleague.com/2007...53327&O=101

http://football34.myfantasyleague.com/2007...=53327&O=23

 

[Sheriff66]

RTSports is the best IMO and much more customer friendly than MFL.

MFL sucks

 

[Barry]

We moved to MFL from CBS and our league started to die. For whatever reason guys were'nt active on that site. Went to Rt and things went back to normal. Don't underestimate the message boards

 

[Squinting Cyclops]

We moved to MFL from CBS and our league started to die. For whatever reason guys were'nt active on that site. Went to Rt and things went back to normal. Don't underestimate the message boards

MFL has a great app I used for the first time yesterday, it allows you to track all the NFL and fantasy action on one screen by selecting tabs at the top of the app.http://www.myfantasyleague.com/help/index....day_how_to.html

NFL.com got to be too graphic heavy and the site re-design makes it confusing to track stats with games in progress. This app solves those problems.

 

[GregR_2]

I'm in an MFL league, and it's still difficult for me to use. Picking up free agents is difficult, as they are just listed in alphabetical order. I'll post in your other thread regarding another site I tried.

Quick suggestion, do not pick up players from the screen you are trying to. Go to the report that shows highest scoring players and pick them up from there. This report is easily broken down by position etc etc and you can then just add the player you are looking for from there.

In addition to what Buddy Ball just said, it's very easy to get to the player you're looking for. Just start typing his last name in the waivers window and it will jump down to him.I agree with people that MFL isn't as pretty as other sites, but I've found they have more functionality than others. Like most any new program, you just need to learn where to go to get at it. If your owners have specific problems about not being sure where to do something in MFL that they could on the old site, feel free to post them and I'm sure a bunch of us will be happy to help.The MFL support message boards are also outstanding for getting answers, and the customer support there is generally outstanding in responsiveness.