When I was at ESPN.com, the top item on my wish list for things ESPN.com should’ve been doing was opening up the Fantasy engine with good APIs. My reasoning was twofold. First, there were lots of features people wanted that simply weren’t popular enough for a site like ESPN, where audience is measured in millions. Second, the team is small and couldn’t (and wouldn’t) build everything in house. It doesn’t make sense.

So, the idea is that a clean API that exposed just enough of the game engine for external tools to integrate in and then independent developers could build (and charge for, if they wanted) all the little niche features that are out there. FAAB free agency and auction drafts were the biggest features I thought were missing (though ESPN did roll out limited auction drafts this year).

Another thing to consider: Facebook was just “eh, Facebook” until the developer API came out. Then, they became a darling, started growing audience a bit more quickly, and now even Friendster has a developer API. There are positive business effects for concentrating on the core platform and turning your game into a service.

You have no idea how much I wanted to do this. Had I stayed at ESPN, I would’ve pushed for that as a new architecture. I had it documented out, plans on how to implement it, and was lining up the ducks to turn the sports group at ESPN.com into a stealth data provider. I was really considering this to be the next startup idea for someday in the future after we turn Fanzter into a media giant.

Now, it seems I won’t have to do it. TechCrunch just wrote up a new company called OPEN Sports Network. While the company web site talks more about the social piece (perhaps they integrate into social networks?), the TechCrunch post suggests that their game platform will have open APIs.

I’m making a prediction now: if this is executed well (and there’s reason to hope because this guy ran SportsLine), this will become the fantasy platform of choice for serious gamers quickly, with casual games following as soon as enough third party features extend the game.

The only thing I don’t understand is launching the platform in August. That gives 0 time to developers to extend the game before the NFL kickoff. I’m sure I’m just missing something, or they’re going out cautiously in year 1.

Yahoo has made a pretty significant change to their fantasy baseball game. I’m not sure if this is new for Yahoo (I didn’t play football there), but the new interface is pretty nice. All drag-and-drop YUI goodness. Here’s a screenshot of me fixing my roster:

It’s pretty well executed. The yellow rows are the only slots that Fielder is eligible for, and the symbol on the far right conveys whether I’m dropping the player in the right slot. More importantly, this will cut down on the cryptic error messages in most fantasy games when you forget to move someone to the bench or accidently put two people in the same slot.

Useful Ajax and a nice addition.

Apparently, Keith Olbermann plays Fantasy Baseball at ESPN.com and isn’t too happy with the problems we’ve had this year. While I don’t want to speak out of turn, it’s been a pretty horrible fantasy baseball season so far with ESPN’s new Fantasy Baseball game. The short version, for those of you who aren’t using ESPN.com this year, is that a critical software bug made it past testing. You can read more here if you want the details.

Anyway, Olbermann laid into the fantasy team on the Dan Patrick Show (mp3 here) because he felt his team wasn’t that broken, so he’d rather we left it alone. Unfortunately, the bug wasn’t quite that simple, and we had to reset everything.

Anyway, so if Olbermann wasn’t harsh enough on the radio, on Wednesday night he took the next step of naming John Kosner, who is the SVP that runs ESPN New Media, the third Worst Person in the World. A bit harsh, there, don’t you think, Olbermann?

In defense of John, he’s a good guy and while he puts his name out there to take the blame, he really isn’t at fault here for the problems with Fantasy Baseball. Ultimately, he (and the rest of the Fantasy Team and even the company) takes issues like this seriously. While many companies just hide behind some relatively anonymous name (“Customer Service”), he’s chosen to give a name and, now on Olbermann, a face to show folks we care. So, go easy on Kosner there, Keith.

As for the Fantasy team, they’ve been working literally day-and-night to solve the issues with transactions and are finally getting some sleep tonight. I was there for one of the early all-nighters and they really haven’t gone home to sleep most nights. These are folks that care about the games they build. They wouldn’t have taken the step of reseting the rosters if they thought there was another way around it all.

Anyway, for the folks at ESPN.com, here’s a screen shot of an unfairly maligned Kosner joining two truly deserving World’s Worsts, Bill O’Reilly and Dick Morris:

You can watch the video clip here on Olbermann’s site (click on the Bill O’Reilly World’s Worst Immigration video). I also have the video here on FM, which you can watch by clicking here. The video is a PSP formatted MP4 vid, so it might be a little stretched out on a normal monitor.

(While I do work for ESPN.com, and have worked on fantasy games in the past, I’m speaking here as a private individual.)

We just tried to hold a fantasy baseball auction draft online at FantasyAuctioneer.com with terrible results. Our 8 team, NL-only league had trouble with 2 people joining (25%) and had the site go down twice during the first 30 minutes. While the draft was happening, it was fun, but the whole thing was disappointing because we kept having to pause it to let people get back on or because when the site crashed, not everyone knew it was back up at the same time.

This is definitely a hard problem to solve technically, which is why there are so few auction sites, but it’s amazing to me that none of the majors (ESPN, Yahoo, Sportsline) have rolled out auction draft software yet. I’ve heard rumors at work that our advanced dev. team has an auction draft in the works for next football season, but that would be the first one I know of from the majors.

We’re going to retry our draft later this week on FantasyAuctioneer. If it goes well, I’ll update this review. Otherwise, we’ll be looking elsewhere next year, hopefully at ESPN.com.

Update: Well, at least they care about their customers. We received an apology from the owner of the site, as well as a refund and a free draft both this year and next. Very nice. Last week had more traffic and no issues, so something happened this week. They claim it’s not normal. I’d give them the benefit of the doubt as most people I know like their stuff. I’ll still post an update after Wednesday’s second attempt.

Update 2: I take it back. Aside from a little lagginess in the app, the draft went very well. It’s a lot of fun doing this, though getting together in person is still better. The app has almost all of the right tools and has a few small bugs. None of them get in the way of enjoying the draft. The sound cues are good, too. Overall, I’m happy with the experience there.

Since he clearly won’t be posting about it, I want to congratulate Sujal on his Fantasy Football victory. He gets his name on a shiny two handled mug and his name will be revered in the anals of NERFL history.

No joke, folks, people take this very seriously. Suj, savor your victory, because the rest of league is gunning for you.

But seriously, congrats, man.

At least I had one prediction on FatMixx that turned out right. The scoring on the crazy McNabb/Brown/Buckhalter TD was corrected to reflect a tipped ball and completion to Buckhalter. Here’s the full impact of the scoring change:

OFF Phi +35.0 Passing Yards for Donovan McNabb
OFF Phi +1.0 Passing Touchdowns for Donovan McNabb
OFF Phi +1.0 Receptions for Correll Buckhalter
OFF Phi +55.0 Receiving Yards for Correll Buckhalter
OFF Phi +1.0 Receiving Touchdowns for Correll Buckhalter
OFF Phi -1.0 Receptions for Reggie Brown
OFF Phi -20.0 Receiving Yards for Reggie Brown
OFF Phi -1.0 Fumbles for Reggie Brown
RET Phi -1.0 Fumbles Recovered (Own Team) for Correll Buckhalter
RET Phi -37.0 Fumble Recovery Yds (Own Team) for Correll Buckhalter
RET Phi -1.0 Misc Fumbles Recovered for Correll Buckhalter
RET Phi -37.0 Misc Fumble Recovery Yards for Correll Buckhalter
RET Phi -1.0 Fumble Return TDs for Correll Buckhalter

Told ya so.

NFL.com has the updated GameBook if you’re interested.

That amazing Eagles TD by Correll Buckhalter is right now scored as a fumble recovery for a TD in the official GameBook. I think that this is going to get changed during the week as the NFL has a chance to review the film. I would’ve scored it as a tipped ball and a completion to Buckhalter. I was watching the game live and I’ve watched the play on several different highlight packages and every time I don’t think that Reggie Brown ever had possession of the ball. He was juggling it, tipped it into the air, where Buckhalter grabbed it and took off.

My bet is a scoring correction and 6 more points for McNabb on my fantasy team.

Update: As luck would have it, my game this week is tied. This could be a big scoring change…

So, before I really talk about the Arizona Cardinals implosion last night, I want you to watch Denny Green at the postgame press conference:

He’s referring to this preseason win against the Bears, in case you’re wondering.

So, they folded, sure. And killed my fantasy team in the process (no hard feelings). But the thing that baffles me is that for a team that talks so much about finishing games off, I don’t understand the second half game plan. It’s important to run, but my God, when your running back has 55 yards on 36 carries (an amazing 1.5 yds/carry), it’s time to do something different. I don’t care how much Edgerrin James whines.

The second thing is that you play to win the game. I know that you want to be safe, and you have a great kicker, but with 2nd and 3 at the Chicago 24 with 1:04 left, you don’t settle for the field goal. You go for the first down. And if you’re going for the first down in last night’s game, you trust Leinart. Edge is a pretty good receiver, by the way. I’m not sure if Denny Green realizes that.

Anyway, the Bears are good, but their offense showed what happens when you get cocky. Pregame reports had the defense talking about a shutout and quotes from Grossman saying that if he saw Muhsin Muhammad single-covered, he would consider him open. The number of bad passes of over 20 yards was ridiculous. He was pressing and it showed. They’re just lucky Denny Green doesn’t trust his offense and tightened up in the fourth.

(Via Deadspin)