It’s still only June but the Fantasy League guys are clearly looking to steal a march on competitors and grab the early Fantasy Football cash by taking registrations for the new season already. Sign ups for the new season Classic, Auction and Pro games are now available at their site, plus there’s details of a batch of new features added to their games.
Cleverly they’ve countered the fact that the registration process has started so early by allowing a number of teams to be signed up under one email address. This allows an individual to register a number of teams which can then be allocated once you’ve convinced those indecisive mates – although, having paid the registration fee (£10 per team for the standard package) for multiple teams, you’ll need to be pretty confident in your powers of persuasion.
The Classic game includes a number of new featues, including the chance to get your registered league a free winners trophy if registered before June 30. A new “Round Robin” tournament is open to leagues of 10 teams or more – this is a new mini league that operates alongside the main league in which teams are paired off each week win 3 points awarded for a win, 1 for a draw etc. “Raise the Bar” is another mini tournament that begins in February for all registered teams. Effectively this involves a weekly points target being set with teams eliminated if they fail to reach the set tally. The remaining team/manager with the highest points tally in that tournament walks away with a grand. In addition a new stats centre is open to teams registering for the Gold version of the Classic game (£20) offering a comprehensive breakdown of player stats.
Sadly, the Pro game doesn’t get the same kind of love. The new Stats Centre is available but only in the Gold package. However, this package does at least get a price reduction from £42 last season to £38 this. The only other real perk offered is the chance to register teams for the Champions League tournament for £5 instead of the usual £7.50. The Auction game meanwhile remains untouched in terms of price and features.
The Fantasy League games are certainly the best games around for mini leagues if you’ve the cash and committed mates at hand. However, I personally advise waiting to see how the Fantasy League’s competitors react in the next month or so. In the meantime I’ll be updating the reviews section for the Fantasy League games to reflect these price and feature changes.