Here We Go Again

After digging out of the massive mess that was Sundays glitch, we are dealt another serious problem from our NBA feed tonight. The PHO/NO game tonight was closed out with no fantasy scoring. This is another first for us, and it is unbelievable that we can get two completely unique and major issues on back to back nights in our feed. We have never had a final box score come though with no scoring in the entire time we have operated, but I guess there is a first for everything. Had the final box score not come through we could have manually scored the game, but this was another unique and first time error. We have contacted our feed vendor and we will make sure they get these issues straightened out ASAP. For now we will be reviewing all leagues to find out where the outcome were effected, and will be issuing credits as required.

Anatomy of a Glitch

On Sunday, we had one of those million to one events that snuck through all the protections we have in place and led to some scoring total errors in Fantasy Basketball leagues. We strive for perfection, and are very disappointed when we don't achieve it. The events of Sunday were pretty interesting so in the spirit of full disclosure, I thought I would give a behind the scenes look at a glitch (really more of a generic breakdown) in our fantasy scoring system on Sunday.

It all started with an error in our statistical feed game schedule. These are pretty rare, but they have happened before. They probably happen at least once a year, but I can't honestly remember the last time it happened. There was an additional LAC vs. PHI game in the Sunday schedule. Both teams were playing other teams on Sunday. This was the first breakdown. A significant error in the live statistical feed. Many competitive websites have automatic game schedulers that can get into trouble when something like this happens. We manually schedule fantasy leagues for many reasons, but one is to let a human see what is about to be scheduled and catch things that are obviously wrong. We often check the game schedule in our system against an independent source, or at least check for duplication in teams in the existing schedule. This time the extra game slipped through the cracks and was scheduled in to all fantasy basketball leagues on Sunday. This was a human error, and the second error in a stack-up of errors that led to the glitch. We did not notice the problem in the Sunday league schedules and no users reported the schedule problem prior to the start of the leagues. Had this happened, the bad game would have been removed prior to the start of the leagues and the glitch would not have happened. With leagues scheduled the day before, there is a lot of time for an error like this to be spotted prior to the league start time, but it was not spotted (the bad game in every contest lobby, and one extra game in the game count) by anyone. This was the third breakdown.

When the fantasy basketball leagues started on Sunday, there were some issues reported with the scoring of Elton Brand in particular. This was looked into at that time, and his initial score of 27 could not be confirmed in the in-game scoring for the scheduled game. Again, it was not noticed that there was an extra LAC/PHI game on the schedule that should not have been there. It was assumed at the time that this was a live feed issue that would be resolved with the next update, or at least by the final box score. The scoring that appeared immediately at the start of the league was because of another significant failure in the live feed. A completely bogus box score was delivered against this non-existent game, and these bogus scores were displaying for the PHI and LAC players instead of their normally scheduled game scoring. There is no reason for this to have happened, and it pushed the issue on the feed side to a million to one or higher stack-up of errors. This was the fourth and most unusual breakdown in the system. We have never seen a bad game that should not have been on the schedule and was not actually played get scored in our system before Sunday.

More reports of scoring issues with Brand and other PHI and LAC players were reported towards the end of the night. At that point we discovered the problem with the bad game in the system. The bad game had not received a final box, so it was holding up the completion of Sundays leagues. The scoring displayed for all PHI and LAC players was obviously wrong in our fantasy leagues. It was displaying the statistics for the bogus game instead. We found that the in-game scoring could be corrected by adjusting this box to the stats from the actual game that was played by PHI and LAC. This corrected the scores in the contest leader boards. We though we had it. The bad box score had held things up as it is supposed to, and allowed us to correct the bad scoring for PHI and LAC players. The system worked. Well except for one last breakdown. This was another human error. There were ultimately two games on the schedule for the PHI and LAC players in our system. The real game boxes were in, and were we left with the bad box score. The last time something like this had happened before was during baseball in 2007. We had not yet learned how to deal with late scheduled doubleheaders, and had two games for one team on an actual league schedule. It was too long ago to fully remember how the system deals with a case like this, but it does what you logically think that it would do. For in game stats it shows the current game that is running only. Once the second game starts, it shows just the fantasy scores for that game. In the league totals, it includes the scores from both games. So it looks likes it is adding the scores incorrectly, but it is actually getting the overall score correct by including both games. So we really just had the doubleheader situation from 2007 again, but did not catch it. Adjusting the game two scores can make the scores for the players look right in the lobby, but you need to remember it is also totaling in the game 1 scores. Setting the bogus game scores to the actual scores had the effect of double counting each PHI and LAC player's score in the league totals. Had we realized this is what was happening, (we had no reason to think the totals were wrong, as they had never been before), we could have set the scores in the bogus game to zero which seems like the obvious solution in hindsight. This would have made the player scores for all PHI and LAC players zero in the contest lobbies, but would have scored the leagues perfectly correct by just counting the real games. So we had this last final breakdown that let it actually slip through even after the million to one stuff that got us to this point.

Once this happens and the leagues are settled, we have to go through them all by hand and see what leagues had the prize outcome changed. We had 92 daily fantasy basketball leagues on Sunday and about a dozen had the outcome changed by the bad scoring totals. We go through and credit the accounts who should have won prizes, and debit prizes that should not have been won. We are more interested in getting the people who were harmed whole, then clawing back bad prizes, so we often let the smaller bad prizes stick rather than debit accounts and contact the user. If you noticed this error, and we have not contacted you yet, we are done with the credits/debits at this point. If you think you should have won a prize and have not been credited yet let us know. Well that's it. The anatomy of a glitch in a nutshell.

New Automatic Draft Method Now Available

Tired of sharing fantasy players with your opponent in a salary cap fantasy league? Don't have the time or patience for a live draft to work things out so you can get your own players? Problem solved! Fantasy Sports Live's new Automatic Draft is the answer to your dreams. Simply rank the top projected fantasy players at each position for the day and we will work things out so that you get a completely unique team from your heads up opponent. Now you both don't have to root for Lebron James with nothing to gain.

How does it work?

All fantasy leagues at Fantasy Sports Live consist of 9 fantasy players at various positions. If you rank for us twice as many players at each position than a normal fantasy team would have, we can use that information to get you a unique fantasy team. Lets take fantasy football for example. Your fantasy team is QB, (3) WR, (2) RB, TE, K, and DEF. So for this draft method you and your opponent rank in projected top scoring order the following positions: (2) QBs, (6) WR, (4) RB, (2) TE, (2) K, and (2) DEF. The lowest rank cap value of the 18 player team gets to draft first using a modified snake draft by position (first league entry drafts first if there is a cap tie). For fantasy football the draft order goes like what is shown below (player 1 got the 1st pick, based on a lower rank cap total).

Player 1 - First Pick QB Round
Player 2 - First Pick WR Round 1
Player 2 - First Pick WR Round 2
Player 1 - First Pick WR Round 3
Player 1 - First Pick RB Round 1
Player 2 - First Pick RB Round 2
Player 2 - First Pick TE Round
Player 1 - First Pick K Round
Player 2 - First Pick DEF Round

So player 1 gets their QB-1 pick, then player 2 get their QB-1 if not taken, otherwise they get their QB-2. In the second round player 2 goes first and gets their WR-1. Player 1 then gets thier WR-1 if not taken, otherwise they get thier WR-2. In round 3, player 2 gets either WR-2 or WR-3 depending on who is available, then player 1 gets WR-2, WR-3, or WR-4 based on who is still available. and so on and so on. This all automatically happens at the start time of a fantasy league.

So with this draft you will get a completely unique fantasy team from your heads-up opponent, and it does not really take much longer than a salary cap draft. It uses the same draft interface, with twice as many slots at each position and a dash to indicate the rank of the choice. When the league starts we show all 18 team selections for both players, but cross-out the players who are benched, and only score your 9 unique starters. If you look close you can recreate the entire automated draft for full transparency (the way we like it here). See the Rules tab for snake draft order by sport. Our new Automated draft method is indicated by "Auto" in the CAP column. Try our new automated draft out, and let us know what you think.

Web Site Improvements Going Live This Week

We have been working hard on a series of improvements to the fantasysportslive.com website. The updates will be rolled out this week. Below is a list of what to expect when the update goes live.

1) Main contest lobby will go to scroll bars, and the paging system currently used will be eliminated. This will allow you to quickly scroll through all of the current contests offered without linking through to other pages.

2) Tabs for individual sports will be added to the main contest lobby. You will be able to quickly filter by sport by hitting a tab, vs. making a selection in a drop down menu. You will also be able to link directly to a home page that is already filtered by the fantasy sport that you are interested in.

3) The start time of games will be shown in the contest lobby. There has been some confusion when double headers are on the schedule. We only schedule one game of a double header into contests, and it is typically the second game (the regularly scheduled game). You can tell which game is scheduled based on the starting pitchers indicated, but now you can just check the game start time in the lobby and be sure you are drafting players for the correct game.

4) Elimination of injury updates to the draft pool. This is something that a few of our users have requested for a while now. Up to now we let the injury feed determine the draft pool. If a player is listed as "out" or on the disabled list for a game they were not included in the draft pool. As player status is updated real-time the draft pool updates as well. The injury feed is also not 100% accurate. It may show a player as "out" who is actually going to play, or someone who just came off the DL may not be in the pool yet. We will now list all players at all times in the draft pool irregardless of injury status. The injury column will indicate their status for the game (Questionable, Probable, Out, 15-Day DL, 30-day-DL...). If you have knowledge that a player will play in a game, you will be able to draft them even if their status is "Out" or "15-day DL". You will now need to be a bit more careful when drafting your team, as you will need to review the injury status, but it should lead to less confusion and questions about changes to the draft pool.

Fantasy Basketball Season Ends at FSL

Just like with Hockey, Basketball uses a staggered schedule in the round before the finals. As such we do not get the required two or more games to build a fantasy contest around. As a result Fantasy Basketball season is now complete on FSL. While Fantasy Basketball is just the third most popular fantasy sport overall, it was very popular during our first season of operation. The way the scoring and caps work for basketball it just fits in very well with our type of fantasy sports contests. Next season we will offer some new contests that will allow you to play Fantasy Basketball, Baseball, or Hockey all the way through the finals. Thanks to everyone who made Fantasy Basketball on FSL a huge success, and we can't wait to see you next year. Daily Fantasy Baseball and Weekly Fantasy NASCAR contests continue to run on FSL throughout the summer.

End of Quarter Fantasy Basketball Updates

We are launching End of Quarter scoring updates for all Fantasy Basketball contests starting tonight on FantasySportsLive.com. End of Quarter updates will be a nice improvement for Fantasy Basketball, making them closer in feel to our Fantasy Baseball and Fantasy Football contests which feature live, progressive scoring updates. Next season (later this year) we will offer live, progressive scoring for Fantasy Basketball as well. Live scoring feeds for Fantasy Hockey and Fantasy NASCAR Racing are not currently available. We will continue to provide one time scoring updates with the final box score for Fantasy Hockey and Fantasy Racing. Let us know what you think about end of quarter scoring updates for basketball as well as our new Fantasy NASCAR Racing contests.

NASCAR, Hockey, and Basketball End of Quarter Scoring Updates

We have a bunch going on over here at FantasySportsLive.com, so I thought it would be a good idea to provide an update.

Fantasy NASCAR

We will be launching fantasy NASCAR later tonight, with the Daytona 500 first up. You can find the rules for NASCAR at the bottom of the Rules Tab. Fantasy NASCAR Teams will consist of nine drivers. Two types of structures will be offered. The NASCAR sprint race plus Qualifying, or the NASCAR sprint race plus the nationwide race (when both are held the same weekend). In both cases you will draft (5) sprint racers, and either (4) qualifiers for the sprint race or (4) nationwide racers. The selections for the two events are completely independent. This means you can pick the same racer for qualifying as you do for the race, or pick completely unique qualifiers. Cap levels and scoring for the racers in the two events are also completely independent. For the sprint race plus qualifying, registration will end when the qualifying begins. For sprint plus nationwide, registration will end when the nationwide race begins. Rank Cap, Salary Cap, and No Cap will be offered for NASCAR. Scoring for NASCAR will be updated one time when official results for the race or official qualifying order has been received. Let us know what you think about our NASCAR structures, Cap levels, and contest types.

Fantasy Hockey

We have been working with our vendor to improve the quality of the Hockey Box scores and have made significant progress. We are currently testing the accuracy of the first final box score received, and if all goes well will be relaunching Fantasy Hockey in about a week. Sorry for the inconvenience we caused by temporarily suspending Fantasy Hockey on FSL.

Fantasy Basketball

We were unable to implement live scoring for Fantasy Basketball at the beginning of the season due to licensing restrictions with the NBA. Those restrictions are now gone, and we will offer free progressive scoring of our Fantasy Basketball contests like we currently offer for Fantasy Baseball and Fantasy Football starting next season. The live progressive scoring makes the contest leaderboard much more interesting, and adding it for basketball will be a big improvement. We also wanted to do what we can to make the Fantasy Basketball contests even better this year. What we are currently working on is providing end of quarter scoring updates for all games in a Fantasy Basketball contest. While this is not quite as good as shot by shot updates like we will have next season, it is much better than not getting any updates at all until the end of the game. The way it will work is the leaderboard will be updated about 2-3 minutes after the end of Q1, Q2 and Q3 with the current game statistics. The Q4 update will come through with the final official box score that we close the game with. This typically comes in about 45 minutes after the game. So we will have the first game scoring update about 30 minutes after the start of a game vs. 45 minutes after the end (nearly 3 hours sooner). We will roll this out as soon as development is completed in about a week.

Fantasy Basketball Improvements

We made a couple of recent improvements to Fantasy Basketball. First, we updated the ranking cap values, and now round to the nearest point vs. the nearest 5 points. With the rank cap values pretty low, this should give a bunch more granularity to player cap values. We may do the same thing for Baseball next season, but will probably continue to round Hockey and Football cap values to some extent.

We also have frozen basketball player positions. Up to this point player positions were updated on a game by game basis by the real time feed. For some players who play two positions (G/F or F/C), their position could be updated at any point in time from the position they played the previous game at to a new position for the next game. These types of updates do not work well in our draft pool system, so we turned them off. We now manually maintain player positions, and have set them to where we feel they belong. If you think we have any of the basketball player positions wrong, please leave a comment and we will look into updating them.

Opening Week Jitters

We have had a handful of issues this week with the launch of Basketball. None of this has affected the scoring or outcome of any contest, and we have also settled all basketball contests in a timely manner so far. A great deal of this is related to our live feed, and the opening week issues they are having. Things should get better over the next day or so as most of this stuff gets resolved. We will always get the scoring right before closing a contest so don't worry if you see some strange mid-game stuff for now. The best news from all of this had to do with the incorrect mid-game scores that came through last night. This is our feed experimenting with end of quarter basketball updates. We may be able to now provide end of quarter leader board scoring updates for basketball which will be a huge improvement over just end of game as planned. Nothing is fully worked out yet, but if we can get these end of quarter updates for basketball we will provide them to you for free as soon as possible.

Basketball Launches on FSL!

We just put up our first contests for Basketball's opening night on Tuesday. Hockey is next in the Queue. We like to adjust the salary cap levels based on user feedback, so let us know what you think about the cap levels and structure. Also, please keep in mind that we do not live score Basketball. Player Fantasy Scores are updated one time with the final box score, and not continuously as the game progresses like with Football or Baseball. We would love to offer live scoring this year for Basketball, but due to licencing restrictions, we can't. We believe that licencing is not required for use of player names and/or stats, and the courts agree that this is true for Baseball. We see basketball as no different than baseball with respect to licencing requirements.