Actually, I have participated in NFL Pools (shhh, is that an attorney-general I see?), played Bingo (I actually enjoyed playing Bingo with my wife in a military recreation center in Germany), played in card tournaments, local cash fantasy leagues, bought those stupid lotto tickets and gone into casinos at each of the aforementioned cities and dropped a dime or two.

But I have never paid an online service to play Fantasy Football. Now why is that, I wonder. It's obviously not because I am opposed to gambling, though I prefer to call my gambling giving because that is more descriptive to my normal results. I guess the truth is it is because I have been fortunate enough to be involved in several free online leagues over the past four years that have had good people in them.

I did play in one league that folded due to a job situation the commissioner had. And I did have to take over another league when the commissioner unexpectedly left it.

And I do realize that if you are paying to play, you are likely to be more attentive to your team (how many of you have experienced the dreaded absentee owner). So with the proliferation of all things fantasy (no, I am not talking about Sictoria's Vecret, Hayboy or Plustler) on the 'net, I thought to myself, "Wow, why not write an article on Pay Leagues? People will be interested, and it will be easy to do. Just send out some questions and compile the responses, then analyze the results!"

Then Barry Sanders retires and my first impulse is to chuck this article and go with my thoughts on Barry. Well, that would not have been fair to the folks that returned my questions and got their clients to answer some questions for me. I still want to do something on Barry and will probably throw something together later this weekend, but it won't be in my Komments. If you haven't joined the Kellogg's Komments mailing list yet, you may want to do so now. I will announce there, where my thoughts on the Sanders situation will be published.

Any way, on with the review. I sent out a list of 10 questions to some of the top pay to play sites on the 'net. Not all of them responded, but most did. Here is a quick summary of their answers:

Ca= Cash / Cr = Credit Card / Mo=Money Order / Ch=Check

*     Based on 150 Entries.
**    Varies with each host.  Commissioner.com is an engine used by many providers. 
***   Week 5 start only.
****  24 Hours prior to an unspecified draft day.

Costs:
Okay, as you can see, the costs vary widely from league to league. A quick note of explanation; the prices that are under $10 are for weekly contests and are reoccurring each week that you participate. All other costs are per team per year. Those sites that host leagues offer discounts when you bring over the entire league. Blew Chip is one of the least expensive, and offers the highest percentage payout, but only if there are 150 or more entries.

Transaction Fees:
4th & Inches offers something that is quite unique. You set the fee structure and transaction fees. Don't want transaction fees? Fine, don't charge them. If you want bigger payouts, you can charge more for your franchise and transaction fees. Always, 50% of franchise fees will be paid out in a prize structure that you, as a league, determine. Should you choose to implement transaction fees, you set the amount and 75% of them will be added to your prize fund. The other sites that have transaction fees, usually offer a discount for purchases of multiple transactions, or have the number of free transactions tied to the league entry fee.

Payout %:
4th & Inches, Brew City, Commissioner.com and EF Sports all offer league management services that do not offer any payout should you want to have someone manage your league for you, but not necessarily want cash payouts. In these instances, you are paying for the service of league management. In leagues with payouts, you are paying for this service too, but you are also paying additional money that goes into a prize pool.

Experience:
I had thought that the length of experience would be a huge factor in the overall ability of players to enjoy the product. That does not appear to be the case based on the user responses I received. I have personally touched two of these products. 4th & Inches and The Winning Drive (which uses the myfantasyleague.com interface). Both are relative newcomers to this field. But both have easy to use interfaces that offer many automated features. The other entries also received rave reviews from their clientelle, so I am certain that they are well managed as well. I do like being able to touch and feel products before buying though, so you might want to visit the respective sites and talk to some folks before making a final decision.

The Rest:
Only 4th & Inches, Commissioner.com and The Winning Drive allow you to configure the league rules to suit your preferences. EF Sports is, as frequently stated on the Fantasy Football Newsgroup the most complete league out there. Offering NFL type rosters, down to linemen, Injured Reserve and many other options. Their one downfall, in my opinion is the lack of an option to play in a league that offers prizes. I will warn you that if you do choose to become involved with them, you will probably not want to be in any other league as this one will take a lot more time and effort to be successful in.

4th & Inches is the only league that answered "Yes" across the board, though I do believe you will see many of these others offering mid-season leagues and weekly contest down the road. I have personally known Brian Hulett (The Winning Drive) and Michael Conrad (US Fantasy Sports) for several years and can vouch for their integrity, but I also believe that all of the others offer similar reliability.

I was only concerned with one of the reviewed sites, and that was because thier customer response was perfect across the board, and was forwarded to me by the person who did the league management review. This indicated that he had reviewed responses before sending them on to me. He did provide their email addresses so I could contact them, but I would have much preferred to have received my responses directly from the client without any review. This does not mean that the service is in any way questionable, just that I felt a little uncomfortable with the way they chose to handle my request. I will not name this service because I can't be certain that anything underhanded was being done.

There are several other providers available to you that are excellent as well as the folks that chose to be reviewed. Some of them were contacted by me and decided not to participate. This is understandable, not because they are afraid that thier service would not stand up to scrutiny, but because the media really does have a bad reputation for digging for dirt and not being fair. I have tried hard not to do this.

The fairest thing I can tell you about the client response is that no one submitted any responses that were negative. Some of them submitted small things they would like to see improved (bigger payouts mainly), but all were glowing in regards to the management of the leagues. And with just the one exception, all came directly from the clients without any editting by the providers of these services. So it would seem that almost everyone is very happy with the service they chose, including those that were league management services only. And all of the responses indicated that they would continue to do business with the people they were giving references for.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, some of you may not know of my affiliations. First, I am a staff member on The Winning Drive's newsletter. 4th & Inches has chosen to advertise with me and I will be paid referral fees from 4th & Inches and All America Fantasy Sports should I refer folks to any of these services. I want it to be known that this article is not meant to be, nor should be taken as a referral to any of these services. I will be setting an e-Kommerce page up at my site which will list any company that wants to be listed and I will get my referral fees from there, and only from there.

It is merely a review and compilation of questions and responses that I felt you might be interested in. Before purchasing services from any company, whether they are listed above or not, take the time to visit their sites and get references then make your own decisions.

Because of the possibility of people misconstruing my intentions, this will be the last review of services, magazines or leagues that I do. For one thing, it is difficult to be totally fair when you are dealing with friends and business associates. For another, credibility is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain in this situation. I did this piece because I had contacted these companies prior to accepting the advertising and deciding to accept referral fees, and they had replied in the expectations that they would gain some exposure in return.