Draft Street (www.draftstreet.com) has been leading the way in one day fantasy leagues for a few years now. They have a variety of different sports, including college football and basketball, and they have a huge amount of stakes to choose from, ranging from free entry up to $2,100 per event. Most of their leagues are under $25 to join and the payouts range from slightly more than this up to a couple thousand for these leagues. It all depends on what you choose and how many other managers you want to go up against on that particular day.
One of the cool things about using this site is the amount of choices that they give you while creating a team. They have salary cap leagues and a filter to narrow down the open leagues that you view accordingly, but they also have a Pick ‘Em type draft, too, where you are given a few tiers of athletes to choose from and fill out your team’s ranks according to that tier system.
It’s much like a salary cap draft in that you don’t have to rely upon what others end up choosing, except it’s a bit more simple and the strategy is slightly different.
There are a few other things that separate Draft Street. They do offer leagues during playoff periods for a few different sports, most notably baseball, hockey, and basketball. The scoring period for these single day leagues is actually spread out over two days, though, because of the fact that the athlete pool is smaller for these events and not every team plays every day. They also have a weekly league option, where you can set your team at the beginning of the week and the scoring period lasts the entire time. It’s the same concept as a one day league, but over a longer time. For those people that do not like the variance of a single day, this is a good choice to take advantage of.
Draft Street accounts are easy to create and use. You don’t even need to fund them right away if you do not want to. This gives you ample time to play around with the site, play in several free tournaments, and figure out whether or not you like the site enough to invest some cash into it. The good news is that if you choose not to ever fund your account, there are no restrictions on how long you can keep playing there. You can even earn points and prizes without ever depositing. Some of these rewards can be used for entry into contests that do have cash prizes, so in theory, you can make money on this site without ever having to send them an entry fee. For those on a budget or those that like the challenge of starting small, this is a positive feature.
If you do choose to make a deposit, you can do so with either a credit card or PayPal right now. Both allow you instant access to your cash so you can start playing right away. When it’s time to withdraw your earnings, you can request a check, or have a PayPal transfer sent to you. They do not charge extra fees for using PayPal anymore, and you can request a PayPal transfer twice every seven days. There are no limits on check requests.
The biggest downside to Draft Street is the fact that they do not offer fantasy NASCAR leagues to their customers. Still, the site is a lot of fun to use and has a huge customer base, making it one of the best single day fantasy league sites out on the web.
