It is not surprising Yahoo Fantasy removed public league draft chats. The company seems hellbent on getting rid of fun features and instead focusing on crap no one wants or needs. Seriously, who is spending money on some nonsense stats when there is a plethora of other data available for free elsewhere?
Sometime before fantasy football season started last year, Yahoo Fantasy 86’ed public league draft chats. It was done quietly and without warning. The move was extended to cover all sports, including fantasy baseball.
Very little is known about why the former search engine juggernaut decided to do away with one of the best things about playing in a public league. Okay, so we all know why. You should never let people quasi-anonymously post anything. But that doesn’t make it any less sad.
Yahoo Fantasy public league draft chats were a gold mine for entertainment. Some participants liked to talk trash to randoms which is fine. My approach was different. I would create a character for each draft and lean into it.
One time I claimed to be a NAACP official who was monitoring each team’s drafting for racial discrimination. Some guy actually thought that was a real thing and became comically heated about it. On another occasion, I pretended to be a full-figured woman in need of a man.
My favorite was posing as former NFL quarterback Jeff Hostetler who hated Checker’s but loved Rally’s. He (and by that I mean me) became very aggressive when three other managers tried to explain to the one-time New York Giants passer there was no difference between the two brands. I’m sure some of the randos in that league still haven’t forgotten.
It was also possible to gerrymander the Yahoo Fantasy ‘Draft Now’ leagues to get a few buddies in the same league. These draft chats were epic as well because it allowed you to team up on an unsuspecting manager who had no way of knowing he or she was being targeted by a group of friends.
The entertainment provided in Yahoo Fantasy public league draft chats was oftentimes more enjoyable than the rest of the season. Taking that away eliminated a very fun aspect of participating in a public league.
First Yahoo Fantasy canceled fantasy college football which was criminally underrated. And then they removed public league draft chats. What’s next? Taking out medals? Please stop axing features that people like.
