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Why a private ESPN league sometimes will not load

Short version: your browser decides, not us, and we would rather it stayed that way.

What happens when it works

A public league needs nothing. For a private one, your browser sends the ESPN session it already has — the same cookie it uses on espn.com — straight to ESPN when it asks for your league. The request goes from your machine to ESPN. It does not come through us, we never receive it, and there is no server on this site that could store it if we wanted to.

Why it sometimes does not

That is a cross-site request carrying a cookie, and browsers have spent several years restricting exactly that, because it is also the mechanism behind cross-site tracking. Safari blocks it by default. Firefox blocks it in strict mode. Chrome still allows it and is phasing it out. So the same league can load in one browser and not another, and nothing about your league or your account is wrong when it fails.

ESPN also returns 404 rather than "you are not allowed" for a league you cannot see, so a private league and a mistyped ID look identical from here. If it fails, check the number first.

What we will not do about it

There is a way around this and we have not taken it. Most tools that read private ESPN leagues ask you to open developer tools, copy two cookies called espn_s2 and SWID, and paste them into a box. That works in every browser. It also means handing your ESPN session to someone else’s server, where it can be logged, stored or leaked, and it is a live session rather than a password you can change easily.

We would rather a feature work in fewer browsers than ask for that. If your browser blocks it, a public league still works, and so does every projection on this site without connecting anything.