How to Connect a Private ESPN League

How to Connect a Private ESPN League

Note: If you play in a public ESPN league, you only need your League ID and season. Enter those in the EFB tool and skip the rest of this guide.

This guide connects a private ESPN league to EFB’s tools. Private leagues need two values from your browser, called espn_s2 and SWID, on top of the League ID.

You grab them once, paste them in, and you’re set until they expire.

Once you upload your league into one tool, the league data, espn_s2, and SWID will be saved in the browser you are using. All of the other tools will populate with your league data. You will only need to hit the REFRESH button in one of the tabs to pull in the latest teams and players from your league.

Step 1: Find your League ID and season

Your League ID is the number after leagueId= in your league’s web address.

1. Go to fantasy.espn.com and open your league’s main page.
2. Look at the address bar. It will look like https://fantasy.espn.com/basketball/league?leagueId=12345678.
3. Copy the number after leagueId=. In this example, it’s 12345678.

For the season, enter 2027 for the 2026-27 season. ESPN labels each season by the year it ends. If you open your league’s Settings page, you’ll see it in the address as seasonId=2027.

Step 2: Find espn_s2 and SWID in your browser

Both values are cookies ESPN saves in your browser when you log in. You need a computer for this step, because phone browsers don’t show cookies.

Chrome, Edge, or Brave

1. Go to fantasy.espn.com and make sure you’re logged in.
2. Press F12, or right-click anywhere on the page and choose Inspect.
3. Click the Application tab at the top of the panel. If you don’t see it, click » to find it.
4. In the left sidebar, open Cookies and click https://fantasy.espn.com.
5. Type espn_s2 in the filter box and copy the long text in the Value column.
6. Do the same for SWID.

Firefox

1. Log in at fantasy.espn.com and press F12.
2. Click the Storage tab, open Cookies, and click https://fantasy.espn.com.
3. Find espn_s2 and SWID and copy each Value.

Safari (Mac)

1. Turn on the Develop menu: Safari → Settings → Advanced → Show features for web developers.
2. Log in at fantasy.espn.com, then choose Develop → Show Web Inspector.
3. Click Storage, then Cookies, and copy the espn_s2 and SWID values.

If you don’t see the cookies under fantasy.espn.com, check https://www.espn.com in the same list. Paste both values into a note on your computer so you have them ready.

Step 3: Paste them into the EFB tool

In the tool, choose ESPN as your host site and fill in the four fields: League ID, Season (2027), espn_s2 and SWID.

Paste both values exactly as you copied them:

• SWID keeps its curly braces. It looks like {A1B2C3D4-E5F6-...}. Leave the { and } on.
• espn_s2 stays as-is. It’s very long and contains bits like %2F and %2B. Don’t change or shorten anything.
• No extra spaces. Make sure nothing got added at the start or end when you copied.

Shortcut: use a cookie finder extension

A free Chrome extension called ESPN Cookie Finder can show both values in one click instead of Step 2. Search for it in the Chrome Web Store, install it, log in to ESPN, and click its icon.

It’s made by a third party, not by EFB or ESPN, so only install it if you’re comfortable giving it access to your ESPN cookies. The manual steps above work just as well.

When they expire

Your espn_s2 and SWID stop working when you log out of ESPN, and they also expire on their own every so often. When a tool suddenly can’t read your league, repeat Step 2 and paste in the new values.