My inbox has just been flooded with copies of a landmark announcement–the Sporting News has let its players know that it will no longer provide fantasy games to its readers. In an email from the Sporting News’ President and Publisher Jeff Price, he writes:

Dear Valued Fantasy Games Player,

Due to a shift in our core business strategy, SportingNews.com will no longer offer new fantasy games going forward (excluding Strat-O-Matic). The fantasy industry is changing, and we feel it’s best to devote our resources to providing the best fantasy content and advice on the internet, and beyond. We believe SportingNews.com’s fantasy content, tools and advice are already best in class, and over the next few months, we will completely redesign the Fantasy Source section of our site to deliver a new and improved user experience. With this shift in strategy, we will dedicate our entire fantasy staff to building Fantasy Source into the number one destination for fantasy information, accessible via internet, mobile devices, and other new technologies.

…

This is huge news! During the 1990s, the Sporting News was a major source of information, and hosted its own very successful games which were powered by CDM Sports (now Fanball). In recent years, it has fallen off the fantasy radar as fantasy players have flocked to sites offering free fantasy games with lots of bells and whistles. Holding on to its fantasy business for purely nostalgic reasons just does not make good business sense. It does plan to continue producing fantasy content via the Fantasy Source.

The Sporting News has been aggressively changing its business model over the last few years as the need (or demand) for a weekly sports magazine has dissipated over the last few years. Last month the Sporting News announced that its Sporting News Today product would switch to a subscription model starting in April. The Sporting News is focusing on making sure that as the sports information industry evolves, it is ready and profitable.

Also a loser in this announcement is also RotoHog, who just last June announced that RotoHog would be providing the fantasy games for the Sporting News. RotoHog, who is fully focused on white-label games currently, will definitely miss the cachet and doors that running the Sporting News’ fantasy games might open. After all, the Sporting News is still a very recognizable and trusted brand in fantasy sports.

The winner in all of this is CBSSports.com. Later in the email Price recommends that Sporting News users looking for fantasy baseball to sign up for CBSSports.com’s fantasy baseball commissioner at a nearly 50% discount.

It is sad to seem these change in the industry. I applaud Jeff Price on being able to make a decision that was definitely not an easy decision for him to make.

Thanks to everyone who let me know about this in a very timely manner.

One of my favorite websites out there is Indexed. It features a fair bit of geek humor as author Jessica Hagy breaks down concepts into simple terms featuring venn diagrams, x-y axis, and other commonly seen diagrams. Today, she diverted from mathematical designs to display her concept of a fantasy league:

Aside from the fact that there is no way a ghost would beat a yeti, this does bring up a good point. While we in the industry like to bring up the fact that 30 million Americans play fantasy sports, that also means over 270 million Americans do not play fantasy sports. Thats 90% of the country. While this edition of indexed is a joke, it may not be too far from the impression that many people in the country share about fantasy sports.

Wow! I struggled with how big a move this is initially. The fact that Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball ’10 Named Official Online Fantasy Game for MLB.com indicated that it is much more profitable for MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) to partner with Yahoo for its fantasy baseball game than produce it themselves.

MLBAM is easily the most technologically advanced of the professional leagues, is easily top five companies for digital sports capabilities, and has a ton of awards to provide it. Running fantasy baseball leagues is something that it can easily do (and has done in the past), yet it is choosing not to do this year.

Yahoo! is by far the most popular site for fantasy baseball, and it also makes the most money. As a partner, MLBAM could not have picked a better partner. The financial nature of the relationship is unclear, but MLBAM is either getting a share of the advertising revenue, a sponsorship fee from Yahoo!, or possibility both of these situations.

From a competition stand point, it is always disappointing to see one fewer company in the mix. While MLBAM has not been known for its leagues, the fact that it was competing in the past was always a good sign. Fewer options always mean less innovation.

The underlying question here is how exactly profitable is free fantasy baseball if Major League Baseball finds it better to outsource its game? If you are operating a free fantasy baseball game, how much scale do you really need to make it profitable, and how achievable is that scale?

What are your thoughts? Am I completely off my rocker?

Draft Analyzer is one of my favorite tools for the fantasy baseball season and it is back for the 2010 fantasy baseball season. Just like it did for the football season, Draft Analyzer is now fully accessible through the web (in the past, it was an application that you had to download).

Since I like to consider myself a numbers guy and what I have always been particularly fond of with Draft Analyzer is how simple it makes the whole drafting process. I tell it all about my league’s scoring, roster requirements, how many teams, draft style, how much risk I would like to assume, and it cranks out pick after pick recommendation. It helps you find the best value that is available at every pick. This becomes particularly useful in leagues where you are drafting deep, and often have to take players you rather not (and in some cases, never even heard of).

Draft Analyzer has two pricing options. You can get it for $29.95 with either Fanball’s or Accuscore’s projections. Or, for $44.95, you can get it with both sets of projections, which helps get a much more well-rounded sound of projections.

Clearly, I am a big fan of the software (I gladly purchase it for myself each year), and it is something that I think you might like too.

We are one week into Fantasy Ethos’ March Madness and promise of 65 posts this month. This marks the twelth post of the month and puts us right around schedule. With that in mind, here are some links to get your brain going this Monday:

• Inaugural FantasyFootball.com Roundtable Discussion (FantasyFootball.com) It is March, and these guys are discussing what the fantasy foootball season will bring. Questions that will not be fully answered until December. Hey, someone has to get the ball rolling on these discussions.
• Do’s and don’ts of fantasy (SI.com) David Sabino provides fantasy baseball drafting tips that are likely to keep you from making any serious mistakes. If still have not hit your stride in fantasy baseball (or even if you have), you might want to check it out. Always good to get back to basics.
• KFFL Reaches Multisport Deal with RotoExperts (Fantasy Sports Business) Matt Schauf has picked up a tip that KFFL will now syndicate RotoExperts’ NASCAR, golf, and soccer content. Since KFFL does not currently have golf or soccer, nor a very robust NASCAR site, this deal allows it to add additional content to its site without too much additional hassle and cost, since syndication is generally a cheaper alternative than producing the content yourself.

Keep on coming back here, because there are always more treats for you on Fantasy Ethos

Note: I previously worked for Fantasy Sports Ventures, the owner of KFFL.com

What is easily the largest prize for any fantasy horse racing game, Derby Dreamer has unleashed its game that allows fantasy players to create fantasy stables that could be worth $10,000 a month. For an entry fee of $12 per stable, fantasy players select 18 horses and five jockeys to ride for their stable. Then, stables accumulate points depending on how well their jockeys and horses perform. The stable with the most points each month wins $10,000. As an added bonus for March, the monthly winner will receive two box seat tickets for the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks in May. Each stable is good for a year entry, so that

From a game play perspective, each month the slate is wiped clean, and everyone has an equal shot at competing for the monthly $10,000 prize. In other words, fantasy players get to compete in 12 separate contests for $10,000. I really like this because it should help limit the amount of stables that drop out throughout the season. Further, stables are able to seamlessly join the action since there is no “begin” or “end” of the season. Instead, you just start competing in the month that a fantasy player enters the competition.

With a top prize of $10,000, Derby Dreamer is likely to get a lot of attention for these prizes. Having a large prize brings in a certain amount of shock value and is likely to help drive sign-ups. For long-term viability, if Derby Dreamer is able to create a fun player experience, it may eventually be able to turn this a very profitable niche game.

From the look at the leaderboard right now, Derby Dreamer does not have a ton of sign-ups, so you might have good odds of winning in the next couple of months. If you like horse racing and/or large fantasy sports prizes, saddle up and head over to Derby Dreamer.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend one of Baseball HQ’s First Pitch Forums in Washington, DC. I had never been to a fantasy baseball seminar before, so I was not really sure what to expect. After a few year of trial and error, Ron Shandler has hit on a format that seems to work really well. The whole program was broken into nine innings (or sections), and the information that doled out was broken into manageable and themed chunks (ex: 5 pitchers at workload risk).

Plus, the crowd was kept regularly engaged by answering some Jeopardy-style questions that are part of a competition against other First Pitch Forums. To illustrate a point about high-risk, high-reward pitchers, a mock auction was conducted with volunteers from the audience. The balance of audience participation and expert advice (that is why people are there after all) worked well and kept the crowd engaged for the full three hour session.

While the fantasy baseball advice doled out by Shandler and company was top-notch what struck me as the most interesting was the audience. The majority of the crowd had been to one of these sessions before, so these were definitely your much more serious fantasy baseball players. In fact, after hearing how the crowd asked questions, discussed issues, responded to questions, I can certainly say that if someone picked 12 people at random from that room and put them into a league, that would be a very competitive fantasy baseball league.

Entrance to one of these forums is $39 in advance or $49 at the door. While that price may be a little steep, I would liken this to going to a play for the night. Spending over three hours talking about fantasy baseball is not a terrible way to spend a night (your significant other may differ, but that is another issue).

This one scores high points for just coolness. The Peoria Chiefs (the Cubs A-Ball affiliate) are offering their luxury suites at O’Brien Field for use for fantasy baseball drafts this spring. For $35 per person, each league is provided a suite for four hours to draft, an all-you-can-eat buffet, draft beer, internet, and ticket to a future game. Heck, for that set-up, I could skip the draft all together and just hangout in a luxury suite all day.

Why more stadiums and team do not do this, I do not know. Getting to draft at a stadium just sounds cool to most fantasy players. Stadiums have the space and are equipped to do the catering. Plus, you are bringing in revenue during a time your venue is sitting empty. Some extra revenue is always more than no extra revenue.

If you are one of the few people who has never done an in-person fantasy draft, you are totally missing out. Aside from the headache of trying to find a draft day, it is a blast. The biggest benefit to the in-person draft is that it helps your league get comfortable with each other and usually leads to additional discussion throughout the season. In other words, you will have a much more active fantasy league, which leads to more fun. Remember, fun is the point of fantasy baseball!

If you are in the Peoria area (or looking for an excuse for a road-trip) you can read more details in the announcement detailing how to Hold Your Fantasy Baseball League Draft at O’Brien Field

via Nando Di Fino at the Wall Street Journal

The Interactive Sports Conference is a new fantasy conference set to occur on March 24 and 25 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, NV. The Fantasy Sports Association (FSA) is the major backer of this conference. Further, it appears all of its members organizations will be represented turning the conference, turning it into a who’s who of the fantasy sports industry. The networking at this event sounds like it will be the best reason to attend.

With a name like Interactive Sports Conference, it is not surprising to see an agenda filled with sessions on online engagement, social media ROI, mobile sports, and in a related tangent, international fantasy sports. It is definitely structured to give you an all-around feel for the many issues in creating online interactive sports games and content.

In terms of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and gee-whiz factor, the conference presents you with the opportunity to meet Maurice Jones-Drew, Chris Johnson, and Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett.

To attend the conference, you can head to the ISC Registration page and do not forget to pay the $599 conference fee. If you have specific questions, you can contact Ryan Houston at rhouston at fanball dot com.

There are hundreds of places that fantasy football players can get their information from. Sara Holladay has made a name for herself as the Fantasy Football Librarian by helping fantasy players dig out what are the most interesting and relevant articles. With an almost encyclopedic knowledge of everything that is written, Holladay has proven that she is quite the fantasy football player herself when she won the Buffalo Wild Wings Fantasy Football All-Star Bloggers league and a trip to the Super Bowl. I recently got to ask Holladay a few questions:

How did you get involved in fantasy football?
Back in 2004 my husband was looking for an extra person to play in one of his leagues and since I loved college football, I figured it was worth a try. Didn’t take long before I got addicted and suddenly knew a ton about both the NFL and fantasy football.

What is the worst move you ever made as a fantasy football owner?
Worst move I’ve ever made…man, that’s a tough one. I’ve made my fair share of bad moves but I think one that comes to mind, in part thanks to how recent it was, was grabbing LaDainian Tomlinson with the 7th overall pick in a draft this past year. I just wasn’t ready to believe that he was on his way out, and yet I should have paid attention to historical clues about how quickly older RBs can drop off. So right now, LT is feeling kind of raw.

Best piece of advice you ever received about fantasy football?
Best piece of advice has probably been to avoid grabbing players from your real life favorite team. I’m a Broncos fan so the ups and downs are harsh enough – no need to get too wrapped up in the Broncos from a fantasy perspective, too. That said, I still take Broncos if they’re the best value at that point of the draft. I just try to separate my fandom from my fantasy world.

So, who is the better fantasy player, you or your husband?
That all depends on who you ask – I’d say me, I did win us a trip to the Super Bowl in the Buffalo Wild Wings All-Star Blogger League. Meanwhile he would argue that he won 2 of the 3 leagues that we played in together…but then I’d just remind him of all the draft help and weekly advice I gave him. I don’t think either one of us will concede any time soon. Fortunately it’s clearly a friendly household battle.

What’s been your favorite part about becoming a fantasy football expert?
Maybe just getting to own that phrase? I think it’s a combo of having people trust me with their big weekly decisions, but also having the opportunity to network with other FF writers. Both of those are pretty good highs.

Do you ever feel like everyone is gunning for you in your leagues now that you own it?
Yes, there are a few friends that are gunning for me a bit more in leagues, but I love a good competition so I welcome it. Plus they’re the same guys that will happily enjoy a beer with me and talk draft prep for hours – that’s a welcome trade-off.

What do you think is the next big thing in fantasy football?
I think more and more leagues will include individual defensive players, which adds an added layer of complexity. But based on the number of sites that are coming out with daily games and games based on historical players, I think the field is really wide open for fantasy sports. Mainstream players will probably stick with traditional leagues, but there’s a good chance that those new to fantasy sports or just who haven’t played say fantasy baseball or hockey before will turn to some of the daily games first.

Thanks again, Sara, for your time, and good luck defending your title in 2010!