Lots of really good articles have been written in the last week or so, and these are a few I thought that I would pass along to you. Go ahead, take a read:

• From RotoWire: Usually the argument is whether fantasy football is better than fantasy baseball. But, Kenn Ruby dares to argue both sides of the “which is better, fantasy football or fantasy basketball” argument. Check out Why Fantasy Football is Better Than Fantasy Basketball and Why Fantasy Basketball is Better Than Fantasy Football
• From Open Sports: Daniel Dobish of Open Sports writes about ten reasons to play Fox’s Fantasy Quick challenge. Expect he never mentions that Fox Sports is a major investor in Open Sports and that Open Sports actually built the game for Fox (see: Fox Sports Outsources Fantasy to Open Sports). It is perfectly fine to promote your products, but let users know you are, because it is sort of illegal now, according to the latest FTC guidelines on advertisements.
• From USA Today: Looks like ESPN is looking to bid for March Madness, which has been on CBS Sports for the longest time. Honestly, I could careless which network broadcasts the NCAA Tournament, but if this means the end of March Madness on Demand, there will be some very upset fans (and happy managers).
• From Bleacher Report: I love this diatribe about how fantasy football on the whole needs to really start including real defensive stats. In Walter Kirkwood’s Man Up, America: It’s Time for Defense in Fantasy Football, I love how he asks if I even knew about Patrick Willis‘ phenomenal rookie season, and then he read my mind by daring me to name his team. I had clue (it’s SF), but the article is an entertaining read.

Don’t forget to come back here often for more fantasy goodness.

If you watched last night’s All Star Game, you probably saw a few commercials for Fox Sports’ new Fantasy Football game, which will offer fantasy players the opportunity to make substitutions during the week’s games. Prior to the game, Fox Sports announced that Open Sports will build and operate the Fox Sports’ fantasy offerings. The new live fantasy football game, is billed as Fox Fantasy Live, and will be built by Open Sports.

Here is the problem with Fox Fantasy Live–it really only appeals to the niche fantasy super-user. It is an intriguing concept, since every fantasy player has wanted to make a change after the deadline. However, to really get the benefit of this new feature, fantasy players are going to have to watch all of Sunday’s action and be on top of any developing action. If you choose to do something other than watch football on Sunday, your fantasy team will lose out to someone who is on top of it. Sort of takes the fun out of for the casual player.

If Fox wants to be known as the place that hardcore fantasy football players play, then this a great product. But, if Fox truly wants to be a Top Three fantasy site in a year, this is not going to do it. In fact, I think it might alienate some players, since not every player is going to want to play in leagues that need to be involved. Part of fantasy football’s success has been its simplicity, and this goes completely away from that. If you want to beat Yahoo!, ESPN, and CBS Sports in fantasy sports, you cannot do it with a product that has just a few newer bells and whistles. That is not going to be enough to get fantasy players to jump ship. To beat the Top Three, you need to change the game.

Actually, I amazed by this development because Fox Sports is sitting on a potentially huge fantasy game changer with Fox-ownedMySpace. Fantasy leagues are small social networks. MySpace is a ridiculously large social network. Why not build fantasy leagues around the places that they are already social? Yahoo! success can be partly attributed to the fact that most people have Yahoo! accounts, making sign-up really easy. Most people have MySpace accounts. Just a thought…

For Open Sports, this is a very big deal. Having a major media company partner and take an equity stake lends a large amount of credibility to Open Sports, and its mission to create the leading sports social network. Plus, Open Sports is able to continue developing its fantasy offerings while someone else (Fox Sports) is footing the bill. Update: Now that I have seen that Fox put about $4M into OPEN Sports as part of the deal, it is more than likely that OPEN Sports is providing fantasy to Fox Sports as part of its deal. Regardless, this is still a good deal for OPEN Sports because it gives them that major media partner that it needs.

This is not Fox Sports’ first attempt at a makeover, as it has tried to become a fantasy power for several years. In 2005, Fox Sports partnered with MSN to take on fantasy football. In 2007 and 2008, Fox Sports hired fantasy football legend LaDainian Tomlinson to be its pitchman. While it made for an amusing LT fantasy football commercial, it did not do much to convince fantasy players that Fox Sports was the site to play fantasy football.

Who knows if fantasy will work for Fox Sports, but at least the company is trying, and I wish them luck with it.

Additional Coverage:

• FoxSports.com Post-FIM: Takes Stake in OpenSports; Revamp Planned (Paid Content)
• FOXSports.com and OPEN Sports join forces (OPEN Sports)
• OPENSports raises $4 mln, Fox takes stake (VatorNews)