As posted now at Fanball.com and CDMSports.com and e-mailed to Fanball users:

RG Ventures, LLC announced today that it has completed its purchase of various assets from Liberty Sports Interactive, Inc. (”Fanball”) which includes all of the rights to a suite of Fantasy Challenge and Draft and Play games. John Brison and Charlie Wiegert, two of the original founders of CDM Fantasy Sports, and a group of former employees and industry veterans will operate the games for RG Ventures under the trade name “CDM Sports” beginning immediately.

The Company’s suite of games will include the legendary fantasy baseball Diamond Challenge, Football Challenge, Draft and Play Baseball, Draft and Play Football, and Fantasy Cup. The Company will begin taking registrations for its fantasy baseball games within a few days. The Company’s portfolio of challenge games will be extensive in the future and will likely include fantasy auto racing, and golf games.

The CDM name, of course, is familiar to anyone in the fantasy sports industry and many veteran players as it has been around from the early days. CDM was acquired by Fanball in 2008 and its games incorporated into the Fanball line.

This acquisition, of course, follows the recent move by STATS to buy a controlling share of Greg Ambrosius’ National Fantasy Championships. We’ll pass along any further info that comes our way.

– Fantasy Players Association president Scott Atkins has a report on late WCOFF payments to 2010 winners, including this quote from co-owner Dustin Ashby: “We’re in the process of correcting a mistake that was made in the processing of player awards. The issue causing the delay has been corrected. We expect the distribution of awards to be completed soon.”

– Many might be unfamiliar with Synsport.com, but this week’s announcement that the site will likely shut down before the 2011 NFL season reminds us of the niches that remain in the fantasy industry and the dedication of those users. Creator John Marino also decries the effect of the big, free league providers.

– Tony Holm and his Fantasy Sharks crew recently launched BaseballSharks.com, which just so happens to deal in fantasy baseball content.

– RotoWire recently rolled out a fantasy baseball draft kit app for the increasingly popular Android phone, which joins the existing iPhone version.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to matt.schauf@worldfantasygames.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

The developments — or relative lack thereof — over the past week of negotiations brings that issue into focus. The NFL and its players association extended last week the collective-bargaining deadline, pausing a potential chain of events that could have led to months in the courtroom.

According to SI.com’s Jim Trotter, negotiations nearly reached the breaking point before the extension. That would seem to enhance the importance of this week’s talks in avoiding a summer-long feud, which would crush the fantasy-magazine market for 2011.

Periodical producers have to be on pins and needles this week, right? Well, although all are certainly watching with interest, most have their eyes trained harder on NFL Draft weekend.

“This week on its own does not mean much if there was another week extension and then a deal,” RotoWorld managing editor Gregg Rosenthal told FSB.com. “It will be business as usual as long as there is NFL free agency before the NFL Draft.”

That notion was echoed by RotoWire president Peter Schoenke: “I think the NFL draft is probably a bigger deadline because it’s around the time we usually put together all the specifics for the magazine and we’ll need to see how much the editorial may suffer without off-season transactions.”

That’s the key issue in fantasy circles. The national media might be focused more on the negotiating stumbling blocks, the whereabouts of NFLPA counsel Jeffrey Kessler and the impact it all could have on the 2011 season.

We, however, need free agents to settle somewhere — even more so than usual. The no-CBA rules of 2010 changed the timeline for a league veteran reaching unrestricted free agency, and the result is a free-agent class of more than 500 players. It’s hard enough in a normal NFL calendar to project the outlook for hundreds of players and 32 team situations months ahead of time. Right now, content producers don’t even have the colors necessary to paint those pictures.

“Right now I’m researching cover subjects and the uncertainty of numerous potential free agents makes that a tougher task than in the past,” said Matt McKenzie, the lead editor for Sporting News’ Fantasy Football yearbook. “It also doesn’t help when it comes to our team reports, as there are some teams that have major holes across the board, which makes it hard to key in on their fantasy focuses.”

Of course, any delay that the labor issues shove into the off-season calendar will affect production schedules and could shrink the window for sales. The relative upside — very relative — is that this issue didn’t surprise NFL followers.

We’ve known for two years that winter 2011 would likely bring acrimony, and companies have had time to think about how to treat a potential lockout.

“We have been working under the assumption that a lockout is inevitable,” said Mitch Light, managing editor for Athlon Sports. “This negotiation extension gives us some hope, we still have to plan for all different scenarios.

Light said that his staff is in the process of setting a “drop-dead” date for production to start.

“If the lockout drags on for too long it just doesn’t make sense for us to publish a fantasy magazine,” he said. “Once we come up with that date, we will just sit back and wait.”

Others, however, plan to go to press whether the bickering has ended or not.

“Unfortunately, there’s not much to do but move forward the best we can,” McKenzie said for the SN magazine. “Some of the articles and capsules will have to be written a little looser than years before given the unknown free-agent situation, but I have no doubt we can still put out a quality magazine.”

Rosenthal shared a similar sentiment, relaying RotoWorld’s plan to publish even in an NFL standstill. He did point out, though, that a long struggle could lead to just a single edition being produced rather than the normal two-edition cycle.

Fantasy Index co-owner Bruce Taylor said his company has changed its contract structure for advertisers this year to suit the NFL situation. Normally a “cash-basis business,” Index is instead selling ad space in its fantasy football magazine on a “bill-me-later basis.”

“If the players and owners reach a settlement prior to the NFL draft, then we’ll execute the contracts,” Taylor said. “If an agreement is reached after the NFL draft but before May 15, then we’ll publish as usual, but likely with a smaller press run and a shorter on-sale period. We will reduce our advertising rates in direct proportion with the reduction in press run, and we’ll give advertisers the option to cancel their insertion orders.”

Smaller sales windows and downward adjustments in advertising rates are clearly scenarios that all hope not to encounter. The magazine business is tough enough these days, and fantasy content providers likely face an uphill battle to generate profits from these publications under normal conditions.

This will be a telling week for many throughout our industry, whether it ends with a labor deal or not. A new collective bargaining agreement by Friday would be the ideal, so that all could proceed with annual off-season plans. A further extension would mean more waiting and building anxiety, though it would also foster hope of a deal before the draft. Of course, a breakdown-lockout-lawsuit finish would be bad news.

For now, Fantasy Sports Publications founder Emil Kadlec says it’s not worth dissecting every step of the bargaining process.

“We’re obviously watching with great interest but whether a deal is done this week isn’t vital to our plans,” he told FSB.com. “We believe the deal will be done by the NFL draft which would fit well into our normal timeframe. Worst case, if needed, a one or two week on-sale date change is the most logical contingency. I think it’s best not to get caught up in the day-to-day drama of negotiations.”

FSB checked in with AOL and was told by Diedre Ayers, senior manager of corporate communications, that “Flea Flicker was not part of the SN deal and will remain separate.”

That made sense to us and seemed to answer any questions, until the following exchange from the Flea Flicker forums (say that three times fast) was pointed out on Monday:

FantasyGuru1965: “Is there any word on the fate of the FleaFlicker site? Will there be a complete 2011 season?”

fleafounder: “No decision has been made yet but I hope to know more next week.”

One can logically deduce from the profile page that “fleafounder” is creator Ori Schwartz, who debuted his site in 2006 and sold it to AOL in April 2008.

We’ll see if there’s more to be gleaned from this situation right now, but it appears that the recent shuffling of AOL Sports — which included the cutting of Fanhouse — might not be done.

Thanks to a post by Scott Atkins on the Fantasy Players Association website and a Sports Business Journal story from Feb. 21, though, there are some more interesting tidbits worth passing along. Chief among the info is STATS’ apparent plan to make this a mere first step in getting back to consumer fantasy gaming.

STATS executive vice president Steve Byrd told SBJ: “This is a very fertile market and obviously one where we have history, are comfortable with and know well. We don’t have any intention to get into the free, ad-supported space. That’s obviously very well staked out by ESPN, Yahoo! and others, many of which are our clients. But the pay side continues to show strong growth, and we think there’s a way for us to achieve scale there.”

As the report pointed out, STATS played a significant role in consumer fantasy games in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It also provided the back-end support for the NFFC and NFBC before Fanball acquired the events in 2009.

With its majority stake in the NFC, STATS has added Ambrosius to its staff as general manager of consumer fantasy games. Tom Kessenich also joins the company’s ranks as manager of high-stakes fantasy games. The NFC sites have also been switched over.

No specifics have yet been announced about further fantasy plans, but Byrd did tell SBJ that “there’s potentially interest in other assets” remaining at Liberty from the pending Fanball closure.

– Former Fanball boss Ryan Houston presents some updates via his website on the movements of several former charges, including Geoff Stein’s announcement this week of a new position with MyFantasyLeague.com. Houston also mentions that Kay Adams, part of Sirius’ Fanball Fantasy Drive team, will be hosting her own Sunday night show.

– We also learned from the aforementioned Ryan Houston post that Sirius XM will be on hand in Arizona this weekend to broadcast the LABR drafts. Steve Gardner of USA Today has the lineups for each league and some further details for anyone unfamiliar with the League of Alternate Baseball Realities. The drafts will be on the air Saturday and Sunday nights, 7 p.m. to midnight Eastern.

– RotoExperts announced Tuesday that it has acquired MC3 Sports Media, which owns and operates the Around the Horn Baseball and Xtra Point Football blogs.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to matt.schauf@worldfantasygames.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

– LeagueSafe.com is looking to fill two full-time positions: a customer experience manager and a financial administrator, both to be on-site in Minnesota.

– Fantasy Sports 4 Kids recently partnered with the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation to raise money to help children afflicted with cancer.

– RotoExperts recently added fantasy veteran David Gonos to the staff. Gonos was most recently aligned with OPEN Sports and was once a CBS colleague of RotoExperts managing director Scott Engel.

– Forbes.com blogger Michael Humphrey has more info about Picktainment — the Oscar-games engine — and the role that Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi played in its creation.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to matt.schauf@worldfantasygames.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

– Sirius XM has held on to hosts Ray Flowers and Kyle Elfrink of the Fanball Fantasy Drive show, which is now called Sirius XM Fantasy Drive. Flowers, the creator of BaseballGuys.com, has also joined RotoWire as a contributing writer.

– From the recent Herald-News obituary of 86-year-old Emma Bianchi of Joliet, Ill.: “When Emma died Dec. 11 at the age of 86, the family lost a diehard fantasy football player. Eleven years ago, Laureen’s then-sixth grade son started a fantasy football team and asked Emma to join it. At first, Emma didn’t quite understand the logistics and selected her players based on ‘He’s got such a nice German name,’ or ‘He works so hard for his community.’” We can only guess that she also loved David Hasselhoff.

– With the Academy Awards coming up this weekend, here’s a plug for the fantasy-style games of Picktainment, which changed its name from AwardsPicks.com with the addition of games for American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

– Steve Gardner of USA Today passes along and builds off another blogger’s pondering of whether the rise of the machines will consume fantasy sports analysis.

– You’ve probably already seen this, since it was reported by Sports Business Journal and passed along by Pro Football Talk. It’s worth noting that EA Sports will be getting a break on its rights fees for 2011 as a result of the labor strife, in exchange for a one-year extension to their deal through 2013. One has to wonder if a similar deal is available to any of the many others who pay annual rights fees.

– SI.com’s Joe Lemire recently offered an ode to Strat-O-Matic baseball for this year’s 50th anniversary.

– This agent blogger ponders the impact that Bloomberg’s foray into baseball statistical analysis — to which 17 MLB teams now subscribe — may have on player contract negotiations.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to matt.schauf@worldfantasygames.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

– David Hersh, who formerly served as vice president of fantasy sports for CBS Sportsline after coming over in the Commissioner.com acquisition, has joined RotoExperts as a senior adviser.

– In conjunction with MLB.com, Bloomberg Sports has rolled out the second season of its Front Office product of fantasy baseball tools, which it promises will be easier for consumers to use.

– You Digital Media has reached a deal with Accuscore that will allow the latter to create and present video representations of its data sets. (If you know just what that means without reading more, you’re smarter than I.)

– We don’t do player-news stuff in this space, but I thought it worth lamenting that we haven’t even reached the starting of spring-training games and already a fantasy ace seems on his way to Tommy John surgery. Consider Adam Wainwright the latest argument in favor of drafting as close to the season as possible.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to matt.schauf@worldfantasygames.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

Many of our readers are probably already aware of this development, and we have been as well since last month. Frankly, there are two reasons that FSB.com has not mentioned the change at OPEN before now:

1) At the time we found out, it appeared that the situation had reached this point long enough prior that many within the fantasy sports industry knew. It seemed like one of those things that we failed to notice in the crunch of football season.

2) We haven’t been able to track down any specific information on what transpired.

OPEN Sports drew immediate attention because it was created by Sportsline founder Mike Levy. It further made a splash by landing a deal to provide fantasy games for FOXSports.com.

FSB.com has yet to inquire with FOX about its plans for 2011 fantasy baseball, and a message on the site’s landing page for that game (as of Sunday night) says: “We are currently preparing FOX Fantasy Baseball for the 2011 season. Please check back in mid-February to join or create a league.”

This update comes as a result of the trickle of e-mails we’ve been receiving over the past month as more fantasy folks become aware of the OPEN situation. We’ll share any further information that might become available.