RotoExperts founder Ben Ice says that the company is targeting the 2010 baseball season for the return of Fantasy Auctioneer.

“We plan on redesigning the service, making it more stable and more scalable to deliver a lot more drafts than it is currently capable of delivering,” Ice told FSB.com. His company announced the purchase of the auction-draft platform site at the Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference earlier this week, a deal that had been in the works since June.

Ice said the RotoExperts team will need time to develop the new service, which is why the sights are set on a year from now. He said that a mock version of the football software might be offered in 2009, but the Fantasy Auctioneer site will serve as another gateway for consumers to reach RotoExperts software and draft kits.

The move is part of a larger effort to build a strong presence on the fantasy sports technology front and follows the December acquisition of Diamond Draft fantasy baseball software. Ice said the focus on technology has been part of the plan since RotoExperts was created.

“First, we wanted to establish ourselves as a provider of high quality fantasy content, and we believe we have accomplished that goal,” he said. “We are constantly looking at different products and services to determine where they fit. Fantasy Auctioneer integrates well with our football and baseball software.”

RotoExperts announced the acquisition of FantasyAuctioneer.com on Tuesday morning, the first full day of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association winter business conference, a source has told FSB.com.

Fantasy Auctioneer has been online since 2004 and specializes in auction draft hosting, software and contests. The site won the 2005 FSTA award for best new website and took home the plaques for best draft-style contest and specialty product a year later. It’s business partners have included league-hosting sites RealTime Sports and MyFantasyLeague, as well as many content outlets.

The acquisition follows RotoExperts’ December purchase of Diamond Draft and appears to be in line with the company’s stated goal of adding software and services to its fantasy content.

In announcing the Diamond Draft deal, RotoExperts founder Ben Ice said: “Fantasy drafting software has been an interest of our leadership team since the origins of the company. After building a custom application for the NFL season, we decided that it would be most efficient to acquire an existing product heading into the upcoming fantasy baseball season.”

The same logic would seem to apply in acquiring arguably the Web’s best-known auction tool. Why start from scratch when you can align with an established brand?

Look for more from FSB.com as we try to track down more information on the deal.

So, is RotoExperts reaching out to a desirable demographic in sponsoring Mike Massenzio in UFC 92, or is the company looking to build a fantasy mixed martial arts presence?

“I’d say it is a combination of the two,” RotoExperts founder Ben Ice told FSB.com Monday morning. “We have discussed doing some coverage of MMA. I was not familiar with the sport; it was actually brought to my attention by one of my [business development] guys.”

Ice said that once the UFC concept was brought to his attention, he was impressed by the potential reach that such a sponsorship could generate.

“What I saw of the [demographics] caught me off guard at first, but also made me realize the demo’s are perfect for our business model,” he said. “The final piece for us was that we didn’t see anyone in our space reaching out in this unique way to communicate their brand to a very desirable demo, and it was considered ‘very cool’ by our writers.”

RotoExperts announced Monday morning that it will sponsor Mike Massenzio in Ultimate Fighting Championship 92.

“In our short tenure as a fantasy sports advice site, we are looking to take a more active role helping to advance various areas of the sports entertainment world,” founder Ben Ice said in the press release. “Since our primary demographic also enjoys UFC, it is a natural match for us when considering sponsorship opportunities.”

This sponsorship is particularly interesting because it applies a fantasy brand to a still relatively new sport that doesn’t yet have a real fantasy presence. It could just be that RotoExperts sees an overlap in the demographic between its core fantasy audience and mixed martial arts fans, as Ice said in the release.

On the other hand, interest in MMA has seemed to explode over the past several years, at the same time that the fantasy sports industry is seeing rapid growth and an ever-growing number of branches into varying styles of competition. Thus, sponsoring an MMA fighter could serve to position RotoExperts within an untapped fantasy market. The UFC, for it’s part, offers its own fantasy games through its website.

UFC 92 is set for Dec. 27.

Additional coverage: Ice sees “unique” sponsorship oppurtunity