It appears that Liberty Media has decided to shut down Fanball, according to various sources.

Rumors of such a possibility began to surface early Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning FSB.com was able to confirm with Fanball employees that Liberty had informed them Wednesday of the impending action and that they were not to speak publicly about the plans.

Of course, no official announcement has yet come from Fanball or Liberty, which might leave open the possibility of a different resolution here. We have heard from multiple sources that there will be a meeting with Liberty decision makers next week, though no specifics have been shared on the expected topics of that meeting.

If it comes to fruition, the closure will be a surprising development for a company that had made several high-profile acquisitions over the past several years, including the NFFC and NFBC.

It’s also a sad development for the industry in which many of us reside. Fanball has been a key player in the fantasy sports industry since before there was enough out there to call it an “industry.” It began back in 1993 as a magazine called Fantasy Football Weekly, created by Paul Charchian and Rob Phythian and quickly grew into a full-service fantasy company with games, content and — as of this year — a couple of spots in the lineup on Sirius XM’s fantasy sports channel.

FUN Technologies acquired the pieces that now combine to make up Fanball in 2005 and 2006, with Liberty Media acquiring FUN and all of its parts in 2007. One of those pieces, which became part of Fanball in 2006, was fellow fantasy veteran company CDM Sports.

“I’m very sad for all the dedicated employees and for the loyal customers who supported the games and services for almost 20 years,” Charlie Wiegert, co-founder of CDM, told FSB.com Thursday of the apparent pending closure.

Should the news become official, we’ll look more into what might happen to various pieces, particularly the NFBC (and associated events), which is gearing up for the 2011 baseball season.

Should Liberty go through with the closure of Fanball, let’s just hope it stands as the story of one large corporation deciding that it no longer wanted to operate a specific portion of its business. Otherwise, it might serve as an ominous sign for independent fantasy businesses in a landscape increasingly populated by large companies with interests that don’t lie close enough to our games.

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– The most recent surveys have reportedly said that even though workers are checking in on their fantasy teams on the job, human resources departments don’t see any negative impact on productivity. The article also says that about one-fifth of employers block fantasy sites, while another one-fifth ask employees to limit time spent on fantasy.

– Is Didier Drogba the U.K.’s version of Maurice Jones-Drew, speaking directly to fans about his impact on fantasy “football”? (And what is his real name when you unscramble the letters?)

– An item we saw a while back but failed to pass along: RotoHog has split its operation to shift the B2B portion of its business under the new heading of Fastpoint Games.

– We’ve had a few inquiries recently and see a few rumors on the Web about Fanball “shuttering” it’s blog network, so we checked around. The network is still active, as one can see by visiting the Fanball homepage or member outlets such as Baseballguys.com. FSB.com was told that the remaining blogs primarily belong to people who have other roles with Fanball, while deals with individual outlets were separately settled. We were unable to get official word on the subject from Fanball.

– Papa John’s announced last week the five finalists in its promotion selecting the top fantasy football league in the country. The winner will be decided by some combination of public voting via Facebook and a panel led by Chargers tight end Antonio Gates and Matthew Berry. (As far as we’re concerned, the honor shouldn’t go to anyone other than the Kings X leagues created by Andy Mousalimas — a story that has been delayed around here by the hustle of football season but that will still be told in further detail.)

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A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– As it did for baseball and football this year, RotoWire has put out a fantasy basketball draft kit app for iPhones.

– Fanball recently rolled out a fantasy basketball preview guide in iPad app form, followed shortly thereafter by one for hockey as well.

– Paul Farrell, a London cab driver trying his hand at fantasy baseball for the first time, topped the field in Bloomberg’s first everyman-vs-experts contest.

– The folks at the World Championship of Fantasy Football have collaborated with Patriots Vikings receiver Randy Moss on the launch of VuFantasyFootball.com, an interactive video content site.

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

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– We’ve made our feelings known in the past on the annual “study” in which Challenger, Gray & Christmas tells us how far down fantasy sports are dragging the economy. As such, we tend to frown upon stories generated by the “study.” This short, IT-focused item, however, takes an interesting look at how companies shouldn’t worry too much about the supposed productivity loss and how the tech folks can actually help expedite our fantasy research.

– I probably missed his first couple of appearances as a fantasy football columnist for SI.com, but this week Maurice Jones-Drew said that the NFL picture will be much clearer for fantasy owners once we have three games behind us.

– In this report from St. Louis Business Journal, Charlie Wiegert says of his parting with Fanball, “They would have gotten rid of me a week before, but I was running a football draft in Buffalo.”

– It’s out there, and the fact that it’s an Associated Press story means the story that calls daily fantasy sports “gambling” right in the headline has and will continue to be run by various outlets. We will have plenty to sort out within this story over the coming days.

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