To most of the folks who read this site (and those of us involved in producing it), there’s no questioning the increasingly significant role of fantasy in sports and the way they are covered. Every so often, though, we get new signs of how widely that impact is felt.

On Monday, Nov. 15, the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism (at Penn State) will host a free online chat (1 p.m. ET) to discuss the way that fantasy is affecting sports coverage in the media.

Moderated by Curley Center associate director Marie Hardin, the hourlong chat will include a pair of guys familiar to most or all of us around the industry: Nate Ravitz, deputy editor for ESPN.com fantasy sports, and FantasyGuru.com’s Joe Dolan.

Joining those two fantasy pros will be Alexandre Simon, the NHL’s senior director of digital business development, and Malcolm Moran, Curley Center director and the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society.

“The continued emergence of fantasy sports influences content and prompts decisions about coverage,” the article announcing the event reads. “Fantasy sports can also pull media organizations to decide between the possibility of emerging audiences and the reality of existing consumers or production costs. Those competing agendas, changing outlooks and the implications of fantasy sports on sports journalism will be discussed.”

The session, titled “The Intersection Between Fantasy Sports and Sports Coverage: Implications for Journalists and Predictions for Media Organizations” will be available at: http://comm.psu.edu/sports/live-chats online.

It’s been about two weeks since the Sirius XM fantasy sports channel hit the air, but a week from now will be the launch bash — centered on a football draft, of course.

The Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square will play host Wednesday to a daylong event featuring live broadcasts by multiple Sirius XM shows and a 12-man fantasy football draft with a field populated by station personalities — a list that includes Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew.

“We’re assembling intriguing personalities from sports, talk, comedy and music in one place for an unprecedented event in the world of fantasy sports and we’re thrilled to share it with our subscribers,” Scott Greenstein, Sirius XM’s president and chief content officer, said in the media release.

Joining Jones Drew will be:

• Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, a former New York city sports talk radio host who now fronts his on satellite channel
• Steve Phillips, former Mets GM and ESPN analyst
• Jeremy Roenick, former NHL star
• Gary Dell’Abate, “BabaBooey” to anyone who would care
• Jay Thomas, an actor and Sirius host
• John Hansen of FantasyGuru.com
• Kyle Elfrink of Fanball
• Scott Engel of RotoExperts
• Chris Liss of RotoWire
• Scott Ferrall, who hosts a show on Howard Stern’s Sirius channel
• Rich Davis, Ryan Sampson, Stanley T. and Nicole, who host Morning Mash Up on Sirius XM’s Hits 1

Where this draft differs, of course, from the typical celebrity draft is that it includes several real fantasy industry veterans. It’ll be interesting to see who among the non-fantasy pros can hold their own and if anyone, say, drafts Brett Favre at the top of Round 2.

The draft itself will broadcast live at 1 p.m. on both the fantasy channel and Sirius NFL radio, following a lead-in show by Adam Schein and former Raiders (and about 13 other NFL teams) quarterback Rich Gannon. The overall event will begin at 10 a.m.

If you take nothing else from this, it’s at least obvious that Sirius XM isn’t merely putting some fantasy stuff out there to fill a station. The company seems to realize that this is a strong market and one that deserved more attention than it might have previously been giving it (at least beyond previous shows by Hansen and the RotoWire crew).

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

– FantasyGuru.com has rolled out a redesigned subscriber interface that it says is cleaner and easier for users to navigate.

– Maximum Fantasy Sports is adding league hosting to its site offerings for the first time, including the ability to move players in and out of lineups after their games have started.

– Andy Behrens and his fellow fantasy football “experts” at Yahoo! are challenging their readers in a four-division league this fall, even though the readers have no chance.

– WeMade Entertainment has launched a salary-cap fantasy game called Fantasy Football Manager South Africa to run through the rest of the World Cup.

– Yesteryear is offering the opportunity to win tickets to attend an NFL game with Tony Dorsett or Dwight Clark.

– Chiefs receiver Dwayne Bowe reportedly told the high school-aged attendees of a football camp this week to make sure to draft him in fantasy.

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