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

– NFL.com’s Michael Fabiano sat down this week with fantasy football MVP Arian Foster. Spoiler alert: He didn’t pass along the hug that so many of us would like to give.

– John Haskell described in a recent interview with DraftSharks.com’s Jared Smola the agony created by having to wait for the delayed Vikings-Eagles tilt to deliver him $100,000.

– A couple of interesting things going on over at Fantazzle.com this weekend: For starters, as fantasy NASCAR options dwindle, Fantazzle opens its racing season with Sunday’s Daytona 500. And for fantasy basketball fans — or anyone looking for a reason to be interested in the all-star game — there’s an NBA fantasy game that combines the Sunday showcase with elements of the skills competition.

– Razzball.com is on the lookout for football writers.

– LestersLegends.com will take a look at you whether your game is football, baseball, basketball or the NFL draft. (Take that hockey and soccer BS elsewhere, though.)

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

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

– Fantazzle Fantasy Sports has rolled out a free-to-play weekly fantasy football game with Ravens running back Ray Rice as the cover boy. Each week presents a fresh prize pool, with top winners becoming eligible for extra-cash games at Week 8 and Week 16.

– In the first installment of what will be a weekly series throughout the season, Joe Namath provided RapidDraft.com with his thoughts on a few players at each position (except kicker, but who cares about them anyway).

– This week’s sign that fantasy is big time: John Rozek’s selection by World Championship of Fantasy Sports as the top fantasy football player in the world right now landed him a feature story in the Chicago Tribune. The story could provide inspiration to those of us with dreams of high-stakes winnings as well, as it reveals Rozek to not be an obsessive football nut (he doesn’t even get NFL Network) — merely a bright, experienced player who knows the fantasy game.

– Stinkball.com is up and running for the 2010 NFL season with a redesigned site. For anyone unfamiliar, Stinkball — in addition to being an ideal name for the next Cartoon Network show — is a fantasy contest in which you score by filling your team with the worst performers.

– Allow us to present the all-Illini fantasy football team, via a Yahoo! draft event. Now let that be the last time anyone presents anything remotely similar.

– HuddleHub.com only just launched last week, but the company wound up on Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night show on NBC way back in March. It turns out that fortuitous placement at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival won it some worthwhile media exposure. The Fallon appearance came in a monologue joke: “There’s a new program called HuddleHub that manages all of your fantasy sports teams. They call it the perfect solution for someone who’s too lazy to keep track of being too lazy to play actual sports.”

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.

– Fantazzle is offering customizable high-stakes fantasy football leagues as part of the SUPERDRAFT event in Las Vegas. Buy-in levels range from $1,000 to $10,000, with customizable league rules and sizes (anywhere from eight to 14 teams). Each level includes at least an 85 percent payout rate to winners.

– We had former Chiefs and Jets kicker Nick Lowery on the RapidDraft.com Fantasy Lunch, our BlogTalkRadio show on Thursday. Although it was enough for us that Lowery — an obviously bright guy and now professional public speaker — was engaging and entertaining, the part that really made it worth a post here came deep into his interview. That was when the veteran of 18 NFL seasons said, “Fantasy football is the best thing that ever happened to football.”

– The Hazean is keeping polls open through Saturday to determine your favorite fantasy football team name for July. I voted for “Stafford Infection” among the 10 options, though I find the leader quite clever in its use of all four Steelers quarterbacks.

– Just like it did for baseball season, RotoWire is offering its fantasy football draft kit as an iPhone app. Among the features is a function that provides player recommendations when you check off the guys who have already been drafted by others.

– FFChamps.com has reached an agreement with Boston-based WEEI.com to offer the former’s fantasy football draft kit through the website for the popular sports talk station.

– Jene Bramel of Footballguys.com takes a turn in the NYTimes.com Fifth Down blog to tell fantasy football folks why they should be playing with individual defensive players and refutes the common arguments against doing so.

– I recently took part in one of eight “Pros vs. Joes” drafts put on by the folks at the Fantasy Football Players Championship, which pits six fantasy players against six fantasy site representatives in each league. Those who didn’t participate can pick the winners for a shot at free 2011 FFPC entries. (Find my squad here — League 5 — and keep in mind that tight ends get 1.5 points per reception and it’s an optimal-scoring format, where you don’t have to set your lineup.)

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

Maurice Jones-Drew isn’t the only fantasy stud looking to build his presence on the other side of the industry.

Ravens running back Ray Rice has announced a partnership with RosterDoc.com, by which he’ll serve as the advertising face of their games.

In his words from the press release: “I want to thank the good people at Roster Doc for bringing me into the world of fantasy football. It’s a great honor to serve as the 2010 Roster Doc Commish. I will be participating this season on behalf of my charity, the Ray Rice Foundation. Being a positive role model and helping out under privileged kids is very close to my heart.”

It’s unclear at this point exactly what Rice’s involvement will entail, but our guess is the promo position mentioned earlier.

Roster Doc joins Fantazzle as game sites that will get Rice representation in 2010, both deals reached via partnership with CurvSports.

Along with its destination site, CurvSports also “delivers an online monetization and brand management strategy for professional athletes, media personalities and celebrities via a unique platform that connects sponsors and fans with the athlete’s entire digital community.” Basically, it seems to broker deals such as these for athletes and other celebrities.

Rice is a big get in these cases, especially when you consider that similar active-athlete presences out in front of fantasy games have generally been limited to Yahoo!’s annual poster player, Adrian Peterson fronting the 2009 NFL.com commissioner product and LaDainian Tomlinson providing his face to FoxSports.com. Anyone who plays fantasy football knows that Rice’s breakout 2009 campaign turned him into a hot name.

Could this setup open the door to more athletes connecting with smaller brands — basically anyone outside the media big boys of the fantasy industry? We’ll see. At the least, it’s a sign of fantasy awareness on the part of a pro athlete.