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

– The news slipped by us at holiday time, but Mastersball.com and CREATiVE Sports have merged, operating under the Mastersball heading since the start of 2010. As fantasy veteran Lawr Michaels explains in his open letter to readers, the move combines staffs long on experience. The outlet is also part of Fantasy Sports Ventures’ Fantasy Players Network.

– Fantazzle is looking to hire a full-time social-media guru and add a few interns.

– Perhaps you’re sitting there looking over the RotoWire fantasy baseball draft kit on your PC and iPhone, wishing that you could get just one more electronic format. Well, if you’re a Kindle owner, you can now purchase the baseball preview magazine wirelessly.

– OPENSports.com’s Chris Chester states it in terms that I probably wouldn’t use, but his issues with the iPad pertaining to viewing baseball games and accessing fantasy baseball make sense.

– The NFL RedZone Channel on my cell phone? Yes, please. (Now all I need is a phone on which I can watch it …) The appeal of this channel to fantasy players is obvious for anyone familiar with the concept. If you’ve been asleep for a while, it’s a channel that shows every score (touchdowns and field goals) through the day games on NFL Sundays, switching live to contests in which one time is nearing the end zone.

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

Name: Sigmund Bloom
Nickname: Bloom
Job title(s): Co-host, “The Audible,” Footballguys.com Staff Writer
Full-time in fantasy? Yes
Age: 34
Education: BA, Syracuse U. ‘97 (Philosophy/Policy Studies), JD U. of Texas ‘00
Family status: Married to Kim Bloom; son, Miles Bloom, born 1/12/10
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: Football
Favorite team (any sport): Pittsburgh Steelers
All-time favorite athlete: Muhammed Ali
Years playing fantasy: 11

I got my start in the fantasy industry when … Joe Bryant and David Dodds asked me to be a staff writer for Footballguys.com in 2006.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: Co-host, “The Five Minute Drill” WebTV show, ONNetworks, 2007-08; Co-Host, “The Audible”; Fantasy Football Expert, Co-Host, “Gametime Decision” 104.3 the Fan, Denver, Colo.

Three questions

1. You’ve reached a fairly prominent spot for both fantasy and NFL draft stuff. Do you get a bigger kick out of scouting and analyzing the draft or analyzing fantasy and fielding all the start/sit questions?

Draft — The NFL draft is the ultimate cliffhanger, seeing how all the pieces fall in place, then the career of each of a cliffhanger in an of itself, seeing whether the teams look wise or foolish when the dust settles. I also love scouting at the all-star game practices and following all of the rumors and subterfuge leading up to draft day.

2. How do you balance stats versus what you see in the games when doing your fantasy work?

Stat analysis is overrated. The sample size in a football season is too small to extrapolate meaningful outcomes, and stat analysis is backward-looking, not forward-looking. Always trust your eyes.

3. For anyone with entrepreneurial visions, what have you and scouting partner Cecil Lammey done behind the scenes to get to where you can make a living covering football?

Treat everyone with respect, give all glory to the game and those who play it, take risks and believe in yourself!

Bonus: How do your parents and college professors feel about you eschewing your law degree to slum it with us sports folks?

I think my law school professors knew that I wasn’t going to practice law. I went to law school to see if I wanted to practice law. The answer was no, and I don’t recommend that strategy to anyone. My mother has always supported me as long as I pursued happiness, so, of course, she’s happy because I’m happy.

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

– FantasyFanatics.com announced Tuesday that Mike Pera, owner of FantasyDraftTools.com, won the site’s inaugural preseason rankings game, which provides Pera an entry into the 2010 World Championship of Fantasy Football field.

– Ready to move on to the next big fantasy regular season but can’t remember when things got going last time? This blogger at FantasyHurler.com has the dates on which the big boys launched fantasy baseball each of the past two years. Looks like CBSSports.com is a solid bet to toe the rubber first.

– For those of us who can’t bear to be separated from the ups and downs of our fantasy football squads come Sundays (and most Mondays, some Thursdays and a few Saturdays) each fall, a convergence of computer, television and mobile phone will soon help keep you in touch (or is that out of touch) no matter what you’re doing.

– The initial report is about a month old, unfortunately, but Fantasy Sports Ventures has teamed up with the U.S. Olympic Committee to develop and distribute a widget aimed at promoting the members of Team USA for next month’s winter Olympics.

– This concept might come closest to embodying a real-life fantasy offering: A Florida businessman wants to build an actual football league around a reality television start. Players would try out to qualify for a spot on the fan ballot, and viewers would select eight teams to then compete for a title. The public would also serve as team owners. Sounds interesting

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

Name: Rod Smith
Nickname: Rocket
Job title(s): CEO - Helping Hands for Freedom; Founder & President - Future for Kids; President - Fantasy4Charity.com
Age: 43
Education: BA in Business Administration - University of Nebraska
Family status: Single
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: Football, both college and pro
Favorite team (any sport): Denver Broncos
All-time favorite athlete (other than yourself): John Elway, and my High School Quarterback, Loren Snyder
Years playing fantasy: 13

Three questions

1) How long has this project/partnership been in development? How did the idea come about?

Helping Hands for Freedom is a start up national charity that I founded in December of 2008. After 18 years of serving communities throughout the country and raising over 5.5 million dollars, the nature of fundraising in this economy for non-profits has me feeling like I have no idea what I am doing.

The traditional way of building a charity through building a board and relying on their circle of influence, creating signature event(s) such as a golf tournament, and submitting grant request to multiple sources, is far more difficult than ever before.

I had to think “out-of-the-box” and took to the internet for research. I found a story about how President Obama successfully generated donations from college students. He was able to convince college students to donate $10 a month for multiple months that generated millions of dollars for his presidential campaign. He truly revolutionized the art of fund development. This led to the question, “How can I get millions of people to give Helping Hands for Freedom $10 each?”

As I continued my research on the internet, I came across a story about the continued growth of Fantasy Sports and that the industry has now reached over 33 million participants. This was the “niche” I was looking for.

2) How did Ricky Williams’ involvement come about, and do you have any particular details about what we should expect to see from him going forward?

I met Ricky through a friend of mine in San Diego, Renie Colwell. She works with him regarding his off field endeavors and after sharing with him the idea to help military children who have lost their fathers to the war through a fantasy football game, Ricky actually offered to help and be a part of the venture. He has been a part of designing the logo and reviewing the content for the website and has his own ideas on marketing the RapidDraft game through Fantasy4Charity. Being from San Diego and understanding the plight of military families due to Camp Pendleton and the large population of service members living there, he plans on being as active as his busy football life will allow him to be through interviews, blogging, Twittering and some appearances in Miami.

3) How much of the proceeds will be making it to the families you serve?

Our partners in this project, Jeff Thomas of World Fantasy Games, and Jay Jacobs of the Shurn Group have made great sacrifices in helping us contain the cost of the venture to make sure as much of the money raised goes to supporting the military families facing injury and loss and building a national mentorship program for military children. Our goal is to operate at a high standard of 80 percent of money raised going towards serving our mission with the remaining 20 percent going to the administration and fundraising expenses of the organization.

Bonus: Most of us will never experience settling under a Division I or NFL punt and preparing for a return. Can you tell us a bit about what that was like?

Punt returning is all about instincts in the open field, setting up your blockers, and trusting your teammates. Oh, and speed doesn’t hurt. I just always had a knack for it. In High School I had 12 returns for touchdowns. In one game, I had 2 punt returns and 2 kickoff returns for touchdowns. In 1986, I led the nation in punt returns, and when I left Nebraska, I was the all-time leading career and single-season average punt returner. I was just very confident and fearless, which is a good combination to have when 235lb linebackers are running down to knock you out. There is nothing better than clearing that last guy and cruising into the end zone with the entire stadium on their feet and cheering.