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.

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Maurice Jones-Drew has been the public centerpiece of the Sirius XM fantasy sports channel since its launch last month, and now we’ll finally get to hear his fantasy analysis.

His show, Runnin’ with MJD, will debut Saturday night from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET. (It’ll run again on Saturday, Aug. 14, before settling into its regular Friday night slot.)

“I’ll use my experience and my sources to give Sirius XM listeners the best fantasy football info I can give them,” Jones-Drew said in the press release. “We all get into fantasy football for the competition and the cameraderie but the goal is to dominate your league and I’m confident I can help people do that.”

We’ve written multiple times in the past on this site about Jones-Drew’s experience with and respect for fantasy, so we’ll certainly be interested to hear his takes. If nothing else, the Jaguars running back certainly brings unique perspective among his fantasy brethren.

“I’m friends with a lot of guys around this league but if they’re on my fantasy roster it’s all business,” Jones-Drew said in the release. “If they’re not performing for me, I may just call them up live on air and cut them.”

How many of us wish we could have that kind of access?

Sirius XM has been trickling fantasy analysis from MJD via the channel’s website, namely his top players at each position. Jones-Drew has also started to mix in some fantasy on Twitter here and there (reportedly naming Houston’s Arian Foster is top “sleeper” for 2010, most recently).

Here’s hoping the running back’s show only helps to get more athletes involved in fantasy and foster greater connection and acceptance between our games and the teams and leagues at the center of them. At the least, let’s hope for an entertaining show in a genre (athlete/coach shows) that can often be pretty boring.

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

– San Francisco Chronicle blogger (among other things) Tim Goodman says, regarding Twitter, “I can’t imagine sports fans not using it — especially if you’re into fantasy sports.”

– Maurice Jones-Drew seems to be settling into his role as a fantasy analyst. He dished out some fantasy advice via Twitter on Monday, where his open discussion of the team from his recent Sirius XM mock draft got things rolling.

– Sunday brought two readings in Pennsylvania of “Fantasy Football: The Musical,” the fictional story of Bill Simmons and Matthew Berry combining to invent the pastime. (Rumor has it that early editions of “Silly Little Game” followed the same storyline.)

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.

– Yahoo!’s acquisition of Citizen Sports has led new Facebook-connected social functionality (sponsored by Miller Lite) for its fantasy football teams this year. Anyone with a team on Yahoo! Sports will be able to “like” that team and get player updates and other content delivered straight to his or her Facebook news stream.

– The promotional plan for NFL.com’s new fantasy football league-management product has moved from Phase 1 — targeting existing league managers — to Phase 2, which will focus more on drawing in new players. NFL.com will also reportedly start a fantasy football show on the Web in September. (Why NFL Network doesn’t have a dedicated fantasy show yet for the predominant field of American players is a mystery to us.)

– It can be interesting enough to see where Maurice Jones-Drew will go in Round 1 of the typical 2010 fantasy football draft, but Jones-Drew himself helped add interest to the Sirius XM Times Square draft on Wednesday. The Jaguars running back worked a trade with fellow host Jay Thomas to acquire himself, after Thomas drafted MJD third overall. Here are (most of) the rest of the results.

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