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).

In a boring meeting? Taking a long car ride (when you’re not driving)? Watching Reality TV with the family? Basically — do you need something else to do?

Well, RapidDraft.com hopes you download their new, free iPhone Mock Draft app and then get lost in the fantasy of RapidDraft free fantasy football.

The smart-phone population is growing rapidly, to the point that half of all American cell-phone users are expected to own one by the end of 2011.

The free RD app, developed for World Fantasy Games by Advanced Sports Media, allows you to practice up on your drafting whenever and wherever you want — even if you can’t find the time to sit in front of your computer and mock out a bunch of drafts. Practicing, of course, can only help prepare you for the real thing — whether you’re trying out the full product at RapidDraft.com or meeting up for draft weekend with your friends.

Like the game itself, the app lets you pick your draft spot and select against 11 avatars, so that you can try your hand from various spots using various strategies. A bonus is that if you get interrupted and can’t finish the mock draft all at once, the interface will simply pause and wait for you to resume.

Users may draft up to five times per draft position online, but unlimited times on the iPhone (affording plenty of practice before you take your free shots at the real thing and a $100,000 grand prize). The app also contains settings that make it easier to draft when you don’t have spreadsheets and preview magazines in front of you. Player recommendations make it easier to sift through the list, and you can toggle settings on items such as bye-week conflicts and preferred drafting style.

You may want to check it out as you get ready for the 2010 fantasy football season.

If you are even the most casual of sports fans, work in an office or live somewhere in the United States, you know what March means on the sporting calendar.

It’s “madness” time in college basketball, when brackets abound and pools are plentiful. Xerox Monday — after Selection Sunday — takes many of us to the copy machine so that we can take way too many cracks at building that impossible perfect bracket.

RapidDraft.com, however, wants you to consider a different way to pick your teams: via fantasy draft.

“Innovation is the key to growth in the world of fantasy sports,” said Jeff Thomas, CEO of World Fantasy Games. “Most fantasy companies offer a bracket contest. Nobody has a draft. Applying our patent-pending social gaming model to the NCAA Tournament was a natural, with on-demand live drafts inside our virtual-world draft room. RapidDraft is true differentiation in the marketplace and can complement a bracket game on any fantasy site.”

RapidDraft Hoops Madness pits a consumer against three avatars backed by expert opinion and strategy. The four teams tip off with a 16-round draft in which every NCAA tournament team is selected. (The two play-in participants act as one team here. And yes, NCAA, that is a play-in game.) The “Fantasy Pros” draft according to specifications set forth by this site, SportsBuff.com and Sara Holladay — best known as the FF Librarian.

“I’ve never had the chance to combine fantasy sports with March Madness, so I’m excited to see that RapidDraft has stepped up to the plate and taken it to the next level,” Holladay told FSB.com. “Everything is better with a touch of fantasy.”

Once the four fantasy squads are drafted, you score points for every victory by one of your NCAA teams. Points are awarded in a seed-times-round format — meaning a second-round win by a No. 4 seed, for example, would garner 8 points. Another 1.5 bonus points are available each time your total score for a round beats that of a Fantasy Pro team in your league, up to 4.5 bonus points per round.

“I love the unique concept that RapidDraft has come up with,” said Jim Day, an avid fantasy gamer, founder of FantasyFootballWhiz.com and host of multiple shows on BlogTalkRadio’s The Fantasy Sports Channel. “The draft is something you just don’t see on any other March madness contest and will provide another exciting way to play one of the most enjoyable and exciting tournaments in sports.”

In the end, of course, you’re really competing against all of the other human players, with 50 guaranteed cash prizes and a $2,500 grand prize. That’s not a bad return on a free entry. Consumers can draft up to twelve times each, three times per draft position.

The different format might scare off a bracket traditionalist at the start, but the system still awards you for properly projecting which higher seeds will stick around longer and grabbing a Cinderella or two. Just imagine how many points George Mason would have gotten you back in 2006, or Davidson just two years ago.

It’s a new twist with different layers of strategy for experienced bracket fillers, yet Hoops Madness is still easy enough for the beginner or casual player. At its base, this is still just a game in which you pick the teams you think will win.

As more and more people grow familiar and comfortable with fantasy games, though, it might just prove a format that catches on big-time.

“Consumers will play both,” Thomas said. “If you follow college basketball and you love the excitement of a fantasy draft, RapidDraft Hoops Madness is for you.”

Should you decide to play along, here’s a bit of unsolicited advice: Don’t wait too long to take a shot on Xavier. A top-15 team in KenPom.com’s rankings for adjusted offensive efficiency, the Musketeers have a decent-looking draw. As a 6-seed, they could score 36 Hoops Madness points by winning just three games. A No. 1 seed, by comparison, would tally just 21 by winning the title.

(Note: FantasySportsBusiness.com is owned and operated by World Fantasy Games.)

It might not be the ultimate measure of who can offer you the best fantasy advice, but with so many “experts” floating around the industry these days, it’s always interesting to see how they (or we) fare in direct competition. Share your “expert” league/contest results with us, and we just might pass them along to our readership.

These items (and others) can also be found on the FSB News page.

– What did your last victory in an “expert” league (or home league, for that matter) get you? Pride? Some online publicity? A little money? Well, Sara Holladay — better known as the FF Librarian — will be heading to the Super Bowl next month thanks to her win in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bloggers League.

– Jeff Thitoff of 411Fantasy.com has put the wraps on another season of the Experts Contest that be brought from his days with The Columbus Dispatch. The 2009 title went to Thitoff’s 411Fantasy colleague and fellow Dispatch veteran Adam Conn. Although you’ll find my name tied for second in the Week 17 rankings, you’ll have to scroll down farther in the full season edition to find me at 12th. (That’s no place to boast about, but I will at least say that I know of some prominent competitors who finished lower.) A lesser man might call shenanigans on a contest won by one of the hosts. Fortunately, I’m above that.

– The fantasy football draft that opened last June’s Fantasy Sports Trade Association summer conference filled three leagues, which were won by Fantazzle’s Ryan Parr, a RotoWorld team represented by Rick Wolf and lawyer Glenn Colton and Team RapidDraft, piloted by Yours Truly (with draft help from former colleague Caitlin Morrall). The most surprising note, however, has to be that none of the three championship squads sported Tennessee’s Chris Johnson.

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