When SportingNews.com announced back in March that it was doing away with hosting fantasy games, the plan was to refocus the site to really center on content. In the middle of that focus is the new Fantasy Source platform.

Fantasy Source has long been the subscription area for fantasy sports content (primarily football and baseball) at SportingNews.com, but the recent relaunch involved changing the interface to greatly enhance customization.

Upon arrival, a registered subscriber ($40 for the year) now faces a page that looks like a clipboard of widgets, which it basically is. You control which content buckets appear on the page — choosing among items such as player rankings, player news (centered on your selected players) and stat projections — and dragging each box to your preferred spot.

Much of the content is also customizable, from controlling which players you track to inputting your own scoring settings to cater rankings and projections to your league. (An example of the extent of the scoring flexibility: You can choose among 49 categories for kicker scoring alone.)

“The emphasis on customization and personalization of information is what makes this product unique,” Geoff Shaw, Sporting News’ VP of digital media, said in the press release. “With personally relevant and tailored tools, analysis and stats, we deliver our users a valuable and engaging experience and deliver our advertisers a valuable and highly-engaged audience.”

The platform also allows for importing rosters from leagues hosted elsewhere, which will automatically tailor features to fit that player group. The site currently only supports imports from Yahoo!, though. Although Yahoo! hosts more leagues than anyone else, that will need to be expanded to better serve subscribers.

Shaw told FSB.com that SN is negotiating with other major operators to increase that lineup and that his team has pre-loaded the default scoring settings from top hosts such as Yahoo! and CBS Sports to make it easier for users to customize stats and rankings.

“By tweaking league settings, all stats related tools reorganize to fit the scoring system, meaning point-per-reception leagues will have a different top-200 than a standard yardage-only league,” Shaw said.

For the new focus to work overall, it was likely necessary for Sporting News to build out its Fantasy Source site and deliver something different. The fantasy content landscape has become densely populated, with outlets all over the place touting free fantasy football advice and analysis (and the same goes for other sports). In addition, the big league-hosting sites all have their own methods of delivering player news and other fantasy content.

Sporting News has long been a valued source for general sports content as well as fantasy-specific material and has made interesting moves in other areas in recent years — such as cutting its magazine back to bi-weekly issues and launching Sporting News Today, the daily “e-paper” that has since gone pay — to navigate a changing media landscape. It’ll be interesting, again, to see how consumers respond to the new Fantasy Source.

A recent headline from the Washington Post website seems a bit misleading: “Despite magazine industry downturn, NFL, college football and fantasy football previews are thriving.”

The article opens by seeming to offer the proliferation in number of fantasy (and non-fantasy) football preview magazines as evidence of that thriving market. That, though, was followed by the truly good news: that second quarter 2010 presented the first time in nine quarters that the magazine industry saw gains in total pages and advertising revenue.

That, of course, followed big losses the previous two years — including the folding of more than 36 publications.

Specific to the football arena, Fantasy Football Index reportedly saw circulation drop 9 percent from 2008 to 2009 (24 percent from 2007 to 2009).

On the other hand, Lindy’s reportedly has seen gains in sales of its NFL preview magazine, and the article passes along word from Sporting News that its annuals still turn a profit.

So which is it? Are things bleak for magazine producers or is this a solid market segment whose target audience is so devoted to the games — or too lazy to compile its own draft lists — that the support will continue on? At best, the truth sure seems to lie somewhere between “thriving” and dying.

Last summer, Nando Di Fino wrote up this report in The Wall Street Journal in which RotoWire’s Chris Liss concedes that his company’s fantasy football preview magazine probably would not turn a profit and that it wasn’t really expected to. More than a moneymaker, the magazine serves as a big shiny ad — positioning the RotoWire name in front of potential customers and providing a strong business front for potential partners.

That report relayed the anecdote of CBS Sports doing away with its print preview mag in favor of an electronic version — not something you do with a profitable product — and Sporting News reporting a 19 percent dip in fantasy football yearbook sales from 2007 to 2008.

We’re sure there are some print publications that continue to make money, and as Lindy Davis pointed out in the Washington Post story, there are factors that make it easier for sports annuals to survive.

“A lot of magazines have been giving their product away for years to get the ad dollars,” the Lindy’s publisher told the Post. “Twelve issues for 12 bucks, and we’re charging eight bucks for one. So we’re charging top dollar, that’s one thing. And there’s just an incredible passion for sports in America. Good economy, bad economy, it doesn’t affect it. And sports can sometimes be a refuge in bad times.”

The slashes in print ad spending and saturation of the market makes it a tough time to make your money with a magazine, though, even one that caters to the devoted fantasy audience.

FSB.com would love to hear some facts from any of our readers who are still plugging away on the print side, so contact us at matt.schauf@worldfantasygames.com to share.

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

– Apparently frustrated Android-owning fantasy football players will finally get their wish when Yahoo! introduces a team-management app for the line of smart phones in time for this season.

– Footballguys.com has partnered with FantasyFootballCalculator.com to attach its Rate My Team application to FF Calculator mock drafts.

– SportingNews.com has rolled out a redesigned site for its Fantasy Source subscription area.

– One always has to take message-board threads with at least a dash of salt, but this is an interesting discussion from the Rotoworld boards about player opinions of fantasy basketball “experts.” There are some fantasy analysts in various sports who take their words as gospel, so it’s good to get a dose from time to time of some thoughts within the target audience.

– SportsBusinessSims.com, supports and markets platforms that allow students (think college) to try their hand at making business decisions for sports entities. This promotional video leads off with the proposal of making the XFL work (if “He Hate Me” couldn’t do it, I don’t know …) and the “flagship” product centered on the Oakland Athletics.

– The SUPERDRAFT Vegas fantasy football event has announced that it will include a performance by Snoop Dogg. No word on whether the Pop Warner football coach will also drop some knowledge (or is that knizz-owledge?).

– ESPN the company will reportedly work more closely with ESPN The Magazine going forward, a move that includes moving much of the staff from New York City to Bristol.

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.

– New Sporting News publisher Jeff Price spoke earlier this month about his decision to dump fantasy games and focus on content. The story also mentions, however, a plan to bring games back to SN, perhaps as early as this football season — likely something that incorporates social media.

– OPEN Sports is going after a third round of venture-capital funding, according to Sports Business Journal, after two initial rounds that tallied $14 million in backing.

– USA Today fantasy writer Steve Gardner says that fantasy owners who think they’re smart should try simulation games that put them in complete control.

– A partnership with the MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour will mean a $1,000 grand prize at the end of the season for the winner of the Fantasy Action Sports League game, which is free to enter.

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