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).

SportingNews.com sent out an e-mail to its users Friday evening to announce that the site will no longer offer fantasy games.

Per the message, which was signed by president/publisher Jeff Price:

“Due to a shift in our core business strategy, SportingNews.com will no longer offer new fantasy games going forward (excluding Strat-O-Matic). The fantasy industry is changing, and we feel it’s best to devote our resources to providing the best fantasy content and advice on the internet, and beyond. We believe SportingNews.com’s fantasy content, tools and advice are already best in class, and over the next few months, we will completely redesign the Fantasy Source section of our site to deliver a new and improved user experience. With this shift in strategy, we will dedicate our entire fantasy staff to building Fantasy Source into the number one destination for fantasy information, accessible via internet, mobile devices, and other new technologies.”

This shift in strategy, of course, comes less than a year after Sporting News announced a multi-sport deal with RotoHog to run its fantasy games. That relationship opened with the 2009 fantasy football season, in which the primary Draft and Trade game struggled mightily.

This decision to change direction in advance of even the first baseball season after the announced deal makes it seem as though any issues in the SN-RotoHog relationship and/or the games platform could not be worked out.

For it’s part, SN.com has partnered with CBS Sports to offer half-priced baseball commissioner leagues on CBS’ site to SN.com users who have been awaiting 2010 launch.

Sporting News has long been a particularly trustworthy source of content both in print and online, and it’s innovation with the e-mailed Sporting News Today newsletter showed that the company is constantly looking for ways to adapt to a changing media climate. We’ll see what impact the absence of fantasy games (and their stream of revenue) will have.

FSB.com will pass along any more pieces of this story as we’re made aware.

A roundup of recent posts on the FSB News page.

– NFL.com general manager Laura Goldberg will be at the Nov. 12 NewTeeVee Live conference to talk the big business of fantasy football.

– Forbes.com recently posted a video in which national editor Michael Ozanion chats with Fantasy Sports Ventures founder Chris Russo about his company and the fantasy industry. Speaking of FSV, the company made its first actual investment in gaming in late September, when it purchased 25 games from RealTime Fantasy Sports. FSV also recently added Orangecast Social Media to its lineup.

– NovaFantasySports.com recently announced a content agreement that will place its NFL news on PlayerPress.com’s homepage.

– The Hartford Courant’s website now features the Game Forecast service provided by Accuscore.

– We may not even be to the World Series yet this year, but Sporting News already wants to know what will be on your mind for the 2010 baseball season. The staff is soliciting questions from readers for the next yearbook, offering a free copy for any query that makes it into print.

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

About a month ago or so, I did a football draft over at SportingNews.com with the fantasy staff there and had a pretty bad experience.

Multiple participants (including me, for most of the draft) couldn’t see by the draft window when it was their turn to pick, multiple service interruptions made the 12-team effort take somewhere in the neighborhood of three hours.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone.

In the early morning hours Thursday, SN.com sent out a message to all fantasy users about the issues with its Draft & Trade Football commissioner game. Here’s the opening paragraph:

As many of you are aware, Sporting News embarked on a massive rebuild of its fantasy games platform a few months ago in an effort to add more features and offer an updated environment. Part of that strategy was to have Sporting News management and personnel work with RotoHog, one of the country’s leading games developers. Despite the best efforts of both parties, the Sporting News Fantasy Football games have been inaccessible or unstable for more days than we feel is acceptable. The latest problem followed what appeared to be a deliberate attempt by someone to undermine the game platform.

The message went on to say that new sign-ups have been frozen until further notice — which could all but seal the customer base for the season-long game now that we’re at the dawn of the NFL regular season — and that those who have paid for teams and leagues will be refunded. Players at the prize-eligible “platinum” level will remain eligible for those prizes.

Salary-cap games Ultimate Fantasy Football and Fantasy Football Challenge appear to be unaffected by the issues with Draft & Trade.

For what it’s worth, I was able to set my lineup Thursday morning without issues for that team from the aforementioned draft.