The following letter from Sporting News president Jeff Price just landed in my inbox:

Dear Valued Fantasy Games Player,

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.

The SportingNews.com fantasy staff shares and understands the disappointment that comes with this decision. We realize that the Sporting News community of fantasy players is extremely competitive and appreciate that many of our members have been asking about our fantasy baseball games and delaying their leagues, waiting for our launch. In an effort to show our appreciation to you, our loyal customer, we have partnered with CBSSports.com to allow you to create a Baseball Commissioner League, at a 50% discount, during the 2010 season. Simply click here to sign up. You must use this link to receive your discounted league, a $89.99 value.

Please be assured that this decision was not taken lightly and we truly believe this is the beginning of great things for us in the fantasy content environment. If you haven't already, we hope you will check out Fantasy Source. We will continue to provide fantasy players with the same great content and add many new and improved features.

Finally, for those of you with outstanding site credits, we are in the process of setting up a way for you to convert those into other Sporting News products or cash. We will be contacting you shortly. If you have any questions or concerns, you can reach us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Sincerely,
Jeff Price
President/Publisher

So there you have it. The Sporting News will continue to provide fantasy news and advice but will no longer run their own game. You might not realize it, as they've been overshadowed by Yahoo, ESPN and CBS in recent years, but SportingNews.com has been offering fantasy services for a long time. In fact, when I first started playing fantasy baseball and football over the Internet back at start of the 2000s, my friends and I ran our leagues through a website called Smallworld, which was then purchased and incorporated into Sporting News. We played there for a year or two before jumping to Yahoo, which had begun to develop a more advanced fantasy interface. I've been predominantly a Yahoo player ever since, but I look back fondly on those early Smallworld/Sporting News days.

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