We overlooked in mid-February the announcement of Greg Ambrosius’ deals taking control of the National Fantasy Championships from Liberty and partnering up with STATS. It seemed mostly formality for a deal that Ambrosius had already announced at the end of January.

Thanks to a post by Scott Atkins on the Fantasy Players Association website and a Sports Business Journal story from Feb. 21, though, there are some more interesting tidbits worth passing along. Chief among the info is STATS’ apparent plan to make this a mere first step in getting back to consumer fantasy gaming.

STATS executive vice president Steve Byrd told SBJ: “This is a very fertile market and obviously one where we have history, are comfortable with and know well. We don’t have any intention to get into the free, ad-supported space. That’s obviously very well staked out by ESPN, Yahoo! and others, many of which are our clients. But the pay side continues to show strong growth, and we think there’s a way for us to achieve scale there.”

As the report pointed out, STATS played a significant role in consumer fantasy games in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It also provided the back-end support for the NFFC and NFBC before Fanball acquired the events in 2009.

With its majority stake in the NFC, STATS has added Ambrosius to its staff as general manager of consumer fantasy games. Tom Kessenich also joins the company’s ranks as manager of high-stakes fantasy games. The NFC sites have also been switched over.

No specifics have yet been announced about further fantasy plans, but Byrd did tell SBJ that “there’s potentially interest in other assets” remaining at Liberty from the pending Fanball closure.

One of the key questions coming out of last month’s Fanball news was what would happen to the NFBC and NFFC going forward. Founder Greg Ambrosius answered that earlier this week site message boards.

The National Fantasy Baseball Championship — along with its football twin — has buddied back up with STATS, which provided technology services for the events before Fanball acquired the contests for the 2010 seasons.

Here’s what Ambrosius had to say in his Monday evening announcement:

“We’re proud to announce that STATS Inc will return as the back-end provider for this contest in 2011 and beyond. STATS ran the back-end software for the NFBC and NFFC from 2004-2009 and is the perfect partner for this contest going forward. More details will come shortly, but we wanted everyone to know this as soon as possible.

“STATS created many of the features that NFBC owners enjoyed in the past, such as an easy-to-use Conditional Bid setup, Live Standings for your league and overall standings that updated your position in real-time data, and a reliable FAAB process.

“We are VERY excited to be working with STATS Inc again and we have every confidence in the world that 2011 will be a smooth ride for our customers. The back-end software is being dusted off as we speak and it’s been tried and tested before. We believe 2011 will be a great season and we have plans for technological enhancements in the near future as well.”

Further details on the events can be gleaned from the message-board threads. Ambrosius said further announcements will follow but that the new NFBC site will include its own draft-room software that will be provided by STATS.

We’ll share any further details that become available to us.

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

- MLB Advanced Media announced this week a deal with STATS that makes the latter the “official real-time data licensor” for MLBAM statistics and information. It’s a multi-year deal that extends to baseball’s minor leagues. It can be tough to really understand just what this kind of deal means, but federal courts have told us in recent years that stats exist in the public domain. Ultimately, then, such a distribution agreement would seem to cover only the “official” MLB stats. Anyone attending or watching a game, though, can compile the same numbers.

- Recent FSB.com profile subject got a writeup from The Wall Street Journal’s Nando Di Fino this week, in which he suggested that American fantasy-game providers could learn from the site’s graphical model.

- As part of its in-season Weekly Lineup Challenge, FantasyFootballStarters.com has donated $1,000 to NFL-sposored charity Play It Smart on behalf of winner Alan LaFollette.

- Socaltech.com reports that NASCAR.com has contracted with Rotohog to produce a stock-market style game for this season.

- This AP story purports to be about rising female participation in fantasy, but it’s actually just a fun read about a few women who like to challenge the men in their leagues and their lives. (Let’s just hope that the Kansas University alum who fancies former Jayhawks for her fantasy hoops team has at least tended to get Paul Pierce.)

- If you can lead the field in “stable earnings” through April 17 in this new fantasy horse-racing game, you can win a trip to this year’s Kentucky Derby.

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Most football fans would be happy enough just to see their favorite football team garner a No. 2 seed in the NFL playoffs. Tom Yates of Pittsburgh ended the season with that and $100,000.

Yates took home the top prize in the main event of the National Fantasy Football Championship, edging his closest competitor by fewer than three points. In yet another example of just how close these things can be, one more touchdown pass from Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers in Chicago’s Week 16 Monday night victory — the final NFL game on most fantasy schedules — likely would have vaulted the third-place Riverdog team of Todd Ullman to the championship mantle.

According to NFFC founder Greg Ambrosius, Yates is a high stakes veteran who previously competed in the World Championship of Fantasy Football before joining the NFFC in 2007.

The NFFC is put on by Krause Publications and supported by STATS. The contest expanded via a partnership with NBC Sports that began this season.