In a press release, SportsJudge.com, a fantasy sports arbitration and dispute service, will be serving as the official dispute resolution service for iRoto.com members. iRoto.com is a social network that is focused on fans of fantasy sports.

I think it’s definitely an interesting development and further evidence of the fantasy sports industry maturing, but I’m not aware of instances where I’ve needed to use an arbitrator or mediator in resolving any dispute of a fantasy league nature. Typically, it is up to a league and its’ commissioner to develop and agree on a set of rules, some of which are decided by the league, some of which are decided by the service (e.g. Yahoo!). Typically, league owners vote or the decision rests with the Commissioner on disputes regarding trades, waiver wire moves, etc.

In a vast majority of disputes, I would suspect that resolution can be handled at the league or service level. In the rare instances where you need to take it to the “Supreme Court” it could be useful to have some sort of “official” arbiter. It would be interesting to see a study on how often leagues need to use a service like this, but this development bears watching.