FBG 2005 Strategy Magazine (1 Viewer)

[David Dodds]

After grinding nonstop for 2+ solid weeks, we have released our 228 page magazine to the printer. They are printing up the 87,500 copies now. Our magazine should be available in most outlets (Barnes and Noble, Borders, Waldens, Supermarkets, etc) on or around June 28th, but with only a few copies per location it might be hard to find. We are holding back approximately 2,000 copies for direct sale from the website (details in a few days) to assist people in getting copies. If this venture is successful for Footballguys, our plan is to publish 200,000 magazines in 2006.

I know I speak for Joe here that this might be our best work yet. But enough hype, I will let you be the judge:

FBG 2005 Strategy Guide

 

[Jackal]

looks real good. can't wait to get my hands on one. will they be available online at about the same time as the retail shops?

 

[radballs.]

At first glance, this looks incredible. Nice work David. I will check this out in depth. Congrats on getting it out.

 

[glock]

 

[David Dodds]

We might get ours 7-10 days earlier. Stores are suppose to release them on June 28th (Tuesday). they are suppose to ship the extras to us on June 14th. So if those dates hold, we should get them first. We will start taking preorders in a few days so that envelopes are addressed and the only thing we are waiting on is the magazines themselves.

 

[Jackal]

cool

 

[radballs.]

Price?

 

[bts4bkfst]

where is the cover from? It looks exactly like the cover of a mag I've bought in the past.

 

[David Dodds]

Price is $6.99 US, $8.99 CanadianAt 228 pages, Only Fantasy Index will have more pages (they had 252 pages last year), but with a lot more ads. Most mags are round 170 pages.

 

[sos32]

Like tha FBG is doing so well Hate the fact that owners in my league will finally get info from FBG Bring it on Of course I buying the mag!!

 

[LHUCKS]

Looking forward to it

 

[Chase Stuart]

where is the cover from? It looks exactly like the cover of a mag I've bought in the past.

Well you should be able to narrow it down pretty easily. If you look at the way he's holding the ball, you can tell the picture was taken from 2004.

 

[Couch Potato]

Joe and David,I'm happy for you (and any other internet friends who will profit from this magazine). I mean that sincerely, for you have worked very hard to achieve your level of success in this business.I can't help but have melancholy feelings, though, about the early days of footballguys.com, who once lived by the mantra that magazines were old and outdated by the time they hit the shelves and were a waste of good money, and that what made the information from FBG special was that it was current and fresh. I understand the profitability in joining 'the system,' and I suppose I would do so myself if I were you, but it still doesn't keep me from being saddened by the loss of the relative purity of your once-small business.Best of luck in your magazine sales.CPEDIT: That sounded overly negative. I didn't mean it to be. A lot of what is in the mag is not going to be affected by a month. It's just me getting old, and remembering the good old days. Ignore me.

 

[David Dodds]

Joe and David,I'm happy for you (and any other internet friends who will profit from this magazine). I mean that sincerely, for you have worked very hard to achieve your level of success in this business.I can't help but have melancholy feelings, though, about the early days of footballguys.com, who once lived by the mantra that magazines were old and outdated by the time they hit the shelves and were a waste of good money, and that what made the information from FBG special was that it was current and fresh. I understand the profitability in joining 'the system,' and I suppose I would do so myself if I were you, but it still doesn't keep me from being saddened by the loss of the relative purity of your once-small business.Best of luck in your magazine sales.CP

Bruce,Joe and I thought long and hard before deciding to do a magazine. Believe me it wasn't about money at all as we stand to make little on this project.In years past we opted to poke fun of the magazines and it really was not that hard to do:- Old outdated material.- Void of analysis- Lack of strategy focusSo in years past we hammered out our 20,000+ pages and laughed at people trying to tell you what you needed to know in 160 pages (of which 20 were ads). We could have continued down that path forever. Despite all the new magazines that get released each year, it is our opinion that none are creating a magazine to help you win your league. They follow the same blueprint: rankings, cheatsheets, 2 articles, rookies, sleepers, position reviews, old stats.But the vast majority of us buy these magazines and jumpstart our brains to get ready for football season. Printed materials have their place. I can't imagine lugging my computer in my restroom with me. I know I love reading a magazine while eating lunch or lounging by the pool, etc. So we could continue to rebel or we could create the magazine that we think fantasy football players want. One that talks a lot about strategy and how to win. One that makes you think. One where you reread an article 4 times to make sure you understand all that was covered. One that improves your fantasy football knowledge. We named our magazine "Strategy Guide" because that is what it is. It's a roadmap to winning.We didn't follow the blueprint and copy every other magazine's features because frankly we are not that impressed with what is out there. Most magazines are created by people that just do magazines. We live football around the clock on our message boards. We play the game to win. And as important as news is, we also know many aspects of this game have little to do with the actual players. Why did we make this magazine? Simply to get the word out about Footballguys.com. Surprisingly a few of you people don't spread the word about what we are doing. It's your edge. Joe and I understand that. But understand that with more subscribers, we have been able to do bigger and better things every year. It is these extra subscribers that gave us the money to create the Draft Dominator, pay for the News Blogger reporting, keep the message board free, add a subscriber contest, etc. So when we decided to make a magazine, we opted to do it right utilizing all of the talent our staff has to offer. And although I am very proud of our first effort, I expect us to really make waves next year when we increase our distribution to 200,000 while printing a 300 page magazine.Footballguys.com goals remain the same. Create an environment that improves people's chances of winning their fantasy football leagues.

 

[Couch Potato]

Thank you for that, David. The clarification was a good thing. My prejudice against FF mags in general was unfair to you, for I had not bothered to check out your content before posting. I said in my edit (20 minutes befoe your post), "EDIT: That sounded overly negative. I didn't mean it to be. A lot of what is in the mag is not going to be affected by a month. It's just me getting old, and remembering the good old days. Ignore me."But thanks for not ignoring me, and instead setting things straight. Some of the content in your post would make a good preface to the magazine. Take Care.Bruce

 

[Couch Potato]

Magazine cover says: STEAL OF THE DRAFT. Tiki Barber was the steal in 2004. Who will it be this season? Find out on page 131.Please tell me I won't find SOD Onterrio Smith on page 131, or you guys are doomed. So who's gonna be on page 131? My guess - gotta be Donald Driver.

 

[toastedgnome]

this looks ####### incredible! I will be purchasing this for sure. Great job as usual!

 

[tommyGunZ]

We might get ours 7-10 days earlier. Stores are suppose to release them on June 28th (Tuesday). they are suppose to ship the extras to us on June 14th. So if those dates hold, we should get them first. We will start taking preorders in a few days so that envelopes are addressed and the only thing we are waiting on is the magazines themselves.

sweet. i'm sure my fiancee will be stoked to find out that i'll have an FBG mag for the honeymoon in early July. not surprised to see you and Joe "stepping up". kudos Dave, this will be a big success.

 

[Joe Bryant]

not surprised to see you and Joe "stepping up". kudos Dave, this will be a big success.

Thanks TG,We gave it our best shot. Now we'll just see how it does on the newstands. Thanks.

J

 

[Uruk-Hai]

Joe or David: just out of curiosity, how did you come up with the 87,500 first printing? Is that pretty standard for the other major mags? Or did you go by the number of radio shows Jason Wood will be on this year ?

 

[noneother]

any hopes of making it downloadable?? will it be provided to FBG subscribers at a disctount? Or will the same material be on the site?either way, love what you guys did here, by far the best Fantasy and NON fantasy FOOTBALL and NON football site. Next you guys need to be a formal "PORTAL" look out google!!

 

[Preds]

Looks good, I'm looking forward to reading it.I'll probably buy it straight from the site though, so I'll keep my eye out for the updated link!

 

[David Dodds]

Joe or David: just out of curiosity, how did you come up with the 87,500 first printing? Is that pretty standard for the other major mags? Or did you go by the number of radio shows Jason Wood will be on this year  ?

When we had to make this decision, we had no cash flow coming in and had no idea how many of these we could sell. You have to pay for the printing of the magazines upfront. We had the option of doing 85,000 or 133,000 and we decided to go with the lower figure our first year. We then bought 2,500 for ourselves (of which we will sell 2,000+ on the site. We will keep the others internally and to use to solicit ads next year).Fantasy Football Index and Pro Forecast have distributions at 400,000+ (and they sell roughly half those). Most of the other magazines are around 150,000. Our goal is to have a distribution of 200,000 next year (if this is successful). Most of these magazines make the majority of their profits selling ads. They all have gambling ads which makes up close to 40% of their ad sales. Our magazine has only 9 industry ads (besides our own) with no gambling ads (just the way we wanted to approach it) so it remains to be seen whether it will be profitable for us. This was another reason to keep the distribution costs down in our first year. We need to establish the demand for it.

 

[LHUCKS]

Fantasy Football Index and Pro Forecast have distributions at 400,000+ (and they sell roughly half those).

Is that typical of most annual magazines? Or just all magazines in general?

 

[Skeet Skeet]

looks good, nice work fellas. I'll be purchasing one as well...maybe all of them so my opponents cant get their hands on it

 

[Steve in Minneapolis]

Great work guys... I look forward to seeing the content. I definitely appreciate the strategy you took for your cover art. FBG was built around the cheatsheets and VBD. It makes waaaay too much sense to put a value pick on your cover. Well done.I know I will be supporting you guys, and I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor!Congrats!Steve

 

[Davej626]

Looks great guys. You do have some work to do before August though:

August

Yea, I saw that..

 

[JaxBill]

but with only a few copies per location it might be hard to find.

That's a relief. I wouldn't want 11 other copies finding their way into our league.

 

[Repressed Dennis]

This looks very excellent, and will probably do well. I have only one complaint, however:

I suspect "FBG magazine is chalk full of rankings, cheatsheets..."

should be "FBG magazine is chock full of rankings, cheatsheets..."

But grammar aside, this should be a superior product. Congrats!

 

[BigTex]

looks good, nice work fellas. I'll be purchasing one as well...maybe all of them so my opponents cant get their hands on it

My thoughts exactly, my worst nightmare is coming true. Oh well, I guess it would be selfish of me to think that I could keep you to myself, it looks good. I'm not a big mag fan, but I too will purchase one.

 

[Jason Wood]

looks good, nice work fellas. I'll be purchasing one as well...maybe all of them so my opponents cant get their hands on it

My thoughts exactly, my worst nightmare is coming true. Oh well, I guess it would be selfish of me to think that I could keep you to myself, it looks good. I'm not a big mag fan, but I too will purchase one.

There are few things worse than walking into your big money league and seeing every one of your leaguemates with your rankings printed out in front of them. But it's a small price to pay to be a part of this entity.

 

[Iwannabeacowboybaby!]

Magazine cover says: STEAL OF THE DRAFT. Tiki Barber was the steal in 2004. Who will it be this season? Find out on page 131.

Please tell me I won't find SOD Onterrio Smith on page 131, or you guys are doomed.

So who's gonna be on page 131? My guess - gotta be Donald Driver.

Julius Jones

 

[CommuterMan]

The magazine looks great... but with any of the publications, here we are not even into June, mini-camps are still in progress, training camp is two months away and any information that will be in the magazine will be "stale" by the time it hits the stands. No disrespect Joe and David, but this is why I have been coming to your website for years and have given up on the magazines on the news stands. When I go into my drafts I want the latest and best info, and publications based on today's info is not going to help me.Tell me there will be info in the magazine that I will not find on your website and I may take a peak. But for now I remain a loyal customer of the website and avid reader of the infomation that gets posted here daily.

 

[Joe Bryant]

The magazine looks great... but with any of the publications, here we are not even into June, mini-camps are still in progress, training camp is two months away and any information that will be in the magazine will be "stale" by the time it hits the stands.

No disrespect Joe and David, but this is why I have been coming to your website for years and have given up on the magazines on the news stands. When I go into my drafts I want the latest and best info, and publications based on today's info is not going to help me.

Tell me there will be info in the magazine that I will not find on your website and I may take a peak. But for now I remain a loyal customer of the website and avid reader of the infomation that gets posted here daily.

Thanks CM.No disrespect taken at all, don't worry. The magazines will always struggle with the time frame. I wrote in my closing editorial that I felt like I was writing for a time capsule. Kellen Winslow and Onterrio's Whizzinator are hot stories today but will be ancient history by the time the reader actually sees the mag. So it's tough. But there are other things that are more timeless.

And yes, there will definitely be things in the mag that don't make their way to the website until later. It's tempting to make a magazine that is just a printed copy of the website but that's not very helpful. It's designed to work in conjunction with the website.

And I realize full well that it's not for everyone. The website will always be the "last word" with the latest info. It's just sometimes hard to take the laptop into the bathroom...

Thanks.

J

 

[CommuterMan]

And I realize full well that it's not for everyone. The website will always be the "last word" with the latest info. It's just sometimes hard to take the laptop into the bathroom...

Thanks.

J

Hey Joe, you guys to a bang-up job all year round. I appreciate your comments and I can relate to the time constraints that you are dealing with. Keep up the great work.

As for bathroom breaks... who has time for those from August till January?!?!?

 

[pigskinliquors]

Magazine cover says: STEAL OF THE DRAFT. Tiki Barber was the steal in 2004. Who will it be this season? Find out on page 131.

Please tell me I won't find SOD Onterrio Smith on page 131, or you guys are doomed.

So who's gonna be on page 131? My guess - gotta be Donald Driver.

Julius Jones

Rudi Johnson

 

[Davej626]

And I realize full well that it's not for everyone. The website will always be the "last word" with the latest info. It's just sometimes hard to take the laptop into the bathroom...

Thanks.

J

Ha! Maybe for you!:treo:

 

[Joe Bryant]

And I realize full well that it's not for everyone. The website will always be the "last word" with the latest info. It's just sometimes hard to take the laptop into the bathroom...

Thanks.

J

Ha! Maybe for you!:treo:

LOL Dave.600 or 650? Been thinking of trading in the LG phone and the Tungsten for one.

J

 

[tietzjd]

And I realize full well that it's not for everyone. The website will always be the "last word" with the latest info. It's just sometimes hard to take the laptop into the bathroom...

Thanks.

J

Ha! Maybe for you!:treo:

LOL Dave.600 or 650? Been thinking of trading in the LG phone and the Tungsten for one.

J

Joe the major difference between the 600 and 650 is the 650 has Superior screen resolution. But I do my Treo 600 I trade it in for 650 any day.SIde note Already forgot. With Website subscription you get the mag or is extra? It's been very busy spring so I going to be leaning on FBG lot more this year.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

This sucks. Half my league is going to buy this. They're all going to know HERD's rankings of the rookie QBs.

 

[Al Czervik]

Looks like a well put together magazine. Like many others, I am not much of a FF magazine purchaser due to the outdated info. Any chance some of the material would be posted for footballguys.com subscribers (i.e. the interviews)?

 

[ko-jack]

wow looks great.cant wait to read it at borders

 

[bts4bkfst]

where is the cover from? It looks exactly like the cover of a mag I've bought in the past.

Well you should be able to narrow it down pretty easily. If you look at the way he's holding the ball, you can tell the picture was taken from 2004.

Indeed it is! I was talking about the format for the cover though. I've figured it out now It's the EXACT same format as fantasy football index. You fella's shoulda had a contest to create the cover. I think there are some pretty talented people here that coulda helped you out.

 

[Joe Bryant]

You fella's shoulda had a contest to create the cover. I think there are some pretty talented people here that coulda helped you out.

Thanks bts. Actually I did have the help of some of the talented people here in throwing ideas out. The one thing that drove this cover for me was having a BIG image. My main problem with the Manning cover wasn't so much Manning as it was the image was too small because our logo went across the page.Walking through the bookstore, I saw a GQ magazine and saw what I needed to do. Make the logo all to the upper left. FHM does the same thing. That let me go all the way to the top of the page. Looking around, others do that as well. (Index is certainly one)

The other components are pretty standard fare. Every mag has a corner tab hyping something. Most all have the cover blurbs down the left side.

What it really boils down to is the image (I think that's a fantastic photo of Barber), colors (I was happy with the green of the field and the color on Barber's uniform and how we worked them into our colors) and the message (I think we did exactly what I wanted here featuring a guy you likely won't see on the other mags) So bottom line, I feel pretty good about it. Thanks for the good words.

J

 

[bostonfred]

I like the Tiki cover. A lot of people who drafted him last year will like the cover, and it will certainly get people's attention better than a picture of one of the consensus top picks. I also like the article selection. Strategy articles are a big differentiator. Can't wait to see what you've done with the rest of it.

 

[CapGuru]

With such a limited run, I'll be buying up all I can find locally and redistributing to other states...just to keep them out of the hands of Shark wannabees lest they actually implement some of the advice.

 

[Joe Bryant]

I like the Tiki cover. A lot of people who drafted him last year will like the cover, and it will certainly get people's attention better than a picture of one of the consensus top picks.

I also like the article selection. Strategy articles are a big differentiator. Can't wait to see what you've done with the rest of it.

Thanks Fred.You'll get a kick out of this. For about 5 days in March, I seriously toyed with the idea of putting a full cover shot of Belichick on there. That would have been different. They talked me down from it but I thought it would have been cool.

J

 

[Davej626]

And I realize full well that it's not for everyone. The website will always be the "last word" with the latest info. It's just sometimes hard to take the laptop into the bathroom...

Thanks.

J

Ha! Maybe for you!:treo:

LOL Dave.600 or 650? Been thinking of trading in the LG phone and the Tungsten for one.

J

600, for now. I'll skip the 650 and wait for the 700s next year. Better screen isn't enough value for me right now.

 

[David Yudkin]

I like the Tiki cover. A lot of people who drafted him last year will like the cover, and it will certainly get people's attention better than a picture of one of the consensus top picks.

I voted for a picture of two scantily clad women sandwiched between theWCOFF winner holding a check for however many thousands of dollars, but that never got off the ground.In reality, I pushed hard to have someone atypical on the cover, so I guess that was my input to the cover . . .

 

[Uncle Randy]

Looks great, guys! I think the only thing you need to do (for us FBG Diehards) is create an off the wall cover with Black Eyed Joe as the title, with some obscure player that none of us will draft on it so we can place it over the top!I'd pay extra for that!