This year when you add up the national Phil Steele’s College Football Preview, the FCS Preview and the NFL magazine we are closing in on printing close to a million magazines. Now when you factor in the actual printing cost, shipping and distribution of the magazine and my staff of roughly 25 people, the cost becomes exorbitant. My employee’s work on nothing but football year round and I would like to thank them for the massive amount of man hours it takes to produce these in depth and meaty magazines.

To do all the research that we do and print all the magazines, the costs continue to climb. This year you will notice we have expanded our advertising in the magazine and are pleased to have our new advertisers but are still happy to have fewer ads than the competitors. These advertisers are crucial for me to keep expanding the amount of information that we produce every year. There are two things you can do to keep us putting out more and more information. The first is to buy the magazine at the newsstands or ideally buy the entire set of magazines thru the offices and get them sent to you priority mail for just $36.75. The second is to patronize our advertisers.

You will notice in this years magazine that we have added some new advertisers. For years my entire staff has been devoted to football and football only. We do not have a separate sales staff that is just here to find advertising. I believe most other major magazines have those type of staffs. For years I have wondered why any major advertiser would advertise in one of the competitors and not my magazine. Let’s face the facts. When you purchase one of the competitors magazines, you buy it, do a quick read thru and it finds itself on the bookshelf and unread after that. Their magazines maybe get opened 3 to 5 times during the year. My magazine is used almost daily during football and I can tell from everyone’s comments that it is used from the summer thru September, October, November, December and even into January and the next spring! I would estimate the average buyer of my national magazine opens it up during the year somewhere between 500 and 1000 times giving the advertiser greater exposure. I know this is true and if you buy the magazine you probably realize this as well.

Now advertisers like to track how successful their ads are and I feel they will all be pleasantly surprised. This could be a key to much greater football coverage in the future as the advertisers grow and pay more of the bills. Each of the advertisers has a way to track folks that have heard of them thru my magazine. Let me quickly give you some of those advertisers and how you can identify yourself as a Phil Steele Publications reader.

If you check out page 323 of this years magazine, there is a picture of me watching the games on Saturday on Direct TV. Naturally if you want to watch as much college football as I do I feel it is the way to go. They also have the NFL package which allows you to watch EVERY NFL game. That is what I do on Sundays. I personally have been using Direct TV for over a decade. If you are thinking of getting Direct TV for your football setup at home call them at 1-888-383-9941. There is no equipment to buy and no start up costs. For a limited time you can also get over 150 channels for just $29.99 a month! When you call 1-888-383-9941 they know you saw their ad in my magazine and maybe they will place bigger ads in next year’s magazine.

Croton watches took out a big ad on the inside front cover this year. You should check out their huge selection of quality, precision watches at crotonwatch.com. I am not sure how we get credit for your visit but make sure you let them know where you heard of them from.

As men, we all know that our girlfriends, wives, and mothers love flowers. I like to use ProFlowers where you can get several bouquets for any occasion whether it be anniversary, birthday or just because starting at just $19.99. You can save an extra 20% off already reduced prices on other bouquets and the offer is only available at proflowers.com/winning or call 1-888-451-5227.

A new advertiser this year in the magazine is GameFly.com. While I do not personally play video games myself, I know millions of people do across the country and there are several great football games. Right now you can get video game rentals delivered to your door with free shipping and no late fees. They have all the new releases and classic games for XBOX 360, Playstation 3 and Wii. You can cancel at anytime and right now they are offering for new members only an extended free trial. All you have to do is go to www.gamefly.com/print and enter the code: NEWS61.

Another new advertiser that I’m really excited about is FansAuction.com which is featured on our website. This is a penny auction site where you can find great NCAA Fan Gear and Tickets for under $5! I don’t know anyone who would not mind going to sporting events and getting gear for their favorite team for such a low price. Make sure you check out them out today and put your bids in!

Finally, most of the other magazines have ads for sports services in their magazines. A major concern I have about using sports services (they provide their selections on games concerning the Las Vegas line) is that there are a lot of high pressure services out there with slick salesmen that get your phone number and harass you at all hours until you sign up. Northcoast Sports has been an advertiser in the magazine for 15 years (you probably recognize their girls in bikini’s in their ads) and we have never had a single complaint of them ever calling someone’s house or business. They assure me that if you call 1-800-654-3448 and get 3 free issues of their newsletter Power Sweep (including the pre-season issue which is coming out very soon) that they will not even ask for your phone number and no salesman will call.

If you have already purchased this year’s magazine make sure to check out the ads and remember by patronizing the advertisers you can ensure us putting out more and more information in the future. Thanks!!!!

Only 40 Days Until the First College Football Game!!!