This year Phil Steele’s 2013 College Football Preview had more than 100,000 copies in distribution. 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 magazines thru the offices at the PhilSteele.com store. The second is to patronize our advertisers.

You will notice in this year’s 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 much more 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.

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 19 years (you probably recognize their girls in bikini’s in their ads) and we have never fielded a single complaint of them ever calling someone’s house or business. They assure me that if you call 1-800-654-3448 or go to NCSports.com where you can get a free issue of their newsletter Power Sweep (including the pre-season issue) that they will not even ask for your phone number and no salesman will call.

For the last year now, I have been writing numerous articles for ESPN Insider. These articles go into further depth on my projections for the upcoming season as well as my weekly bold predictions during the season. I know many of you are already ESPN Insiders but if you are not, you can go to ESPN.com/insidercfb where you can activate your 30-day free trial of ESPN Insider Now! You can get access to ESPN’s Insider exclusive college football content including the Rumor Central, Pickcenter, Insight and Analysis from the experts and Recruiting Nation. Don’t miss out any Phil Steele “inside” information and make sure you sign-up to ESPN Insider!

Last year I was proud to be a part of the Capital One Mascot Challenge were I developed a highly “unscientific” formula to determine each week’s mascot power ratings and odds to win the overall competition in the Capital One Mascot Challenge. I calculated the mascot ratings and predictions utilizing a variety of quantitative facts – including current record, stadium size, social media presence and historical data, including number of years the mascot has been in the competition and past finishes. Mascot Meter also takes into account some unusual but nevertheless important qualitative feedback, such as input from my six- and 18-year-old daughters, my 81-year-old mom and my own eye test. The result was the first-ever Capital One Mascot Challenge Mascot Meter, a fun way to analyze the competition but which has no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the match-ups. This year’s Mascot Challenge will be revealed ob August 29th,  so make sure you check out them out on twitter or facebook.

If you go to Page 325 of this year’s magazine you will see that every Friday from 8:00-9:00 AM EST, I do a one-hour show on Sirius/XM College Sports Nation on Channel 91 with Bill King. Make sure you tune in every Friday throughout the year and the show is life and it takes your calls/questions at 1-888-573-5335! Also make sure you’re following Bill on Facebook/Twitter or by becoming a Bill King member.

Croton watches took out a big ad on page 2 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.

Another new advertiser that I’m really excited about is GamedayHousing.com which is featured on our website. Whether you need a place to stay for the big game or you want to access the most exciting rental market in the country, they’re your team! GamedayHousing is a true vacation rental brokerage. That means they actually manage every booking on our website, every day. They stand by our clients, our team, and our company and back every transaction with our Gameday Guarantee. If I didn’t work 102 hours per week during football season, I would use them.

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 17 Days Left Until the First College Football Game!