Is the the beginning of a new trend for athletic media relations staffs?
Later this month, fans of the University of Central Florida will be able to receive a new subscription-based magazine - Knights Insider 2010 UCF College Football Preview - a full color, 56-page magazine that covers the UCF football program on and off the field.
What makes this publication unique is that is was full developed, designed, written and produced by the UCF Athletic Communications staff. Why the idea? With all the new Division I media guide legislation, 208-page printed guides are becoming less relevant as schools are moving their content online, and there was a big desire to create a subscription fan magazine to cover the UCF athletic program in depth.
The football issue is the first of six that UCF Athletic Communications plan to produce for 2010-11. Read below for more on this idea about a slick, staff-produced magazine. It is a true in-house effort with the exception of printing.
see release online:
Special UCF Football Edition of Knights Insider Magazine On Sale Now
Advanced copies of this exclusive edition can be purchased through
UCFAthletics.com.
Later this month, fans of the University of Central Florida will be able to receive a new subscription-based magazine -
Knights Insider 2010 UCF College Football Preview - a full color, 56-page magazine that covers the UCF football program on and off the field.
What makes this publication unique is that is was full developed, designed, written and produced by the UCF Athletic Communications staff - a project which began with planning in February. In addition, articles and commentary were provided by local UCF media personalities,
Knights Insider writer John Denton and “Voice of the Knights” Marc Daniels.
Why the idea? With all the new Division I media guide legislation, the 208-page printed guides are becoming less relevant as schools are moving their content online, and there was a big desire to create a subscription fan magazine to cover the UCF athletic program in depth.
“UCF Athletics is certainly excited about this new publication,” said Joe Hornstein, Associate Director of Athletics for Communications. “For too many schools, preseason college football magazines just don’t cover our individual programs as in-depth as we would like to see. We understand that the amount of coverage in these magazines could depend on your preseason ranking, or which conference you belong to, but that isn’t a good answer any longer now that we have the savvy to build our own model.
“With the recent NCAA legislation regarding the new do’s and dont's with media guides, it became apparent that printing our historical 208-page book was no longer going to happen. Historically, our donors and season ticket holders had purchased these annually, aside from distributing to the media. We did not want to leave a void in that intimate connection we had built with our core fanbase through our football publication.”
The entire UCF Athletics Communications staff of 12 (including full-timers and students) had a hand in the project. They began the effort with a February brainstorming meeting which focused on what they wanted to do in 2010-11 as it related to media guide evolution. The staff knew the way the NCAA legislation was going that printed media guides would become even less relevant.
"We also wanted to expand on our
Knights Insider media coverage model and the creation a subscription fan magazine was our next step," noted Hornstein. "This college football preview will be our second magazine, with another six more slated throughout the academic year.”
UCF assistant director, Sarah Tarasewicz, began the design and layout in May and throughout June. The UCF staff began the editorial work in June with story assignments and a deadline of July 1, leaving two weeks of proofreading. The magazines only take about a week to print, and the plan was for UCF to have the magazines printed and ready for delivery by this week (the third week of July).
“Obviously, with the change in media guide legislation, it freed up the resources to forge a new innovative direction with our football print section. In my 20 years of athletic PR/communications, I have never seen a school produce their OWN college football preview magazineI cannot fully qualify this, but this may be the first time an SID office has done this magazine production themselves."
"I’m interested to hear from other schools, particularly from other divisions, and gauge the interest of this effort. Perhaps others are beginning their own planning to move in this direction. "I’ve seen books on FSU, Texas, Florida and such, but they are usually done by some outside entity."
The
Knights Insider magazine is a reasonably-priced publication which will be produced by the UCF Athletics Communications staff throughout the year. For UCF fans looking to purchase a regular subscription to newly-launched
Knights Insider, they can do so through the Publications Store at UCFAthletics.com. Published at least six times a year, Knights Insider will deliver feature stories, schedules, news and notes about all of UCF’s athletics programs. The cost is just $19.95.
The Knights Insider 2010 UCF College Football Preview magazine can be purchased for $10, including shipping and handling. The magazine will be mailed out the week of Aug. 2 to those who pre-order through the online Publications Store. The UCF Athletics Ticket Office, located on the west side of Bright House Networks Stadium, also will have the magazine available for sale starting in early August. The magazine will cost $7 when purchased at the stadium box office.
Golden Knights Club donors at the $1,000 level or above will receive a complimentary edition of the UCF football Knights Insider through the mail in August, in place of the discontinued printing of the annual football media guide. The former football media guide will still be available in PDF format on the football homepage at UCFAthletics.com.
For more details on the UCF magazine venture, contact Joe Hornstein at
joehorn@athletics.ucf.edu.