The magazines pile up on your floor

Welcome to the first edition of the Brew Crew Corner for 2008! I’m happy to be back and look forward to an even better season coming up.

Before I get into it, Fantasy magazines will be in stores soon. I want you to put that magazine back on the rack. PUT IT BACK! I just saved you $9.95. How did I do that? Well let’s take a closer look at what you’re getting for your hard earned cash.

There are at least 15 to 20 Fantasy Football magazines available to the public these days. We probably will see another 2 to 3 more this year. In 2007, there were about 15 million people who participated in Fantasy Football. Of these, 35% bought Fantasy Football magazines according to Fantasy Sports Association. That is 5.25 million magazines published. So you know the industry will try to crank out more issues for people to buy. The more magazines that are out there, the more the information gets diluted and vague, leaving many owners short on relevant information.

I conducted my own survey in the tank to see how Sharks go about Fantasy Football Magazines.

82 Sharks participated in the Fantasy magazine survey I posted in the main forum on April 1, 2008. I asked the question “ How Many Fantasy Magazines Do You Buy?”   The majority, 47 Sharks, said they don’t buy any magazines. Hmmm, I wonder how many of them have a secret stash they are not sharing. 21 Sharks said they get at least one publication while 7 sharks have two of them. 3 Sharks have gotten three magazines. The remaining 4 Sharks have bought four, five, seven and even nine Fantasy Football magazines respectively. I was the Shark who purchased seven. One was a 4 bundle pack. I bought them to see the different variations of projections so I could put together my own secret formula.

What I’ve notice about Fantasy magazines is that they all follow a similar format.

First they are all priced between $5.99 and $9.95, so you are looking at spending an average of $7.39 per magazine. These magazines start getting put together as soon as the season is over and the information can range from April to August depending on when they are published.

Fantasy Football magazines always feature a running back or quarter back with the emphasis on the running backs. Look forward to seeing Darren McFadden, Adrian Peterson and Brian Westbrook to be featured on magazines.

Magazine content is broken into:

Front Cover (RB or QB)

Draft Analyses (Rookies, Team Additions, ect.)

Player Analyses (Rankings, Rookies, Sleepers, Busts, ect.)

Team Analyses (Rankings, Additions, Subtractions, Coaching Moves, ect)

Cheat sheets (Redraft, Auctions, Projections, ect)

General Strategy (Draft Preparation, Mock Drafts, VBD, ect)

Advertising (Leagues, Other Websites, Software, ect.)

Most of the publications printed cover the majority of this information but not all. Most however, will be useless as an actual draft guide. What this means is the information will be outdated and misleading by the time you have your draft. Which most leagues hold their drafts late in the summer and some even have it the weekend before kickoff. If you have been drafting from the magazines, you need to spend more time in the tank.

Now, I won’t go into which magazines are better then others because it is a matter of opinion and personal preference for everyone. I will say that there were a few out there that where down right horrible.

For the season veteran, these magazines are useful to pass the time until the pre-season rolls around. Mostly everyone these days go online to get their football information and find cheat sheets like the ones available for free here on fantasysharks.com

In the past the savvy veteran would use the magazines to see how his opponents would draft. That is now an option that is less and less effective. Now everyone is coming to drafts with print outs and laptops, which means you need to be more prepared this season then ever before.

It’s the 2008 season and if the NFL Draft hasn’t fired you up for a new year then you’re missing out. As soon as the draft started I was flipping back and forth from ESPN to NFL and checking information online. It’s a fresh new start for your home team and soon it will be a fresh new start for your Fantasy team.

Consider today a fresh new year and prepare yourself for a big 2008. I feel good about the upcoming season and think 2007’s ups and downs were a fluke.

I hope that you will join me every week of the Brew Crew Corner this season.

Thanks for reading.