There's a thread on the eircom league message board on JW's old site about starting up an eircom League magazine. What do people here think?
Great idea. Would love to see an eL magazine, as we get feck all coverage from the rest of the national print media in this country.
Done right, it would be brilliant. If each club had a reporter who wrote a few pages for it every fortnight or so, include a few pictures, get interviews from players and managers.
I'm all for it!
Last edited by brendy_éire; 14/04/2004 at 3:27 PM.
Have you ever won the treble?
I def think it could work. Some Irish magazines sell very little. You don't even need a permenent staff of writers...just contributors. Has been talked about a lot really. There is a market for it, if it is a good quality publication.
yeah, I think you're right. I mentioned on that thread that selling it on matchdays might be the way to go rather than trying to get it in the shops- at least until its established
trouble is you need money to get these things set up + need a lawyer in case of liable and with the likes of Ollie around you might get sued every five minutes if he doesnt like what you say, but if certain clubs can run programmes then a widescale mag could be viable if done right, id be all for the idea myself but it takes effort to set these things up.
I'd buy it, definitely
Hotpress stays afloat with a fortnightly circulation of about 22,000-24,000 depending on who's on the cover. An EL magazine could push towards that kind of circulation if they included decent material on the national side aswell.
The trouble would be getting outlets to carry it initially (club shops would be an option there) and to get interest in it at the start. Since most people only get exposed to one Match programme each week, you've got a ready made source of articles (as Niamh said, you only need contributors and a small editorial staff) there if the clubs were to get involved.
Only problem with that is that it would be in competition with clubs' programmes, a major source of income.Originally Posted by Éanna
Most shops would probably stock it given the chance. Get the likes of Eason in on it and demand could snowball.
Have you ever won the treble?
I'd love to see it happen, but, theres always a but ! i dont think it would be financially fesiable, unless they brought the FAI on board and had a nationl team section in it or something.
We (www.hospitalpass.net) had a superb on-line mag not to long ago with great stats for viewing but that went by the way side as well, there was even talk of it being published. Hopefully im proved wrong ! if anything more serious of this was to come about im sure there would be no shortage of people willing to write articles about the league in general or there own club
Why not produce it online, like Dangerhere used to be, with weekly/bi-weekly editions for the start at least?
I am all for it but if it were to work, you would need everyone to pitch in and support it if that didn't happen then i dont know how long it would last.
I reckon it would be great idea anyway. Would like to see some market research done first though and some generation of ideas aswell.
Would is definitely clear aswell ...... It would need to be done right !!
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
Just to let you know, if anyone wants to contribute an article to our existing match day magazine - feel free!
Donie
...Schwanholz, Herisau: a little bit of heaven...
yeah hospitalpass was great, pity it never kept going
someone mentioned on JW's board getting TV3 involved, just like gazzetta italia on net 2 they had a monthly mag. the TV3 eL monthly mag, they would get good advertising out of it, i know people dont like to see adverts but if it finances a good mag then your flyin ! Waterford soccer monthly does a good mag every month(duh!) things thet eL fans never have like posters of eL players in the center and stuff ! good luck to whoever starts it could well be a success, do remember this being tryed a few times before but i think the potential audience is a bit bigger now !!!
of course, everything looks bad if you remember it.- Homer Simpson
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Yeah i saw that too .... TV3 ... great idea, could really work if it was done right. But TV3 would not go for it though i'd say. The eL program on Mondays is even a bit light now, compared to when it first aired. Actually it was great.
Having TV3 on board would definitely be very positive for a mag though.
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
no sorry lads it wouldn't work.
as twas said above it would be in direct competition with eL club programmes.
robbing peter to pay paul.
at CCFC for example, would anybody buy the matchday magazine, 451, and an eL magazine???
people would be fighting over advertisers too.
for a high quality mag you're talking a lot of money.
for an average quality mag you're talking less money but nobody would buy it.
if it's an official mag then it would have to be top notch. anything official relfects on the league as a whole.
that's just my opinion, feel free to disagree. (i'm used to it)
I remember a few fanziens tried to piggyback off FourFiveOne, and maybe 451, stig, One F, and Red Inc should merge.
What a ridiculous idea.
eL mags have tried and failed before. IMO, the Mirrors 8 pg on Fri and 4 pg on monday are more than adequate.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
I don't think a weekly EL mag would work, but fortnightly might. I don't believe there would be any competition between 451 and an EL mag (it doesn't exist between it and the CCFC programme as it is, and it's only out around once a month). All of the Matchday mags sales are in the one night, the El mag would be on the shelves for two weeks, depending on the price I wouldn't see it as an issue.
Filling it during the off-season might be a bit of bother though
your other points I can't fault, it'd take a lot of up-front money and I can't see anyone taking the risk.
a bi-weekly mag from the print media would really be in competition with websites of the individual clubs and sites like soccercentral and eleven-a-side, which bring out news on a daily basis, it's a problem periodicals like Time and Newsweek are now facing with the advent of 24-hour news channels.
Lads, it wouldn't be in competition with programmes i think. If it were something along the same lines as FourFourTwo every month it wouldn't effect it.
Actually ... the more i think about it, having TV3 on board would be brilliant idea. A monthly mag with info/news from schoolboys right up to National team, but focusing on the Premier and the First division, with TV3 doing a goal of the month and another few things like that in tandum. It would really be a great place for the league to analyse what is actually happening and how things could improve, e.g. the UEFA licencing, the 12 team premier again, summer soccer a few years on, tansfer trends and policy etc. it is actually a great idea for those kind of issues.
Seeing things in black and white would shine a different light on events. Also .... it would give a chance to focus on one club directly each month and review how they are doing. Also there are some very good non league clubs out there that have no forum at all. European football for Irish clubs, Compare Irish clus with Danish, Swedish clubs and learn from their mistakes, Northern Irish football, samba soccer, coaching schools, astro leagues, soccer for the registered blind is on the up in this country and no one hears of it, there is loads of stuff that could be done. Idea generation for fund raising is something that would help, every clubs needs sponsors ... Finn Harps had a great scheme this year, maybe something every club could try if need be. Maybe focus on guys like Alan Hunter and expose him for what he is. Man ... this is exactly what the league ...... no sorry, thats exactly what football needs in this country.
With TV3 onboard aswell (getting well ahead of myself here but i'll throw it out there anyway) ... they could do something on highlights video for every series of games with a bit more in there aswell.
If it were done right it would be great .... would take about 3 years to get established, but would be a great asset if it did. There were 40 pages in the City Edition when it went A4, add in another 40 or so pages and away you go. If clubs had a small bit of foresight they'd realise the value of it. It is exactly what we need.
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
If it's being done monthly, how about selling it at international matches? If it's not too expencive the casual football fan with no interest in the league would probably buy it and that would help promote the league a fair bit.
Explain?
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