Preseason mags fill fans’ appetite
If ever there was a sign of the insanity of college football fans, with their year-round addiction and nagging statistical itches, this is it:
Rows and rows of preseason magazines. USC’s Jasper Brinkley is on one cover. Clemson’s James Davis is on another. Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, Alabama coach Nick Saban and Arkansas running back Darren McFadden are on others. And those covers just go to parts of the Southeast.
“The hunger of the college football fan is greater than any other sports fan,” said Scott Smith, the managing editor of Street & Smith’s.
His is the oldest publication in the lot. Then there’s Athlon, and Lindy’s, and Sporting News and Phil Steele’s College Football Preview. All serve a similar purpose: breaking down the schedules, projected lineups and odds for success of the nation’s 120 Division I-A football programs.
We envisioned their respective staffs in a competitive rivalry out of West Side Story — or that classic street-fighting scene in Anchorman.
Charlie Miller, the editor of Athlon, laughed but said that is not so.
He admits the preview-magazine market is an unusual one. Most college football fans will buy at least three.
This is a good year to savor Street & Smith’s 67th annual yearbook, with its set of 12 regional retro covers. Scott Smith doesn’t mention this in his page-one letter from the editor, but perhaps the most storied preview magazine is publishing for the last time.
“It’s the kind of magazine people grew up with. They picked it up at the drug store as a kid in their hometown, in a small town. It was kind of maybe the first sports magazine they were familiar with in some ways,” Smith said. “I know I was like that when I was a kid.”
Now, in one of those media mergers you really don’t want to know too much about, Street & Smith’s and Sporting News will become one next year under the Sporting News banner.
Recalling its heritage, Street & Smith’s ditched the modern action shot in favor of a set of old-school cover photos. If you saved your Street & Smith’s from the ’60s and ’70s, this one will fit right in.
Athlon produced 64 versions of its cover this year, featuring players from all the obvious top-25 contenders and tradition-rich schools. This year, though, Athlon also offered to showcase less-likely teams — like those from outside the BCS conferences — if a school could drum up at least 1,000 pre-orders online.
Inside the magazines, their biggest appeal is, without a doubt, the top-25 rankings. The first “official” rankings of the preseason — those from the coaches’ poll and The Associated Press — will not be released for another month. But these are a good proxy to tide us over.
See more at www.thestate.com
