Goal First Issue Report & Football Mags Round Up

IPC’s new football magazine Goal hits the newsstands this week. It has an initial print run of 100,000 and a guaranteed circulation of 50,000. The first issue is 132 pages long with a glossy cover and is available for an introductory price of £1 with a normal retail price of £2.25.

Goal’s first issue has an interview with Newcastle’s £6 million striker Les Ferdinand, a backstage look at Birmingham City football club, a feature on footballers’ homes, an interview with Everton manager Joe Royle and a chance to win a trip to Prague in the Goal pub quiz. Regular features include a letters page, The Best Of… where each month a different football manager comes up with a list of the best players he’s ever seen, a Q&A session with a different football player, Goalfest a round-up of the past month’s footballing stories and a regular article from ‘Fantasy Football’ presenter Frank Skinner.

The overall feel of the magazine is that of light-hearted humour with the articles being well written and informative. The pages look well designed and brightly coloured. Goal is aimed at 18-35 year old men, an area of the football market that has seen a sizable increase in titles over the last few years. Of the 132 pages 26 are given over to advertising; this is an editorial:ad ratio of 80:20. Main display advertisers include Newcastle Brown Ale, Nike, Reebok, JD Sports and Umbro.

The number of football magazines on the market stands at 11, with IPC dominating the market with 5 titles. There have been 4 additions to the market since May last year – with all of these aimed at an older audience than Shoot or Match, which have the largest circulations.

* includes initial print run for Goal @ includes publisher’s statement for Football Monthly & intial print run for Total Football

Year on year figures show that IPC’s Soccerstars has made the biggest improvement in its circulation figures up from 85,746 to 107,357, an increase of 21,611 and a percentage increase of 25.2%. At the other end of the scale When Saturday Comes has suffered the largest decrease in circulation down from 37,829 to 34,949; a decrease of 2,880 and a percentage fall of 7.61%

Only two of the above titles report on the NRS, Match and Shoot, the two titles with the biggest circulation figures. Match has recorded an increase in its 6-monthly and annual readership, while Shoot has recorded decreases in both its 6-monthly and annual figures.

Readership Profile: Adults/Age/Percent

The older aimed magazines such as Goal, FourFourTwo and Total Football do vary from the younger aimed magazines like Match and Shoot, although not much from each other. All of the older aimed and more pricier magazines have hard glossy, perfect bound A4 covers; they are also very light-hearted in their round-ups of footballing news although they do have some very well written and researched stories of past footballing events and interviews with footballing personalities. The younger magazines are also A4 sized although their covers are flimsy and not as sharply set out. The feel of these magazines is that they are not as slick or sharp as the older magazines, and they seem more of a footballing equivalent of Smash Hits, with posters and gossip.

The majority of advertising in the magazines is display although Goal, Football Monthly, FourFourTwo, World Soccer, Match and 90 Minutes do have some classified pages. Most ads are single page, although FourFourTwo and Total Football both have double page spreads from Vauxhall. The advertisers for the magazines are fairly well spread. Lloyds Bank appears most, in Shoot, WSC, World Soccer, Match and 90 minutes,

(Note: IPC’s Soccerstars unavailable for review)

All figures are based on copies of the magazines published w/c 4/9/95

Goal: Ad managers are Julian Clarke & Keamus Setna :Tel 0171 261 5499/6784