This document outlines a pitch for a new grassroots football magazine targeting locals in Darlington, North East England. Key points: - The magazine will focus on youth and amateur football leagues to highlight an underserved audience. - Research found most football magazines focus on professional leagues. This one aims to be unique in its local, grassroots coverage. - Mockups were created and feedback indicated a preference for layouts with balanced text and multiple images over single large images. - Finances show the magazine could turn a small profit from sales and advertising while keeping costs low through volunteer labor and inexpensive printing. - Constraints include obtaining permissions due to featuring youth players and avoiding any privacy or legal issues

1. The
Grassroots
Media Production Pitch

2. Client Aims
 +Champion
 Have
the North East
a good relationship with the locals

3. Client Research

The Northern Echo is a local Newspaper distributed
over the North East, with one publication in
particular being distributed throughout Darlington.

The Northern Echo have asked me to create a
local magazine insert to the initial newspaper.

My magazine will be a near replication of the
Northern Echo in terms of its local consumption
and content, as well as its local appeal.

The only real problem I may encounter is child
privacy due to the nature of my magazine.

4. Client Constraints
The Northern Echo has affected me in a few ways:
 Local advertising (sports teams)
 Local content/consumption?
 Imagery and language will be effected to suit
client and audience
 Newsquest own The Northern Echo and take
33% of their profits, including mine.
 Relationship with readers (local, trustworthy)

5. PCC
Contempt of
Court
Defamation
Slander/Libel
Trespass
Photography

6. Examples of football mags

7. Genre Research
 Genre
= SPORTS (football)
 Initially,
my ideas stemmed from me being
a youth football coach.
 Throughout research I identified many
similar magazines based around the BPL,
leading to the thought of something
unique …

8. Negatives
Genre Research
 Avoiding
the ‘bandwagon’.
 I found that most magazines
were based around the top tier
 BPL, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 etc.
 This is not local, but more
worldwide news.
This lead me to further my initial ideas of a
grassroots magazine because …
Local, unique, interesting, simple, cheap.

9. Positives
Genre Research
• Colour scheme matches team in
focus
• More than one image
• Heavy use of graphics
• Simple but effective layout
• I really like the use of a
matched colour scheme
because you can identify the
team in focus easily.

10. Genre Research
 With
some articles from different
magazines, I like the overall layout, and
graphics that I may adopt.
 With
interview articles, I like
the use of a 3-pager, with
2 pages being used for
imagery and the initial hook,
and the third page being text heavy.
However, for me to do this, I will have to omit one
advert

11. Audience Research
My target audience will be the locals
of Darlington, but specifically:



Ages 10-50 (You cannot pinpoint lovers of football)
on top of grassroots football, children play it, the
adults watch it.
Males and Females – mums AND dads like too
watch their child play football.
Children, mums, dads, nanas, granddads, coache
s, teenagers.

13. Audience Research
With such a broad target audience I
have encountered many problems:
 Language
(Positive lexis, no tabooisms)
 Layout (must be engaging but not too much
on the eye)
 Imagery (due to children must be of a good
nature)
Due to this, my magazine will have to be
satisfactory for such a broad audience,
leading to multi-use articles and content to
help engage everyone.

14. Audience Research
This double page spread has a 50:50 ratio of text to image.
The text will intrigue the older pole of my TA, and the images
will engage the younger.
The page looks attractive and due to its focus, will engage
people to read, as it is all about football.

15. Mock-ups
The Process
The goods – I created a foundation
of borders before inserting text etc. the
process was rather easy.
The tough times -
I found it
difficult to put all of the article into the
columns pre-selected. At times I dealt with
this by slightly cropping the article.

16. League
table is
blurry
Use of
images are
good
Cut
corners
look good
The red doesn’t
match colour
scheme
The article
looks retro
with the title

17. The red doesn’t
match colour
scheme
Looks
professio
nal and
neat
j
Looks really
well
constructed
Not enough
imagery!

18. Strengths
Audience Feedback
What the audience liked and how its
helped
 Cropped
edges on photos (only if used a bit)
 Colour scheme matches team in focus
 Article was well written
 The banners look appealing
 There isn’t too much on the eye overall
 Looks professional
 Neat and ordered

19. Weaknesses
Audience Feedback
What the audience didn’t like and how
it will help
 Sometimes
edges on photos are cropped too
much
 Pictures and texts needs to be equally placed
 Banner is too big and takes up a lot of space
 Some images are blurry
 The red text looks out of place
I will attempt to avoid these dislikes

20. The One I’ll take forward
I intend on taking mock-up 1 forward as I
believe the overall layout resembles that of
a professional double page spread. On top
of this, audience feedback showed that
more imagery was better than one image
(as on mock-up 2)
Despite this, I may incorporate some
strengths from mock-up 2.

21. My Ideas
 12
page mag
 Weekly
 Front cover
 Contents
 DPS 1 – Match report
 DPS 2 – INTERVIEW
 Dps 3 – review

22. What I want to achieve
There are so many magazines out there that
focus on the top tiers of football, but not
one, that focuses on the first stepping stone
of every footballer’s career. Therefore this
will be my unique selling point. To create a
magazine based on the grassroots football
that goes unnoticed in the football world.

23. Front Cover

Will include main article

More than one image

Yellow and black

Banner sporting title

24. Contents

Articles

Images

Editor review from
past week’s publication

25. DPS 1 – Spraire Envy Last Ditch
Goal







Retro layout
50:50 text and imagery
Engaging
Active imagery
Some stative
imagery
Facts
opinions

26. DPS 2 – Kids are Wrapped up
in cotton wool






Interview article
A creative layout
Engaging article 70:30 text to imagery
Quote inserts
Colourful
Unique

27. DPS 3 – See it, Do it






Controlled layout
Opinions
Active imagery
Some stative imagery
Formal colour scheme (grey, blue, black, white)
Creative use of borders

28. Branding
I
will use old school, varsity fonts – links to sport.
 My
colour schemes will be based on the team in
focus.
I
will place a little bar sporting the magazine
name on the top left hand corner of every
page.

29. Expenditure
Personnel
Hours
needed
Freelance
rate
Total
cost
Hours
needed
Hire rate
Total cost
Personnel
Journalists
20
£25 £500
Photographers
11
£20 £220
Models
9
£0
£0
Subeditors
6
£15
£90
Researchers
8
£25 £200
Lighting assistant
4
£20
Make up assistants
0 NA
NA
Other
0 NA
NA
£80
Studio space rental:
4
Flash lighting studio kit:
0 NA
Camera:
Additional lens hire:
12
1090
£400
NA
£40
£480
0
QE indemnity insurance:
Travel:
0
Props:
Total personnel
expenditure
£100
0
Total Expenditure
880

30. Expenditure Pie Chart
Photographers, £220
Journalists, £500
Subeditors, £90
Printing, 1,570.50
Researchers, £200
Studio space
rental:, £400
Camera:, £480
Lighting
assistant, £80

31. Generating Income
 The
magazine will be sold at £1.00 per
publication because:
- its cheap
- will help generate income
 Income will also come from advertsing.
Advert Type
Rate
Number
Total Income
Back cover
£700
1
700
Inside front
£600
1
600
Inside back
£650
0
0
Double page spread
£500
0
0
Full page
£500
2
1000
Half page
£300
0
0
Quarter page
£100
0
0
£50
0
0
4
2300
Eighth Page
Total Income

32. Income Pie Chart
advertising, £2,3
00
cover
price, £10,000

33. Finances
EXPENDITURE
Editorial Personnel
Equipment
Printing
TOTAL EXPENDITURE
1090
880
1,570.50
3540.5
INCOME
Advertising income
Cover price
Total sales estimate
Sales income
TOTAL INCOME
NET PROFIT/LOSS
2300
£1.00
10,000
£10,000
12300
8759.5
As well as this, 33% of my profits
shall go to newsquest, and 25%
go towards the distributors.
Therefore 58% of my profit will
be taken.
Net profit/lost: Roughly
£4375

34. Distribution
 My
magazine will be a generic A4, tabloid
sixed product.
 It
will be distributed by Bauer Media.
 My
paper quality will be 115gm coated
because it is much cheaper and doesn’t
have a too ‘cheap’ of a feel.

35. Constraints
 Due
to the nature of my magazine (being
based on children) I will have to ensure
privacy as well as obtain:
 Parent and player permission on use of
names and pictures.
 Imagery is of a decent standard.
 My genre chosen is very risky in today’s
society, therefore I will have to ensure no
addresses are given on behalf of the
children.

36. Schedule
•
•
PROBLEMS
• Snowfall
Lack of permission
• Illness
Technology failure
I will deal with these by using contingency
plans (I.e carry extra batteries etc.)

37. What you and I want to
achieve
There are so many magazines out there that
focus on the top tiers of football, but not
one, that focuses on the first stepping stone of
every footballer’s career. Therefore this will be
my unique selling point. To create a magazine
based on the grassroots football that goes
unnoticed in the football world.


Champion the North East
Have a good relationship with the locals

38. Thank you for listening, and I hope
you see
The Grassroots
soon!