As a lifelong Sunderland supporter with a masters degree in media and business, Richard Stonehouse jumped at the opportunity to combine his love of football with his business nous.

“Recently there has been a proliferation of media products that share the same business model – free to the reader and deriving income from advertising – but there wasn’t a free football magazine,” he says.

Stonehouse could not believe that this gap in the market had not been filled, so, convinced that he must have overlooked something critical, decided to test the market.

With a design for an irreverent football magazine and a business model that projected a monthly distribution of 250,000 copies across the 20 Premier League grounds, Stonehouse approached NStar, an investment and enterprise development company, for the finance to produce a dummy copy of Open Goal.

Suitably funded, a dummy was produced, with 27,000 copies distributed in three and a half hours at Manchester United’s Old Trafford and 21,000 at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in November.

So impressed was NStar with the fans’ response to the test copy that it opted to take a share in Stonehouse’s new company, Rich Media, in return for financing the start-up.

Since the successful November trial, Stonehouse and his newly appointed sales director have been in negotiations with the FA, the Football Foundation, Setanta, Talksport, Nuts TV, Umbro, Nike and others about advertising and PR for Open Goal’s official launch on the opening week of the 2008-09 season – August 16.

“By distributing 250,000 copies Open Goal will become the largest ever British football magazine,” Stonehouse says, and with plans to expand the brand into the lower leagues and abroad, football magazines across the world should take note.
www.opengoalmagazine.co.uk

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