Cover Story: Athlon Mags Launch Online Platform

MichState

Athlon Sports is launching a new online group-buying platform that allows college sports fans to get their teams on the cover of Athlon's college football preseason magazine.

In partnership with Facebook and Moontoast, which provides the social media e-commerce platform, Athlon is offering fans the opportunity to do a group buy for a special print run using Athlon's "Custom Covers" service.

The "Custom Covers" service produces a number of limited-edition versions of its college football pre-season magazine, featuring teams that don't usually appear on Athlon magazine covers. Schools do a group buy for a special "custom covers" print run. Fans make individual purchases right from Facebook, then Moontoast aggregates those orders into a single buy.

The deal takes effect when at least 1,000 orders have been received for a particular cover, at a price of $8.99 per magazine. Athlon says it will donate $1 to each school's general scholarship fund for every magazine sold with that school's team on the cover.

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Custom Covers has already operated for several years, but this is the first time the promotion and sales will be offered through a "social storefront" -- making it easier for fans to share the offer on Twitter, sports Web sites and email, thus facilitating new customer acquisitions.

Athlon also advises participating schools and fans to embed the Social Storefront widget in prominent spots on their sites and affiliate sites.

According to the company, several dozen schools have already signed up to participate in the program, with Michigan State, Purdue, Stanford and Texas A&M all launching social storefronts on their Facebook fan pages. Group-buying e-commerce functions are hosted by Moontoast's "Distributed Store" on each school's Facebook page.

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