This is going to be a big week! While our championship book on the New York Yankees continues to sell throughout New York City, () we feel we’re sitting on something huge in Minneapolis this week. Here’s the details— a couple weeks ago, my partner in Sport Publishing, LLC Jim Pouba and I thought we should capitalize on the excitement of Brett Favre in Minnesota, and what he’s doing with the Vikings this year. I mean, the way this team is playing right now, they are the leading candidates to make it to the Super Bowl in the NFC! They are that good.
Anyway, we had some strong connections with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, so we made some calls, got some interest, put together a conference call for 9 of us or so on both sides, and put the wheels in motion to crank out a book on Brett Favre, in conjunction with the Star Tribune.
Well— Sunday, November 22 against Seattle, Favre played a darn near perfect game. He had 4 more TD passes as the Vikings rolled again. We worked around the clock last week. Literally. The Star Tribune emailed me about 400 or so stories, and we sifted through over 800 photos and narrowed it down to what we feel is an unbelievable look at the courtship of Favre and the first part of this season. Here’s the beautiful thing— I had this book designed so if the Vikings do make the Super Bowl, we can do another book. And of course, we’d have it on the streets a couple days after the big game.
I really think we’ll sell out of this book early— it’s fantastic to partner with a great newspaper like the Star Tribune, and they will do a good job promoting it. Plus, I’ll be hitting the media circuit full steam this week so I think we’ll be doing a re-print.
The book is gorgeous— -great stories, and photos. I think our best cover yet of the books we’ve done this year. It’s been amazing to think of the books we’ve already done this year— on the Arizona Cardinals, LA Lakers, Yankees and now Brett Favre. We are truly the best in the business at getting the first book to the market on a championship team— and now we’re showing we can do great books on superstars and sell them fast! If you don’t live in Minneapolis— you can buy the book online at
If you are a Vikings or Brett Favre fan— you have to buy one! Next blog entry— I’ll give you the lowdown on how we really put this book together, and give you an update on sales.
And things are coming together for LTF Vision — the internal Television network for Life Time Fitness we’ve been putting together the last year and a half.
This week we’re launching the Tom and Laura Show, at least in the Minneapolis market. This is our flagship show— I host it along with Laura Schara, and I’ll be posting samples of it on my YouTube Channel. This is really a great show— our team in Minneapolis on the production side is top notch. I’m talking about my producers Tony Kardell and Ryan Truax. Photogs, correspondents, etc!
It’s such an honor being able to produce a show the right way, with the full support of a major company like Life Time Fitness! What a blessing. And I think it’s a great product. Laura and I have a lot of fun and great chemistry.
The show is a lifestyle oriented program— all segments and features having some sort of Life Time Fitness connection, but subtle, and it really looks like a big time network show! Awesome graphics, etc. We feature famous athletes and celebs that are members of Life Time Fitness. We have cooking segments, fitness segments, news segments. Here is a sample:
And if you live in Phoenix— watch for me on ABC 15 on Sunday nights on Sports Tonight with Craig Fouhy. I get 5-8 minutes to go off on things in the sports world that are bugging me, usually a very long list. If nothing else, you can always catch me slamming a Boston team or fan base. Man, they are annoying. I’ll usually get in some not so subtle digs at the cheapest and dirtiest team in the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers and their spoiled, obnoxious fans. It’s fun. Check it out.
I’ll be back soon with updates on the Favre book and LTF Vision.