Important News About Uni Watch’s Premium Content

Last week I announced that my Premium column would soon be leaving Bulletin. I initially thought my transition from Bulletin to another platform would take at least a month and maybe longer, but today I’m happy to announce that I’m moving the Premium content to Substack, beginning with the NBA Season Preview, which will be published over on Substack this Friday.

My Substack column will be almost indistinguishable from my Bulletin column — same type of content, same ad-free format, same subscription pricing. But Substack has a few extra bells and whistles that should make for a better experience — for me and also for you. My new Substack home page is currently hidden, but it should go live sometime tomorrow, so you’ll be able to subscribe then. I’m excited to get started there!

Here’s what this all means for you:

• If you paid for an annual Bulletin subscription via Facebook, you will get a full refund of your $35 subscription fee by the end of October as long as your subscription is active and not canceled. Doesn’t matter if you subscribed back in January, or yesterday, or any time in between — you’ll get a 100% refund. In order to keep receiving my Premium articles, you will need to re-subscribe on Substack (which I realize is a pain, but the Bulletin refund means you got your Bulletin subscription for free, so you’re ahead of the game). I will be sending you an email tomorrow with the details of how you can subscribe.
• If you paid for a monthly Bulletin subscription via Facebook, you will get a full refund of the $4 one-month fee as long as your subscription is active and not canceled. In order to keep receiving my Premium articles, you will need to subscribe on Substack. I will be sending you an email tomorrow with the details of how you can subscribe.
• If you had a free subscription to the Bulletin content, your subscription will automatically be moved over to Substack. But instead of receiving the occasional freebie article while not receiving any of the paywalled content, you will receive a partial version of every Premium/paywalled article. Basically, you’ll get to read a few paragraphs before the paywall kicks in. Maybe this will entice you to subscribe, or maybe not. Either way, you’ll at least get a little taste of the Premium stuff each week. (And you too will be getting an email from me tomorrow, spelling out all of this in greater detail.)
• If you paid me directly for my non-Facebook email workaround, your subscription will be converted into a paid Substack subscription. So you’ll still get the Premium articles each week, but they’ll be emailed to you by Substack, not by me. Plus the photos won’t expire after a few days, plus-plus you’ll be able to read the articles on the web and post comments, whoo-hoo! Your new Substack subscription will last as long as your “workaround subscription” was supposed to last (in some cases we’re rounding up, so you might even get an extra month or two), so if you paid me for the workaround back in April, you’ll have Premium Substack access until at least next April. After that, you’ll be prompted to subscribe again via Substack. (And yes, you’ll be getting an email from me tomorrow as well, just so nobody feels left out.)
• If you bought the UW+/Bulletin bundle and were receiving the Premium articles via email, your Bulletin subscription will be converted into a paid Substack subscription. So you’ll still get the Premium articles each week, but they’ll be emailed to you by Substack, not by me. Just like the workaround people, you’ll get the rest of the full year that you already paid for, and maybe a month or two more. (And yes, you’ll also get an email from me tomorrow.)
• If you never subscribed to my Bulletin column in any way, you may want to give my Premium articles another look now that they’re moving to Substack. There’s no Facebook involvement, no need to have a Facebook account in order to pay, etc., etc.
• If you’re interested in the Bulletin archives, they’ll still be available on Bulletin through the end of March, plus we’re also in the process of moving them to Substack. With a bit of luck, we miiiight have them transferred to Substack by Friday. Otherwise, sometime next week.

Those are the basics. If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to post them in the comments or shoot me a note and I’ll do my best to answer.

One bit of fallout from all this: We will no longer be able to offer the UW+/Premium bundle. UW+ and the Premium subscription will now be two distinct purchases.

I realize that all the recent changes (the site redesign, the launch of UW+, and the change of venue for the Premium column) can be confusing and a bit head-spinning — for me too! I’m hoping this should be the last major change for the foreseeable future, and that we can settle in for a nice period of Uni Watch stability going forward. Thanks for your continued enthusiasm and support!