Hollinger & Duncan Joins Dunc’d On Prime!

Dear Listeners,

I want to begin by thanking you for your tremendous support of Dunc’d On Prime. Danny Leroux and I took the leap to a subscription model in the middle of a pandemic, hoping that we could find a way to continue our podcast as the advertising market collapsed. Thanks to you, it has succeeded beyond our imaginations and enabled us to provide you with more content than ever before. Since Dunc’d On Prime launched in August, 2020, it’s been our privilege to bring you 617 episodes over the past two years and change.

Announcing the Additions of John Hollinger and Dan Feldman to Dunc’d On Prime

Over the last seven years, we’ve always tried to keep our product fresh and increase the value for our listeners while remaining true to what we think makes Dunc’d On special. In that spirit, I’m ecstatic to announce the additions of John Hollinger and Dan Feldman to Dunc’d On Prime.

John surely needs no introduction with his resume as the Godfather of NBA analytics and seven years as one of the lead decision-makers for the Memphis Grizzlies. We started our podcast Hollinger & Duncan in 2019 with the goal of using John’s unique front office perspective to provide a bigger picture weekly look at the key stories in the NBA. In addition to analysis of all the key events on the NBA calendar, John and I do yearly deep dives on the NBA’s coaches and organizations and make extensive use of his in-person scouting observations.

In the three years since it began, Hollinger & Duncan has amassed millions of listens. Though the audience has been strong, the reality of the marketplace for ad-supported podcasts is that we have found it difficult to monetize a newer once-a-week podcast. Rather than abandon a project we both enjoy so much, John and I thought the best way to continue to serve our audience was by joining Dunc’d On Prime. And so, starting October 11, Dunc’d On Prime will be the only place to hear every weekly Hollinger & Duncan. Our hope is that H&D can be a gateway to introduce many more dedicated NBA fans to the Dunc’d On Prime community.

For those of you who are new to Dunc’d On Prime, we highly encourage you to take advantage of the special John Hollinger pre-sale, w̶hich has now been extended through the start of the NBA season. p̶r̶i̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶u̶n̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶H̶&̶D̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶O̶c̶t̶o̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶1̶1̶. This presale will offer one-time only pricing that will not be offered again once John’s shows go live.

You all know Dan Feldman well from his frequent guest roles on some of our best episodes, the Mock Offseason, Mock Trade Deadline, and Mock Rookie Extensions. Coming off nine years with NBC Sports, Dan will be taking on a number of roles. With his talent for news analysis, Dan will be taking over and expanding the Daily Duncs, a newsletter summary and analysis of the most important NBA writing and news of the day. Dan will also be providing this content in short podcast form for those who prefer audio. With locker rooms open again this year, he’ll be doing regular podcast episodes revolving around original interviews, reporting, and research. And Dan will be using his salary cap expertise to enable more frequent cap sheet updates for subscribers, while helping to make our 15 in 60 podcasts even better. Finally, Dan will add another monthly chat on our Discord server. We expect Dan’s role to continue to evolve as he tries out new projects based on feedback from the Dunc’d On Prime community.

Dan will be expanding on the role of our former Director of Basketball Research, Ben Dull, who we congratulate on accepting a full-time position with the New York Liberty. It brings us tremendous joy to see both of our former staffers Ben and Liam Doyle (Miami Heat) fulfilling their basketball dreams working for professional teams.

Membership Changes

Although we’ve held the price of your membership steady amidst the inflation of the past two years and the price increases of many other subscription services, the cost of bringing on John and Dan for this additional content does necessitate a price increase. We hope that you will agree that even with the new structure, the additional content makes Dunc’d On Prime a better value than ever.

As when we initially launched Dunc’d On Prime, we want to be fully transparent about the reasoning behind our pricing. It is extremely important to us that we provide our service at what you consider a fair price. We considered a few factors in determining what would be a reasonable increase. First off, the additional content. With the addition of Hollinger & Duncan, we are going from five full episodes per week to six, or a 20% increase in episodes for the math-inclined. Dan will contribute even more full podcast episodes, plus the Daily Duncs in audio and written form throughout the week. Then, we looked at the marketplace, where many of the most common monthly subscription services have increased prices from the $10-$12 per month range to the $15–19 per month range in the last two years. Finally, since we launched in September of 2020, the Consumer Price Index measuring inflation has increased by 14%.

Given all these factors, we felt an increase of 20 to 30 percent of non-Founding memberships depending on the length of membership was fair and commensurate with our increased costs. The biggest change will come for members of the “podcast only” tier. Starting October 11, the price for “podcast only” listeners will be $16 per month or $159 per year, but you will be upgraded to full access. In addition to the new audio content, you’ll now get all the other benefits of Dunc’d On Prime. These include:

• The expanded Daily Duncs with Dan Feldman in your email inbox or posted on our website
• Our proprietary NBA Salary Cap projections, the same ones we use ourselves, updated in real-time during major transaction periods.
• Our free agent rankings for the next 2 seasons, all conveniently presented on one page sorted by position and type of free agent.
• Access to our Discord to chat with other hardcore fans, a community one listener called the most positive online space he’d ever seen.
• Monthly written chats from Danny, Dan, and me on our Discord server
• Exclusive subscriber mailbag podcasts

We are phasing out the “podcast only” plan because, rather than simply increasing the price for listeners in this tier, we wanted to make sure we are giving you even more value while enabling you to further take advantage of the Dunc’d On Prime community.

For those of you who are currently monthly members, we highly encourage you to take advantage of the Hollinger pre-sale as well since that first year sale price will not be offered again and the yearly price will increase to $159 per year as of October 11. At $145 per year rather than $192 per year via paying monthly, the pre-sale is a substantial savings of $47 per year. We want to continue to provide the best value to our most committed members via yearly plans, and we are also able to offer a lower price for yearly membership due to the reduced Stripe transaction fees from only one charge per year.

For Founding Members, all of whom recently paid for this season in August and September, you will get all of the new content including Hollinger & Duncan for free the rest of this NBA season. Starting with your next yearly renewals in August 2023, we will fulfill our original commitment to you by continuing to offer the exact same deal as in August 2020, $115 per year for the same content as the original Founding Membership in 2020, including five podcasts per week of Danny and me.

I hope, however, that you will enjoy Hollinger & Duncan plus the additional podcasting from Dan enough to be willing to pay a little extra to enable us to continue to offer it. Therefore, for your next renewal we will offer the alternative of a new permanent rate to Founding Members of $130 per year that includes all of this new content.

Please note that the increase from $115 to $130 per year is far less than for any other price tier. We hope you will agree that this continues the spirit of what we promised with the original Founding Membership: a far better deal than would ever be subsequently offered with a promise not to raise the price for this content, while also enabling us to bring John and Dan on board. The new price accounts for the fact that we are giving you more, but there is no additional adjustment for the marketplace or inflation as with the other plans. We will, by default, opt Founding Members in to this new $130 plan. If you wish to remain on the original Founding Member plan and receive only that content, please let us know via email to duncdonprime@gmail.com before your renewal next year.

If, however, these increases make it impossible for members to afford our content, we are determined not to price out those in truly difficult situations. We will continue to offer a $5 per month membership tier on request to duncdonprime@gmail.com, and that tier will now feature full access to all of Dunc’d On Prime’s features. Send us a few words about your situation (no crazy proof required, we trust our listeners to be honest with us) and we’ll greenlight you for the $5 tier.

Finally, I encourage you to check our FAQ at the bottom of the main page if you have any further questions.

Once again, thank all of you so much for your incredible support and involvement in this community. We hope you’ll agree that these changes will make Dunc’d On Prime even better, and we can’t wait to serve you for years to come.

–N