Some changes to The Front Porch

As we celebrate two years of this newsletter, some tweaks are on the horizon

Almost exactly two years ago, I launched this newsletter.

Over that time, quite a bit has changed, both for myself and [gestures broadly] the world. I had a son. I started a new job. The literal front porch pictured above is no longer mine, as my wife and I moved into a new house a few weeks ago. Lest you think too much has changed during these past 24 months, just remember that my first-ever newsletter back in March 2023 examined the struggles of ACC men’s basketball.

I started The Front Porch not only to selfishly tap into my own curiosity, but to tell some of the kinds of stories I wasn’t seeing elsewhere in the college sports media ecosystem and that, as a freelancer at the time, I’d pitch to various outlets only to be met with silence. I don’t want to try to act like it has been some kind of high-minded mission – I wrote 3,000 words last year about when college basketball shorts were at their baggiest, after all – but I hope I’ve come close to achieving what I set out to do.

As I type this, I realize this has the tone of a goodbye. It’s not. There will, however, be some small changes coming to the newsletter that I wanted to offer an update on to readers and subscribers.

After two years of averaging about two newsletters a week, I’m going to be scaling back a bit, down to one newsletter a week or about four to five a month, depending on how much is going on in the world of college sports at a given time.

Between my full-time job with USA Today and everything that comes with raising a sweet, beautiful and occasionally rambunctious 23-month-old boy, what’s required to adequately ideate, research and write two lengthy, diligently crafted stories a week simply isn’t tenable for me anymore. With a tweaked publishing schedule, though, I can continue to write these pieces I still find so much joy obsessing over and sharing. If anything, it should give me the opportunity to delve even deeper into these subjects and do more original reporting.

To reflect these changes, I’ll be altering the subscription price. Monthly subscriptions will remain at $5 per month while annual subscriptions will drop to $30 per year (both are the lowest figures Substack allows a publisher to charge). If you’re feeling particularly generous, there’s the founding member option, as well.

For any subscriber, whether you’re a free or paid one, feel free to reach out to me at bycraigmeyer@gmail.com with any questions, comments or concerns. For those with annual subscriptions, where there will actually be a price discrepancy moving forward, I can walk you through some options if you want to change your plan. If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed at any point, I’d be thrilled to have you aboard.

If you’ve been with me for any step of this journey, even if it was just stopping by here once to read a piece and never coming back, your support means more than you truly know. I’ll be as excited as ever to have you along as we continue forward with this venture and dive head-first into the best sporting event mankind has ever conceived.