Three sports media veterans including LeBron James’ top comms advisor Adam Mendehlson and former Sports Illustrated Editor-In-Chief Chris Stone are launching OffBall, a new sports outlet that collects the biggest stories and trends from across the internet on its homepage and in its newsletter.
Semafor reported on the launch over the weekend, with a quote from Mendehlson stating “the internet isn’t designed for the way people want to enjoy sports. When you take out algorithms and aggregation, have real people curating the best stuff, and prioritize creators and journalism, it’s very different.”
Cofounder Michaela Hammond, formerly of The Players’ Tribune, told Semafor that OffBall will cater to “more mainstream, casual sports fans — who, increasingly, are women.”
As far as a mission statement is concerned, OffBall’s About page states “We’re a team of real people continuously searching for the stuff you love, because we love it, too.”
For now, that all seems to mean that OffBall will be light on original content. Instead, it’s more like an old-fashioned landing page like MSN or AOL, but for the culturally minded sports fan.
Still, Mendelsohn is as plugged-in as it gets in sports, from James and his media company SpringHill to clients like new Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia through his Upland Workshop comms company. And Stone ran both SI and the Los Angeles Times sports sections. He brings real journalistic chops to OffBall, while Hammond brings a breadth of experience as a former agent and Upland staffer in addition to launching The Players’ Tribune.
OffBall is a unique approach to a sports outlet, but in focusing on women and pushing other outlets’ content to build a brand and loyal audience, this new entity is borrowing from ideas that work well for other successful sports content companies in 2024.
[Semafor]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.