OffBall, Fast-Growing Media Company Curating the Culture of Sports, Develops New Course and Collaboration With USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

OffBall and USC Annenberg will work together to provide students with new coursework focused on navigating the modern media environment, on-campus speaker series, intern program, and launch of OffBall @ SC

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OffBall, a new, fast-growing media venture curating the culture of sports, announced the launch of a new collaboration with the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism that will introduce students and the broader USC community to a new approach of how we consume information, discover stories and content, and determine what narratives deserve our attention. Led by co-founder Michaela Hammond and co-founder and Editor-In-Chief Christian Stone, OffBall will offer exclusive opportunities for students on and off campus, including class projects, a speaker series, and an internship program.

“We are excited to work with USC’s Annenberg School and students, who will share their fresh perspective, creativity, and passion for sports culture as we bring OffBall’s specific approach to today’s media environment,” said Michaela Hammond, co-founder of OffBall. “Journalism and communications are rapidly changing, and OffBall has built a platform that brings all forms of media together. We hope our unique model focused on human curation vs. aggregation will be invaluable for students who want to engage the next generation of fans.”

The multi-pronged collaboration will feature the following activations:

• An opportunity for USC students to build, launch, and market a campus-specific sports culture curation platform — OffBall @ SC — under the mentorship of OffBall’s executive team as part of a new Spring 2025 course.
• An OffBall Speaker Series that brings sports journalists, creators, and influencers at the intersection of sports and culture to USC’s campus
• An OffBall Intern Program that invites USC Annenberg students inside our groundbreaking sports media startup and offers them an opportunity to contribute to the research and curation of content across OffBall’s site, newsletters, and social channels

“Collaborating with cutting edge media companies like OffBall helps bring unique professional development opportunities to our students,” USC Annenberg Dean Willow Bay said. “As media continues to evolve, this program will provide students with the tools, knowledge and hands-on experience necessary to shape the future of sports and culture. Together, we’re fostering an environment for innovation and creativity to flourish while helping students develop real-world skills in a fast-paced, dynamic media industry.”

“Our students’ fresh perspective, creativity, and passion for sports culture will be valuable assets to OffBall as they build to engage the next generation of fans,” Bay continued.

Launched in September 2024, OffBall is a new media venture that curates the culture of sports. Through its homepage, newsletters, social media presence, and more, the brand focuses only on all of the amazing stories, posts, and narratives that light up our group chats and dominate the conversation, with an emphasis on human curation. In an age of consumer weariness around AI and algorithms, OffBall is updated every day by a team continuously searching for the best of the internet so its audience doesn’t have to sift through negativity and hot takes to find the most compelling content in sports culture.

OffBall also routinely platforms and engages with the creator community, having executed innovative collaborations with Adam Faris, Josiah Johnson, Master Tesfatsion, Kazeem Famuyide, Claire De Lune and Lily Herman since launching. The media venture has been widely celebrated across culture, sports, and business, including through features in Semafor, Emily Sundberg’s “Feed Me,” and The Information’s Creator Economy Newsletter as well as shout-outs from influential voices across the sports and culture internet like Joe Pompliano, Darren Rovell, Phil Lewis, Travonne Edwards, Khristina Williams, Eric Newcomer, and more.

About OffBall:

OffBall is a brand that celebrates the culture of sports, curating the top stories, posts, and narratives in the space on its homepage, newsletters, and social channels. OffBall’s content is hand-selected by a team of former journalists and editors who share a passion for the way sports informs culture. Co-founded by longtime media, communications, and branding experts Michaela Hammond, Adam Mendelsohn, and Chris Stone, OffBall is built to offer audiences the best of sports and culture without relying on aggregation, AI, hot takes, and clickbait.

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