Chris Borland arrived for a meeting in Madison near the Wisconsin State Capitol in February 2022 expecting to be greeted by three or four people. Borland, the former Wisconsin Badgers linebacker, was there to shoot a promotional video for a panel on mental health and sports he was participating in later that spring.
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Instead, Borland saw only one person standing there. Olivia Hancock, then a senior at Wisconsin, carried a camera and stand to set up the shoot, a notebook filled with discussion topics and a passion for telling stories about the student-athlete experience. Hancock was the co-founder of the school’s chapter of Uncut, a nonprofit digital journalism platform for student-athletes, which was set to host the panel.
Borland was impressed that one full-time student could handle so many responsibilities and asked questions about her long-term vision for storytelling in sports.
“One coffee turned into five,” Borland said. “Then 20 and, like, 200.”
Over the course of those conversations, Borland said Hancock’s enthusiasm reignited a passion in him. Since Borland’s last college football season in 2013, the landscape has drastically changed with the rise of social media. He saw an opportunity to partner on a venture that gave college athletes a place to express themselves and who they were away from the field.
That is how Borland, 32, and Hancock, 23, co-founded ByUS Media, which launched this week. Both had experience in the space, enjoyed storytelling and production as an outlet for their creativity and saw a need for athlete-driven stories beyond the news conference.
“Watching the games and going to the games is great,” said Hancock, who actually watched Borland play the 2013 Rose Bowl in person when she was 12 years old. “But I think the most powerful thing and inspiring thing for me as a fan was to hear who these athletes are as people, whether that’s stories of family, teammates, overcoming an injury or a troubled upbringing.
“I think I felt compelled to team up with Chris to bring a platform that amplifies the voice and stories of college athletes across all sports and all genders. It’s really bringing a group of diverse athlete storytellers into the spotlight to inspire fans like me who were always hungry for interesting stories from some of their favorite athletes but also athletes they may never have heard of.”
32-year-old former Wisconsin Badger and NFL Linebacker @ChrisBorland_ and a 23-year-old lifelong Badger fan just launched an athlete-driven storytelling platform in college sports. The story below: (1/6) pic.twitter.com/TzANrJ4OEm
— ByUS Media (@byus_media_) March 14, 2023
Roughly a year after Borland and Hancock first met, they decided to go all in on this endeavor. Hancock worked from July to February in Los Angeles for LeBron James’ media company, Uninterrupted, an athlete empowerment brand. She served as a strategic accounts coordinator in the brand partnerships division before moving back to the Chicago area.
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Borland was a certified teacher with a corporate wellness program called the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, offering professional development on emotional intelligence and mindfulness. He recently moved back to Madison from Los Angeles and no longer teaches there. Borland also was involved in the production of a film called “Do Something,” dealing with activism following a 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, Borland’s hometown. Borland said his role with the film is nearly done and that he plans to devote his energy fully to ByUS Media.
Borland has taken an unusual road to this point. He finished his football career ranked sixth all time at Wisconsin in total tackles, fourth in tackles for loss and tied for eighth in sacks. He set the Big Ten record with 15 forced fumbles in his career and became the first Badgers linebacker to earn first-team All-America honors since 1951. Borland was a third-round NFL Draft pick of the San Francisco 49ers and produced a fabulous rookie season in 2014, recording 108 tackles despite starting only eight games. After the season, he stunned the football world by announcing his retirement, citing concerns about head trauma.
“His story is the reinforcement of the importance of what we’re doing,” Hancock said. “These college athletes, current and former, are so multifaceted and have interesting things going on outside of what they do on the field.”
Borland has been involved in a variety of creative and educational projects since. He was an executive producer on the documentary “Requiem for a Running Back” about former running back Lew Carpenter, who had an advanced case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) when he died. Borland said he hopes to find a streaming platform for it. He also advocated for former athletes and military veterans living with brain injury through his work with several foundations.
“It’s a hard space to work in,” Borland said. “Sometimes you feel that people don’t care as much about athletes outside of their on-field exploits. But I think there is a big appetite, particularly for athlete stories in college. I think people are really curious with this changing landscape in college sports (and) what it’s like to be an 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year-old kid who’s navigating college sports. And it all plays out on social media. That’s another element that I’m fascinated with.”
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Borland’s first experience with athlete-specific media came when he was approached by The Players’ Tribune to assist with the production of podcasts in 2018. New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and Jaymee Messler, the chief marketing officer of Excel Sports Management (Jeter’s agency), launched The Players’ Tribune in 2014. Borland contributed for nearly two years and worked closely with Messler, taking what he described as a “crash course in all things audio.”
Hancock’s path to athlete-driven storytelling began when she heard students at North Carolina had founded Uncut, and she wanted to launch a chapter at Wisconsin. As chance would have it, Hancock said she ran into Badgers volleyball standout Dana Rettke, a national champion and first-team All-American, when the two volunteered to work the greeting table for the presidential election at 6:30 a.m. Nov. 3, 2020. They hit it off and learned they had mutual friends and both were in business school. Rettke and Hancock then co-founded the Uncut chapter at Wisconsin, with Hancock serving as a strategic adviser.
Borland said the fact he and Hancock both are alums of UW-Madison was “definitely a point we connected on” in pursuing this project.
“I think there’s just an affability and a humility and a work ethic that’s kind of shared for people that are Badgers,” Borland said.
The model for ByUS Media is similar to Uncut and The Players’ Tribune. The difference is The Players’ Tribune primarily focuses on pro sports, and unlike Uncut, which has chapters at only a handful of schools run by students working part time, Borland and Hancock will travel the country looking for the best stories to tell. In the past month, they visited Arizona, Oregon, Duke, Iowa State, Iowa, Drake and others. Hancock said they will soon take a road trip from Madison to Florida, stopping at several SEC schools along the way.
They have used their contacts and personal relationships to find people with interesting stories to tell. Some of Borland’s friends are college coaches or administrators. Hancock has connections from Uncut and her friendship with Rettke. They also reach out to sports information directors. Every story comes from an athlete they speak to in person.
The first story from ByUS Media, which was set to publish Friday, focused on Drake men’s basketball player Okay Djamgouz, whose team qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Djamgouz is from Toronto, but his family is of Turkish descent. In the story, he discussed how recent deadly earthquakes in Turkey impacted him, as well as what it was like finding a Turkish community in Des Moines, Iowa. Hancock said there are about 10 more stories already on the way.
Drake Basketball is having a special season. They won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament for the first time in 15 years! This year brought Okay Djamgouz some of his happiest moments but also some of the most challenging ones. @okay__dj’s story coming Friday. pic.twitter.com/g0ig1Zsi0o
— ByUS Media (@byus_media_) March 15, 2023
The plan is to run one or two written stories a week complemented by photographs that showcase athletes’ personalities away from the field. Those stories will be disseminated through the website, as well as its social media channels on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
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Borland said he and Hancock are the only full-time staffers. ByUS Media contracts with people on social media, and Borland said he has “a few different advisers” to help with things such as branding and web design. Hancock said the venture does not currently make money, but the goal is to monetize it in the future through advertisements and branded content. For now, the focus is simply to share stories and build an audience.
“If there’s an overarching theme the last decade in sports, I think it’s athlete empowerment,” Borland said. “We’ve seen athletes use their voice, athletes prioritizing health and mental health, and I think story is a really great way for athletes to advocate for themselves and share what’s important for them.
“What’s really interesting about giving athletes the platform to share their voice in college sports is that everyone’s going a lot of different paths, but everyone is around the same age, everyone is a student. It really is kind of a community. So for me, it’s about giving athletes the platform to share whatever is important to them but also connect with other people across the country that are going through a similar experience.”
(Photo courtesy of ByUS Media)
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