The multi-media platform is set to expand its focus following an expansive re-brand.
What started as a platform focused on telling stories centered around the intersection of race, sports and culture has evolved into a new, expanded endeavor for ESPN’s The Undefeated.
The popular multi-media platform unveiled Monday that it will now go by the name Andscape as a part of a brand relaunch for its re-shaped focus.
Per the official press release, Andscape is a multi-platform media venture “dedicated to embracing and sharing the full range of Black culture and identity.” The Walt Disney Company-owned property will encompass “an editorial unit with a robust website, a book publishing arm, a film and television division, and a music publishing group—all with the shared mission of uniting, entertaining, inspiring, and connecting audiences through a Black lens.”
ESPN President James Pitaro said the move will seek to include “more topics, more perspectives and more ways to engage” while Mark L. Walker, ESPN's Head of Sports Business Development and Innovation, called it a "doubling down" of the company's “investment in and commitment to Black stories and voices.”
Raina Kelley, Andscape’s editor-in-chief, further explained the brand’s re-imagined focus in an article published by The New York Times on Monday.
“How do you be an individual as a Black person in America with your own unique set of interests, some of which are bound together by melanin, but not all of them,” Kelley said, “And how do you feel whole? We wanted to create a space where Black people could be Black people: Black led, Black P.O.V., absolutely. But also where there were no definitions and no rules about what being Black meant, what you had to talk about.”
Andscape will release its first short film, Starkeisha, on Hulu March 7, followed by the launch several YouTube shows in the following weeks.