In 2006, CBS Sports completely eliminated sideline reporters from its NFL game telecasts, then operated without them until hiring Tracy Wolfson as lead game reporter in 2014. Fast-forward a decade, and things are looking up for sideline reporters, whose job was once much-maligned. This key position, which has been the springboard for so many sports media careers, is finally having a moment.
Wolfson has earned two Emmy Awards and counting for CBS. Her CBS colleagues Jim Nantz and Tony Romo tell me she’s an indispensable part of their lead NFL game crew.
Nantz has worked with Wolfson on huge TV properties such as the Super Bowl and the NCAA March Madness basketball championship. “She’s a true professional,” says Nantz. “At times, I’m blown away. I think I have uncovered every gem and nugget, and read everything that’s out there around the league, and she still comes up with stuff where I’m like, ‘Whoa, where did you get that? That’s really good.’ I have a world of respect for her. We have really good team chemistry.”
Romo told me he’s delighted Wolfson is getting her due. She deserves more Sports Emmys, according to the former Cowboys quarterback. What TV viewers don’t see is all of the information she tells her colleagues in the broadcast booth, without adding it to her on-air hits.
“She gives us stuff from the sideline that you might want to say. I don’t know. I haven’t been anywhere else. But this is what normal teams do. Everyone says that,” Romo said. “I think that shows her commitment to we—and us.”
Meanwhile, there’s been a flurry of sideline reporter hires by ESPN, NBC Sports, and Amazon Prime Video as they ramp up their NFL and NBA coverage. ESPN has promoted NFL Live host Laura Rutledge to serve as the second sideline reporter on its lead Monday Night Football team with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and incumbent reporter Lisa Salters (who also got a contract extension).
The network is also adding Peter Schrager and Katie George as sideline reporters to its second MNF announce team with Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky, and Louis Riddick. So for the first time ever, ESPN will deploy two sideline reporters for all 25 NFL on ESPN game telecasts this season.
Fox Sports was already ahead of the game in this respect, deploying two sideline reporters—Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi—on its first-string NFL broadcast team with Kevin Burkhardt, Tom Brady, and rules analyst Mike Pereira.
Both NBC and Prime have been on a hiring spree for top “courtside” reporters as they prepare to cover the NBA this fall. NBC has recruited Zora Stephenson, Jordan Cornette, and Ashley ShahAhmadi, while Prime is adding Cassidy Hubbarth, Allie Clifton, and Kristina Pink.
There are other factors at work here, too. Networks realize sideline reporters can bring younger, more digitally friendly audiences to game telecasts. Andrews, for example, boasts more than 5 million social media followers. She’s also a force in pop culture, cohosting ABC’s Dancing with the Stars for five years and marketing her own WEAR clothing line. Their diverse skill sets also lead to other audiences: Rinaldi, a skilled essayist, authored the best-selling book, The Red Bandanna: A Life, A Choice, A Legacy about slain Sept. 11 hero Welles Crowther.
There’s always going to be a segment of sports TV viewers who believe sideline reporters add little to nothing to game telecasts. We’ve all sat through games where control-freak coaches answered their questions monosyllabically and without insight. Fox’s Charissa Thompson had to do some fast talking after saying she made up some sideline reporting earlier in her career.
But occasionally, there are unforgettable TV moments like Maria Taylor’s interview with an angry Nick Saban, Andrews with Richard Sherman, or Sal Paolantonio with Bart Scott, where they go viral. And the behind-the-scenes work reporters do is invaluable. If the sports TV networks have their way, we should be getting a lot more of them this season.
