Apr
11
Lisa Salters Becomes Lone Monday Night Football Sideline Reporter
Just announced by ESPN today, Lisa Salters will become the new sideline reporter for Monday Night Football for the 2012 season.
She replaces the rotation of reporters last season that included the disastrous debut of John Sutcliffe during the Pittsburgh Steelers-San Francisco 49ers game that experienced a transformer explosion and subsequent blackout of Candlestick Park.
Before the rotation began, ESPN had utilized Michele Tafoya and Suzy Kolber on the sidelines only to reduce their roles in 2009.
Now Lisa will take over the sideline reporting duties. She had previously been assigned to college football for both ABC and ESPN. Plus, Lisa has been courtside for the NBA and various college basketball games.
In addition, Lisa has been a reporter for ABC News and has done work on ESPN’s news magazine, E:60.
We have the press release from ESPN.
Lisa Salters Named ESPN’s Monday Night Football Sideline Reporter
Lisa Salters, one of the lead reporters for ESPN on ABC’s NBA coverage, has been named the new sideline reporter for ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Salters will join play-by-play commentator Mike Tirico and analyst Jon Gruden on the weekly MNF game telecasts and provide live stadium reports during ESPN’s Monday afternoon studio shows throughout the NFL season.
One of ESPN’s most versatile and accomplished reporters, Salters has covered the NBA, college football and more since joining ESPN in 2000 from ABC News. She is a featured correspondent on the ESPN news magazine, E:60, a role which earned her both a Gracie Award from the Association for Women in Radio and Television for best feature in 2009, and a Sports Emmy nomination for the story “Ray of Hope” in 2008. She also traveled to Haiti for a powerful story on the U17 national women’s soccer team just months after the country was devastated by an earthquake in 2010.
Salters’ journalistic assignments have brought her to a number of major global sports events around the world, including the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea/Japan, the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. She also covered sports-related stories for ESPN in and around U.S. Central Command in Qatar during the build-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and she traveled with SportsCenter in 2004 to Camp Arifjan, a U.S. Army base in Kuwait.
Before arriving at ESPN, Salters was a Los Angeles-based correspondent for ABC News (1995-2000), where she covered the O.J. Simpson civil and criminal trials among other major stories for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and ABC News outlets. earlier in her career, she worked at WBAL-TV, the NBC affiliate in Baltimore, Md.
“Lisa’s experience covering the NBA and other major sports events, as well as her strength as an interviewer, make her ideally suited for the Monday Night Football sideline reporter role,” said John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president, production. “She will be a tremendous addition to our MNF team with Mike and Jon, and to our overall NFL presentation.”
“The opportunity to work with Mike, Jon and the entire Monday Night Football crew on ESPN’s signature property is both humbling and exciting,” said Salters. “I have always admired MNF reporters like Suzy Kolber and Michele Tafoya, and I am determined to continue the standard of excellence they have established in this role.”
Salters worked previously with both Tirico and Gruden, most recently on the 2012 Orange Bowl college football telecast.
A year ago, ESPN used a rotation of sideline reporters on its MNF games.
And I have one more post next.
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