My Favorite Broadcaster: Melissa Stark

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Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is having a great March and a wonderful start to spring! In addition to being a great start to a new season—this month is also Women’s History Month. As always, I’m so thankful to be surrounded by so many incredibly talented women every day. This week, I want to highlight one woman in media that has inspired me over the years.

I knew from the first time I saw her on Monday Night Football that I wanted to be just like Melissa Stark. I cut my hair like her and tried to mimic her outfits, but I really looked up to how everyone on the sidelines reacted to her and treated her. She really had it all from the start and I wanted to emulate every part of that.

I remember she started her career around the same time that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick started growing their careers as well. I’ve since talked to her about how all three of them essentially grew up together in the NFL—which is such a great story to tell, especially as a woman in the industry. To this day, Bill still sits down for interviews with her and treats her with so much respect and kindness.

I didn’t meet her myself until later in my career but we have since shared a lot of stories with each other about being women in sports media. Our careers differ in the way that I’ve grown my career in the time of social media—which can be great for partnerships and expanding your career beyond game coverage, but social media can have its bad sides in terms of the things I have to deal with sometimes.

On the other hand a lot of our careers have been the same. We’ve both been sideline reporters for major NFL game nights and have excelled in sports broadcasting. But we’ve also shared the unique experience of the gender biases that come with being a woman reporter. For example, a male reporter can talk on air how they were texting a player about something, but out of our mouths people find it a little weird. But we’re all just doing our job—and a lot of that is creating connections with players and texting them to get information. This has a lot to do with some of the misogyny leftover from the early days. It’s gotten a lot better, but Melissa has been a huge help with navigating situations like this, dealing with old school coaches, etc.

Besides being a huge support to me in the industry, she’s just such a good person. I’m so thankful to be friends with someone that I looked up to and who has excelled in my career field for so long. If any of you remember, I had Melissa on my podcast back once and I just fangirled the ENTIRE time. I could just sit back and listen to her stories all day. Hopefully we’ll be able to collaborate more in the future, she’s one of those people you want around for life.

Who are some of your favorite women in sports media? Share them below, let’s celebrate all these badass women!

Until next time,

Erin