Maria Taylor (sportscaster)

Last updated

Maria Taylor
Maria Taylor 1 (cropped).jpg
Taylor in 2015
Born
Suzette Maria Taylor

(1987-05-12) May 12, 1987 (age 36)
Alpharetta, Georgia, U.S.
Alma mater University of Georgia
OccupationSportscaster
Years active2009–present
Employer NBC Sports
Spouses
Rodney Blackstock
​
​
(m. 2019;div. 2021)​
Jon Lee
​
(m. 2021)​
[1]

Suzette Maria Taylor (born May 12, 1987) is an American sportscaster for NBC Sports. She has worked for ESPN and the SEC Network. She has covered college football, college volleyball, National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and men's and women's college basketball.

Contents

Early life

Taylor was born on May 12, 1987, to Steve and Suzette Taylor.

High school and college athlete

While attending Centennial High School in Roswell, Georgia, she had a successful four-year basketball career in which she received many accolades. Among the awards were being a member of the Atlanta Tip-Off Team of the Year, being a Fulton County Scholar Athlete of the Year, Offensive MVP of her high school volleyball team for three years, a three-time All-Region Selection, and being named All-State as a senior. Taylor was additionally selected to be a member of the 2004 USA Volleyball Junior National A2 team. [2]

Taylor received an athletic scholarship to the University of Georgia, where she continued to play volleyball and basketball from 2005 until 2009. While at Georgia she was named a member of the All-SEC volleyball team each season. She also continued to play for the US Volleyball Junior National A2 team, and helped them win a bronze medal during the Open Division of the US Volleyball Championships. [2] By the time her playing days were done in the fall of 2008, Taylor ranked fourth all-time in program history in career kills with 1,729 and was fourth all-time in total points with 2,020. She is 6'2" in height. [3]

Career

Taylor covering the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship for ACC Network 2020-0113-MariaTaylor.jpg
Taylor covering the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship for ACC Network

Prior to 2012, Taylor was a reporter and host for IMG College at the University of Georgia for three years. She also appeared on various studio shows, including Dawg Report, SEC Men's Basketball Tonight, and SportsNite.[ citation needed ]

ESPN

In 2013, Taylor was the sideline reporter on ESPN2’s weekly Saturday-night primetime college football telecast in addition to the Orange Bowl, her second straight year covering the annual bowl game. She has been an analyst on the NCAA Women's Basketball Selection Show, NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Preview Show and also ESPN's coverage of both the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament and Women's Volleyball National Championship for the previous two years.

Taylor joined the SEC Network in 2014. She was a college football reporter on SEC Network with commentator Brent Musburger and Jesse Palmer, and was also an analyst on other SEC telecasts including volleyball and women's basketball. Additionally, she provided sideline coverage for the 2016 Rose Bowl Game between Stanford University and the University of Iowa. In 2017, Maria joined the College GameDay broadcast team as reporter and host, replacing Samantha Ponder (who became the host of Sunday NFL Countdown ), and was an ESPN host and reporter for the College Football Playoff between the University of Georgia and the University of Oklahoma. Subsequently, she was a host and reporter for the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia. [4] [5] Taylor was the sideline reporter for Saturday Night Football on ABC, with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit calling the game from the booth.

In 2019, Taylor began hosting NBA Countdown , the pre-game show for ESPN's Friday night and Sunday afternoon NBA games. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, ESPN scrapped its original plan for The Jump, hosted by Rachel Nichols, to serve as the NBA Finals pregame show, and instead named Taylor's NBA Countdown the Finals pregame and halftime show. [6] In 2020, she was the sideline reporter for Pittsburgh Steelers vs New York Giants Monday Night Football opener. [7]

NBC Sports

In 2020, ESPN reportedly offered to increase Taylor's $1 million annual salary to $5 million, which she turned down. Taylor left the network the day after the 2021 NBA Finals concluded on July 20. Her departure came after a conference call between Rachel Nichols and LeBron James' advisor Adam Mendelsohn from July 2020 that suggested that the network’s decision to choose Taylor to host the NBA Finals was due to her race was leaked earlier that month. [8] [9] [10] [11] Two days later, Taylor joined NBC Sports, and made her on-air debut for the network during coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics on July 23, 2021. [12]

In the 2021 NFL season, Taylor joined NBC's Sunday Night Football pre-game show Football Night in America as a panelist. [13] In May 2022, it was announced that Taylor would replace Mike Tirico (who was moving to the lead play-by-play position for Sunday Night Football) as the lead host of the program. [14] Taylor served as the host for the men's and women's semi-finals and finals during NBC's coverage of the 2022 French Open. [15] In addition to Football Night in America, since 2023, Taylor has also served as host for NBC's college football coverage, serving in the role during Big Ten and Notre Dame games.

Related Research Articles

Nationally television broadcasts of National Basketball Association (NBA) games first aired on ABC from 1965 to 1973. In 2002, NBA games returned to ABC as part of a contract signed with the league, along with cable sister network ESPN. After the ABC Sports division was merged into ESPN Inc. by parent company Disney in 2006, broadcasts have since been produced by ESPN, and have primarily used the NBA on ESPN branding and graphics instead of the NBA on ABC branding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Nichols (journalist)</span> American sports journalist

Rachel Michele Nichols is an American journalist and sportscaster. She has covered the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB), professional tennis, college sports, the Olympics and is most notable for her work with the National Basketball Association (NBA). In 2014, Sports Illustrated called Nichols "the country's most impactful and prominent female sports journalist".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allie LaForce</span> American sports journalist (born 1988)

Alexandra Leigh LaForce is an American journalist, model and beauty queen who won Miss Teen USA 2005. She is a reporter for Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, covering the NBA on TNT. She was previously the lead reporter for SEC college football games, a courtside reporter for college basketball games, and the host of We Need to Talk on the CBS Sports Network. LaForce also worked as a broadcast sports anchor and reporter for the Cleveland, Ohio, FOX affiliate WJW. She won a 2011 Emmy award for anchoring FOX 8's Friday Night Touchdown high school football show. She was Miss Teen USA in 2005, and played college basketball at Ohio University.

Melissa Zoey Stark is an American television personality and sportscaster, best known as the current sideline reporter for NBC Sunday Night Football and the former sideline reporter for Monday Night Football.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michele Tafoya</span> American sportscaster

Michele Tafoya is a freelance reporter and retired sports broadcaster and advisor. She hosts the podcast Sideline Sanity. From 2011 to 2022, she was a reporter for NBC Sports, primarily as a sideline reporter for NBC Sunday Night Football. She currently works as a conservative political advisor and makes television appearances on talk shows discussing the state of American politics and culture.

Mark Vernon Jones is a Canadian sportscaster for ABC and ESPN and the primary play-by-play announcer for Sacramento Kings games on NBC Sports California. Jones has been a member of the ESPN broadcasting family since 1990. Before then Jones worked for The Sports Network (TSN) in Canada. He mostly works college football and NBA games on ABC and ESPN.

Bradley Ray Nessler is an American sportscaster, who currently calls college football and college basketball games for CBS Sports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Salters</span> American journalist

Alisia "Lisa" Salters is an American journalist and former college basketball player. She has been a reporter for ESPN and ESPN on ABC since 2000. Previously, she covered the O. J. Simpson murder case for ABC and worked as a reporter at WBAL-TV in Baltimore from 1988 to 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Kremer</span> American sports journalist

Andrea Kremer is a multi-Emmy Award-winning American television sports journalist. She previously called Thursday Night Football games for Amazon Prime Video making sports history, along with Hannah Storm, by becoming the first all-women booth to call any major men's team sport, not just football. Kremer is also Chief Correspondent for the NFL Network and previously led the network's coverage and in-depth reporting on health and safety. Her other current roles include correspondent for HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel as well as co-host of We Need To Talk, the first ever all-female nationally televised weekly sports show on CBS. Until the 2011 season, she worked as a sideline reporter for NBC on the network's coverage of Sunday Night Football.

ESPN Megacast, formerly known as ESPN Full Circle, is a multi-network simulcast of a single sporting event across multiple ESPN networks and services—with each feed providing a different version of the telecast making use of different features, functions or perspectives. These simulcasts typically involve ESPN's linear television channels and internet streaming platforms, and may occasionally incorporate other Walt Disney Television networks at once.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Cox</span> American sports commentator

Heather Cox is an American sportscaster who is a sports reporter for NBC. As Heather Schoeny, she played college volleyball at University of the Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shannon Spake</span> American NASCAR announcer

Shannon Spake is an NFL reporter and NASCAR host for Fox Sports. Previously, she worked for ESPN where she contributed to SportsCenter to give pre and post-game reports, and also worked as a sideline reporter for SEC on ESPN basketball games as well as college football games. Spake also worked for the newly created SEC Network which is owned by ESPN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holly Rowe</span> American sports announcer

Holly Rowe is an American sports telecaster for the ESPN sports television network, as a sideline reporter for college football and basketball games. Rowe made Utah Jazz history on October 22, 2021 as the team’s first female color commentator in a game against the Sacramento Kings

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Marie Anderson</span> American sportscaster

Anne Marie Anderson is a three-time Emmy Award winning broadcaster, keynote speaker and emcee. Having spent more than three decades in sports television, she has covered six Olympic games, heavyweight title fights, golf’s majors, NBA/MLB playoffs and the Superbowl among countless other marquee events. Anderson has served as a play-by-play announcer on several major networks including ESPN, ABC, NBC, FOX and TBS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ros Gold-Onwude</span> Nigerian-American sports broadcaster

Rosalyn Fatima Gold-Onwude is an American-Nigerian sports broadcaster. A native of New York City, Gold-Onwude played college basketball at Stanford and played on the Nigeria national team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashley Stroehlein</span> American sports anchor

Ashley Stroehlein is a sports anchor and reporter for NBC Charlotte, as well as a sideline reporter for ESPN's college football coverage. She previously worked as a sideline reporter for NFL Network's coverage of Conference USA in 2019, a host and reporter for Bristol Motor Speedway's NASCAR coverage and an in-game host for the Charlotte Checkers and Charlotte Knights. Stroehlein also does a weekly segment on Sports Radio WFNZ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andraya Carter</span> American journalist

Andraya Nichole Carter is an analyst and reporter for ESPN/SEC Network coverage of college basketball, college football, and the WNBA and was a co-host for Out of Pocket with Alyssa Lang until 2023. Andraya Carter started working as a sideline reporter for the NBA on ESPN in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jac Collinsworth</span> American sportscaster

Jac Collinsworth is an American sportscaster working for NBC Sports since 2020. He also worked for ESPN on their NFL Live and Sunday NFL Countdown. At NBC, Collinsworth serves as a play-by-play announcer for Big Ten and Atlantic 10 Conference men's basketball. Additionally, he co-hosts NBC's Football Night in America.

References

  1. ↑ "6'4" NFL Reporter Maria Taylor Reveals New Wedding Photos, Husband Even Taller!". 2Paragraphs. April 29, 2021. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Maria Taylor Georgia profile".
  3. ↑ "Where Are They Now: Maria Taylor". Archived from the original on April 12, 2014.
  4. ↑ Knapp, Corey (December 6, 2017). "Georgia football: ESPN announces broadcast team for Rose Bowl". dognation.com. Cox Media Group. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  5. ↑ Kirshner, Alex (January 8, 2018). "ESPN's MegaCast is back again for the Playoff National Championship". sbnation.com. Vox Media . Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  6. ↑ "Doris Burke to make history by calling conference finals, NBA Finals on radio". Pro Basketball Talk. Associated Press. September 10, 2020. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
  7. ↑ Allie Stoneberg (September 10, 2020). "ESPN Kicks Off the 50th Anniversary Season of Monday Night Football". espnpressroom.com. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  8. ↑ Marchand, Andrew (June 30, 2021). "Maria Taylor, ESPN facing possible divorce over 'Stephen A. Smith money'". New York Post. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  9. ↑ "best climbing shoes".
  10. ↑ Marchand, Andrew (July 8, 2021). "ESPN's $3 million offer to Maria Taylor may not let her finish NBA Finals". New York Post. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  11. ↑ Draper, Kevin (July 21, 2021). "With the N.B.A. Finals Complete, Maria Taylor Leaves ESPN". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22, 2021.
  12. ↑ "NBC officially announces hiring of Maria Taylor, featuring her on-air Friday". Awful Announcing. July 24, 2021. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Maria Taylor and Drew Brees will join NBC's Football Night In America". Awful Announcing. August 30, 2021. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  14. ↑ "Maria Taylor will host NBC's Football Night in America". Awful Announcing. May 12, 2022. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Maria Taylor will host NBC's Football Night in America". NBC Sports . May 31, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.