Podcast·4 min read

NFL Reporter Erin Andrews on Addressing the “Shelf Life” of Her Career

October 16, 2024

Erin Andrews has become one of the most recognizable sideline reporters in the sports industry. She started out at ESPN in her early twenties, and eventually moved to Fox NFL where she continues to give fans updates on their favorite players and coaches. While Erin’s worked in the biz for nearly two decades, she admits there’s a “shelf life” to her job. But the only way she’ll stop is if they drag her off the sidelines – and she says, it ain’t gonna be pretty. 

 In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Erin shares: 

  • The news junkie side of her, and how it’s ruined family vacations 

  • How she’s proactively addressing the “shelf life” of her on-camera career 

  • The trauma she endured after being stalked, and how it informs her boundaries today

  • How she’s built genuine relationships with her colleagues and the people she covers

  • Why work became such a safe haven for her after going through her cervical cancer diagnosis and IVF treatments

PS: Check out Erin Andrews podcast, Calm Down

On Getting Nervous on Camera, Nearly 20 Years In

Erin: I've been very open this year. Two weeks ago, I did a game and I was like, Oh my God, I think I'm going to blank out. I just got really, really nervous. And I started talking about that on “Calm Down”. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Holy shit, what's wrong with me? Why am I freaking out? I know it's a big game. I know it's going to be a highly rated game. What is wrong with me?’ And then my play-by-play guy throws to me. So it's crazy. I do feel very confident on air. But sometimes, I'm actually a real person and I've got stuff going on at home. I've got a 15- month-old. I've got a husband. We're trying to juggle a lot of things right now. And this is kind of a new world for me. 

On How She Coped with Personal Struggles with Work 

Erin: Work ended up being a safe haven for me because I had two massive surgeries on my cervix and was not supposed to be on my feet two days after. But there was no way in hell I was going to miss my games because that's where I felt the most the most normal, and that's really what happened a lot with my stalking situation as well. For so many years, or so many months I had to keep quiet that the FBI was working behind the scenes, that my law team was working behind the scenes to try to catch this guy. And I think a lot of people would expect me to just not travel and hide. But very much the same when I had cervical cancer, I was like: F this. I need to go to work. I feel the safest on that field. That is my happy place. And that's the same thing when I was going through infertility and everything and shooting up in between, you know, quarters of a game. It's like, what am I going to do? Stay at home and be miserable and be like, Oh, I hope this IVF works. No. Because then it's not going to work.

On Why Her Work Relationships are So Strong

Erin: You should treat everybody with respect and treat them how you want to be treated because in the end, it's the right thing to do, but also you don't know if these people are going to become your boss. I work in an industry – and you don't have to work in sports broadcasting, you could work anywhere – it's a high stress situation. We're tired. We're traveling. We're away from our families. We're on TV. I think of the Taylor Swift song. I can do it with a broken heart. It doesn't matter what you have going on. You just have to go lights, camera, bitch, smile. Fortunately for me, and even in my time at ESPN, I made some incredible relationships…All these people that just have meant so much to me in my life. But I'm also that kind of person. I like being surrounded by a group that I can think of as my family. I almost have a harder time when I'm not close to people. We miss a lot of holidays. We miss a lot of important things in our lives because we're traveling on the road with these people. 

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