Subscribe
Follow Us
With National Women and Girls in Sports Day occurring yesterday, ESPN and the NBA are teaming up to create a historic broadcast for an NBA game when the Golden State Warriors face the Utah Jazz at Vivint Smart Home Area next Monday.
ESPN announced that it will produce the first nationally televised NBA game operated by a staff comprised of women, both behind and in front of the camera. Beth Mowins and Doris Burke will be on the call and Lisa Salters will be the sideline reporter.
ESPN will produce the first #NBA game on a national scale with women-led production and operations teams
Broadcasting pioneers @bethmowins, @heydb and @saltersl will team up for the first time to call the game
🏀 Feb. 9 | 10 p.m. ET | ESPN & ESPN Apphttps://t.co/1sb27bGSfT pic.twitter.com/2Ibsd8wAVj
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) February 3, 2022
Mowins told Joe Reedy of the Associated Press that she is both excited for the broadcast and looking forward to the day where having a production team predominately consisting of women is common.
“I think it's exciting to kind of celebrate,” Mowins said. “There are a lot of the women that have been around the league for a while, and then others like me that are kind of new to it.”
“I think it's important to still celebrate some of these big milestones, but I really do believe we're getting closer to the day where it won't be such a big deal and it will be very natural and very comfortable,” Mowins said.
Both members of the commentating duo have made history for women in sports. Mowins, a play-by-play commentator for several sports, was the first woman to announce a nationally televised game, which she did on Monday Night Football in 2017. Burke, a staple of NBA and WNBA broadcasts, became the first woman to be a game analyst for the NBA Finals in 2020.
The surging Warriors and crestfallen Jazz, who are now without Joe Ingles for the rest of the season, will look to climb higher in the Western Conference standings ahead of the All-Star break.
