SI

Erin Andrews Explains Main Reason She Left ESPN for Fox Sports

The veteran sideline reporter says she consulted Coach K and Chip Kelly about the decision.

Dan Lyons

Erin Andrews became a television star during her eight-year run at ESPN from 2004 to ’12, when she left the Worldwide Leader for rival Fox Sports. In an appearance on The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast, she shared that she ultimately left, because ESPN never offered her a role on Monday Night Football.

As she weighed the decision to leave ESPN, she spoke to a number of influential people, including former Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski and former Oregon football coach Chip Kelly, both of whom she developed relationships with during her time as a college sports sideline reporter. Both helped her settle on the decision.

“I knew I was never going to get Monday Night Football. That role was just never offered to me,” Andrews told Andrew Marchand and John Ourand. “I remember Coach K saying to me, ‘How many Alabama-LSU games are you going to do? When is it time for you to move on?’ And I remember calling Chip Kelly the night that it was announced that I was leaving ESPN. … I was just bawling, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’ve made the right decision; I hope I don’t regret this,’ and he’s like, ‘Don’t look back; just look forward.’”

Andrews said the NFL opportunity presented by Fox was something she hadn’t done before, calling it “glamorous” and “cool.” She has been with Fox working as an NFL sideline reporter since 2014. Her work in sports has opened up other opportunities on shows such as Good Morning America and Dancing with the Stars.

Earlier this year, her Fox team got a major shakeup, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman leaving for her previous company to call Monday Night Football. Over the summer, she quietly signed a new three-year deal to stay with Fox, telling SI‘s Jimmy Traina that she was happy to avoid making news herself.

“I signed a contract. I quietly did that. I figured enough was enough with the headlines for a while,” Andrews told Traina. “My deal was up in August. Fox came to me pretty much right away and just said, ‘We wanna keep you here.’ At that point. I was unaware of who I was gonna be doing the games with. They were great about it. That’s one thing I do have to say regardless of what other opinions are out there. My bosses at Fox, Eric Shanks and Brad Zager, were very up front with me. Even up front with me when I would call and be like, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening? What’s the plan? I just want to know what the plan is.’ And they would just say, ‘Hang on, hang on. I promise you’re going to be happy, just hang on.’”

Andrews remains on Fox’s top NFL team, alongside Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen, and sometime in the future, Tom Brady. 

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Dan Lyons
DAN LYONS

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