You can judge the influence of sports TV personalities by their ability to land big interviews. Josina Anderson has again come through for ESPN by landing a sitdown with Odell Beckham Jr. of the Giants — arguably the most compelling young superstar in the NFL.
During this weekend's "Sunday NFL Countdown" (10 a.m. ET), ESPN will likely air Anderson's interview with OBJ and rapper Lil Wayne. The razor-sharp reporter garners a lot of respect from athletes. Using her extensive rolodex, Anderson's scoop list keeps growing.
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This year alone, she broke the news of OBJ's record $95 million deal with the Giants that made him the highest-paid wide receiver in the league. She reported safety Earl Thomas was ending his holdout and returning to the Seahawks. When Richard Sherman moved to the 49ers from the Seahawks, the news was broken by Anderson and ESPN colleague Adam Schefter.
But the Washington, D.C., native is more than a scoop machine. She's a stylish, savvy presence on ESPN studio shows, ranging from "NFL Live" to "SportsCenter" and "First Take." As a sideline reporter, Anderson covered the "Minneapolis Miracle," when the Vikings beat the Saints on the final play of the NFC divisional playoff game. After scoring a 61-yard walkoff TD, an emotional Stefon Diggs told her: "Damn, that s— felt good."
Anderson has worked hard to get where she is. The former track and field athlete at the University of North Carolina fought her way on to ESPN's radar by breaking multiple national stories at Fox 31 in Denver. After joining ESPN in 2011, she was named the network's first female NFL Insider in 2015, joining other Insiders Schefter and Chris Mortensen. ESPN rewarded her with a multi-year contract extension in 2017.
In the near future, Anderson would like to spread her wings a bit and cover other sports. Over the next five to 10 years, she'd like to discuss her career with Oprah Winfrey. And open her own business.
Notes Anderson: "I think we as women in this industry can branch out — and do other things — that maximize our earnings potential beyond what the cap is of the industry.
As a fledgling sports journalist trying to break into TV, Anderson was famous for traveling anywhere, anytime to cover national events. Even on her own dime. She has the same attitude now. She preaches the need for a fierce work ethic: "The more you harness, the more you harvest."
Sporting News talked to Anderson about her favorite ESPN shows, whether new safety rules are turning pro football into the "National Flag Football League" and the amount of numbers she has in her phone (Hint: Thousands).
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
SPORTING NEWS: How does it feel to be the first female NFL Insider at ESPN? And what's next for Josina Anderson?
JOSINA ANDERSON: I’m definitely cognizant of the impact that it seems to have on younger people. I get a lot of college students and younger people who seek to be in the industry. They reach out to me on Instagram, social media. I don't think there’s a week that goes by where I don’t have two or three messages of people asking me to look over their reels. Or people asking me for advice. It’s so easy to just be on your routine and just be staring at the camera, staring at the producer, staring at the audio, and really forget the magnitude of the people watching back. I get reminded of that by the interactions I get when I’m out on the road. Or the people that contact me directly through Instagram or Twitter. So to that end it is a reminder of the image and the optics of what I’ve been blessed to accomplish. How that further plays out at ESPN I guess is in the future and what that holds. But as for me, I certainly take it very seriously.
I don’t think it’s an easy task to set on the set of "NFL Live" between a quote, unquote, Bill Polian and an Adam Scheffer and be able to hold your own in a conversation about the heavy details of the league or a game. So I’m proud that I know that I can do that, that I contribute in those situations, that what I bring to the table is respected. I’ve earned that title. Hopefully, I will continue to blossom from there. The one thing I would say, when the idea of becoming this Insider came to me, I happily accepted it. Because I felt like it was a nod to what I’ve accomplished in covering the league over 15 years. But as I’ve continued to also say, just because I took a turn toward focusing on football, the intention of that was also not for it to be limiting. I am cognizant of that too.
SN: You mean covering other sports occasionally, like the NBA?
JA: I haven’t done so in a while. When I first came to ESPN, I would say yes. My wings kind of spread into different boxes. I’ve since focused more on football. I love football. I love the role that I have. I think that with hard work, and people who have helped me, I’ve come to excel at it. But I’m also naturally a butterfly — my personality and my skill set. It’s also important to me that I feel like I’m growing, that I’m not necessarily just in one box. However that plays out.
SN: We wrote you would be a great candidate for ESPN’s "Monday Night Football" booth. Is that something you’d be interested in doing at some point?
JA: I would alway be interested in an opportunity that allowed me to spread my wings, much in the way I would anticipate anybody who works hard, knows their craft, is knowledgeable about their particular area of expertise to be open to the same thing. I do believe we all have individual assets that we bring to the table with what we know, with the resources that we have access to, that can add that type of color and insight to anything that we do. I’m in full support of the team that we have up there. They’re doing a good job.
SN: What do you think of Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer becoming first all-female team to call NFL games?
JA: It is a wonderful opportunity for two pioneers in this industry. First and foremost on what they’ve accomplished as journalists. Let alone the historic nature of the combination of two women calling the game and lending their voices and perspective to the matchup. I was thrilled for them to have that platform to showcase their work together.
SN: You always have a unique perspective on "First Take." Would you like to appear more on that show?
JA: Absolutely, I definitely would. I very much respect Stephen A. Smith. I have been on that show a couple of times. Definitely would be open to contributing more. Hopefully that road would open up. As a female Insider, and someone who’s covered sports for 20 years, I definitely feel I have something to contribute. When you look at who the audience is, I think you would hope I would appeal to the specifics of who their audience is as well. So I definitely would be open to that. I respect the hosts and moderator of the show tremendously. They’ve accomplished a lot in terms of the viewership and ratings that they garner on their own, week to week.
SN: Plus, you’re based in New York. And "First Take" just moved to the Big Apple.
JA: What I tell young kids all the time is push hard and strive hard to do all that you can. And this is what I tell myself. Do not forget how you can create opportunities for yourself — and green-light yourself. We live in an age now where there are platforms available to young kids, and myself, and anyone in the industry, that were not available when I was coming out of North Carolina. Instagram. YouTube. All of these things you can put yourself on. What I realize more than anything is that I’ve built so many resources over the years. I might have more than 5,000 numbers on my phone. My spirit is: "OK, Josina, you’ve got all all these contacts, and you know these people. If you’re in any way limited, you are an intelligent, intellectual and articulate woman." There is a way to make sure that everything that you’ve garnered and harvested can turn back and work for where you think you can go. If I’m on a show, if I’m not on a show, if they prefer to use a male athlete, a former athlete, rather than a female insider, then that’s their prerogative. I’m not going to be mad at that. I’m going to turn that back around and figure out, "OK, well that's still not changing my contacts and resources, is it?" Those relationships are still there. My personality is still there. The same way that I hustled to get to this point, you can think about, "How can you hustle and still make this work?" Because that spirit and that ability is there regardless — whether someone wants to use it or not.
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SN: You break a lot of Odell Beckham Jr. stories. What should fans know about OBJ?
JA: The more I have gotten to know Odell Beckham Jr., as with any athlete that I’ve taken the time to build a rapport with, what I have found with him in particular is he is way more thoughtful, introspective and passionate than I think people understand. … In any profession, everybody has different motivations for doing what they do, whether it be extrinsic, intrinsic, for the love, for the money, or what have you. Even though Odell has received this huge contract, he really, really, really loves football. It’s not fake at all. He really wants to do well. He wants to be great. The whole goal of being great is what really drives him and gnaws at him. ... So I feel personally that I’ve seen a lot of growth within him over everything that he’s persevered through. And likewise his perspective has expanded because of what he’s gone through. I think I tend to connect well with people who are very authentic and likewise discern that authenticity in me in just being real with one another.
SN: So did the Giants blow it by taking running back Saquon Barkley instead of a quarterback with No. 2 pick in the Draft?
JA: I don’t think it would ever be deemed a quote, unquote, mistake. Because Saquon is a huge talent. A versatile talent. And his talent cannot be denied. So whether or not they should have gotten a quarterback, I don't think Saquon is a mistake. I think the question is was this selection as beneficial in terms of the longevity of it. Because the quarterback presumably plays longer. He influences the plays more because the ball is running through the quarterback’s hands more. So to that end, you have to base it on the duration of impact that the player has. Also, the available talent at the position at the time. Only time will tell whether the quarterbacks the Giants had access to would prove to be able to supersede what they ultimately get from Saquon. I was on the record with this before. I do think it’s more beneficial to get a quarterback in theory. But obviously this still has to play out. But I would never deem Saquon a mistake. He’s too much of a talent. He’s too much of a good citizen to ever say that.
SN: ESPN asked you to cover the Patriots for Super Bowl 52. What's it like to cover Mr. Media Friendly Bill Belichick.
JA: It definitely was a challenge for me, which I aptly accepted. I’ve been covering the NFL for a long time. But it was a challenge from the standpoint that I don't cover the Patriots a lot. Obviously, or any reporter, it’s going to be more in your wheelhouse to cover teams you cover more frequently. ... They have some really interesting characters. Linebacker Kyle Van Noy, defensive end Trey Flowers, Landon Roberts, Rob Gronkowski. But if you spin it forward to the end result of what happened in their loss to the Eagles, I was really struck by, I think it was one of their last possessions, if you remember Tom Brady ended up on his rear end kind of looking up. ... To me, I just remember looking at it, it just seemed to foreshadow the future a little bit. Not so much that it was ominous. But just in that maybe we’ve seen the crest of what they accomplished. So I took that vision back with me. More so than anything else. It was a reminder that on any given Sunday, a collection of individuals can rise to a common goal and overcome the Goliath.
SN: Ian O’Connor writes that Brady wanted to “divorce” Bill Belichick. Your colleague Seth Wickersham warned that it could be the “beginning of the end” for the Pats dynasty. Your take?
JA: My take on it is probably more of a human one, than anything. In life in general, people evolve. And relationships evolve. There’s seasons in relationships just like anything else. So my approach as an Insider is always to kind of approach people as humans and realize them as humans in making that connection. Also in the way that I perceive them. So it's kind of the same thing. A lot of times when players come into the league, particularly if they’re a blue-chip rookie, they have that uber-confidence and pride that goes along with that aura. A lot of times I’ve seen over my career that two, three, four years in, they go through the reality and the business of the NFL. Whether it be an injury, or the team doesn’t like them as much because of their performance, or whatever. That humility makes them more open as people when reality hits them. ...
What I’m saying is that Tom Brady has evolved as a father, as a player, as a husband, as a professional, as a business partner. ...The relationship with the head coach, perhaps, has changed now. The way you want to be respected for what you've accomplished I’m sure has changed. That’s just common sense. Even in a marriage, people grow tired. Tolerance changes. Some of the thing we’ve seen in Seth’s article and Ian O’Connor’s book are just a reflection of all of that. None of that is surprising to me. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a negative. ... I just see it all on the continuum of how men, players, people, humans, how we all evolve as people, regardless.
SN: ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro says he wants to improve the network’s relationship with NFL. Has ESPN tilted too far toward the NBA?
JA: I can’t really say. I don’t necessarily pay attention to what is our attention level to one sport vs. another. Only because I cover, at least as of right now, more of the NFL than the NBA. What I can say is having listened to our new president as he spoke before the NFL talent that I do appreciate that he’s invested in the relationship with the NFL. That he sees the benefit of it. That he wants to continue it and has a long view on that as well. I’m definitely appreciative of that. I think that the NFL, particularly when the stars are healthy, has proven itself to be a very entertaining, engaging product. Look at the Rams-Vikings. That was a very entertaining game. Baker Mayfield and how he came in. ... Those storylines, to me, have shown again why we love the NFL, and why I find the NFL more engaging during the regular season than the other sports. Because it is played once a week — and the drama is so much more compressed. ... So I understand why they want to preserve the stars, particularly the quarterbacks, with these rules, because they see how one impacts the other with the (TV) ratings. So I get that push on the safety rules and all the other stuff. And why we, as a company, are invested in this relationship, which I am in support of. At least for that aspect of it, I get it and I’m happy about it.
SN: When you look at the excitement around Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs and other young stars, does it feel like the NFL is coming back strong?
JA: I do agree there’s a set of multiple factors that definitely had an impact last season. As a whole, I believe that the NFL is a compelling product because of everything I mentioned before. So when those factors are all at the table together, I don’t think that there is a challenger. But that’s just my opinion — when you look at an NFL season as whole, regular season and post-season. Because of the schedule. The minimum games vs. the NBA, which is 82 or Major League Baseball, which is 162. It’s more dramatic. It’s more compressed. And literally, I feel like you have the sense of the athletes involved in the league really more fighting for survival, their personal survival, and you feel that angst in the game. It is more physical. Thus the risk to the duration of their individual careers is also more at stake by comparison to (other) major league sports. It’s not so much that I feel like the NFL is back. I think that the NFL is re-asserting the strength and the characteristics that they’ve always had.
SN: To me, plays like Vance McDonald of the Steelers stiff-arming Chris Conte of the Buccaneers are what makes the NFL great. Is that what fans love? The power, determination, toughness?
JA: Yes. The discussion now is just how do we measure the characteristics that are inherent to the game when it comes to the physicality of the sport and balancing that against the desires of keeping the game safe so that the league still exists. You don’t want to lose the component that made it football. Because I don’t think people wish to have the NFFL, which is the National Flag Football League. That’s not what people are looking for either. At the same time, I understand exactly what the NFL presented to the NFL talent at ESPN. That they have research that there is a higher incident of injuries when there’s a helmet-to-helmet hit and there’s flexion in the neck at that angle that can cause serious issues. We saw what happened with Ryan Shazier (of the Steelers). You have to be cognizant of that. But even the rule with Clay Matthews (of the Packers), the roughing the passer rule, I understand they have surmised that the presence of the star quarterbacks in the game are directly related to their ratings. At the same time, there’s no game if there’s no defense on the field. So I understand why certain defensive players came out and said on Twitter that they feel they’re not as cared for. So all those things all figure into the conversation. It’s understandable as to why they’re brought into the conversation.
SN: What do you think of Panthers signing Eric Reid? And is the national anthem protest fading away?
JA: I would clarify it’s not a protest of the national anthem. It has been a protest during the national anthem to bring attention to social issues, particularly those that affect people of color. So I would start off with that. I do think that the way it’s being handled right now is smart. Because sometimes when you have a big argument over a certain issue it brings more attention to it. Sometimes when you just let it be, then it kind of phases into what it naturally and organically will be. ... These men who feel this way are very, very principled. If they’re very principled in these thoughts, they’re not just going to back off because you put a rule down. Everybody has pride about what they believe in. So if you challenge that pride and that principal, it’s actually going to go in the opposite direction of what you’re trying to accomplish. So sometimes actually either trying to get a compromise, or show respect to someone else’e opinion, or simply just letting it be, is sometimes the better approach to dealing with what happened as opposed to just trying to bull-headedly assert a rule that everybody has to follow, when this has to do with things that people are really convicted about in terms of their personal beliefs. You don’t stop being a person, you don’t stop being a human, because you’re a professional in a given line of work. I think the more respect you show anybody, the more respect you get back.
So going back to what you originally asked me about Eric Reid. I applaud the Carolina Panthers for at least being a team that eventually, and ultimately, addressed their obvious area of need with a player who can obviously address the need. After all, is that not business? That’s business. They needed a safety; they got a quality safety. And if we focus on that, that’s all it needs to be. My understanding is that they didn’t ask him about what he intends to do. So I can’t speak to the impact of that. Because I don’t know what he intends to do. But I at least can respect that at the negotiation table, that it was kept to football, and they didn’t fear that, at least at this point in time.
SN: Does Colin Kaepernick get another shot in the NFL?
JA: If you would have asked me this a week ago, I would have said I 99 percent doubt it. But also if you had asked me a week ago, I would have said I 99 percent doubt that Eric Reid would. Simply because of the time that has passed. Simply because the ongoing collusion case that Kaepernick has with the NFL. It seemed to be going in that direction. But a player on the Panthers did indicate to me over direct message that they thought this was coming down the line with Eric Reid. I told that player, "OK, let me know when it happens." Then when it happened, I DM’d him, "You didn’t let me know!" ... I wish I had taken it even more seriously. I thought they were just like whatever, whatever. Then it did happen. So I will say to you: I will never say never. Because circumstance can create desperation. You never know. A team could lose three quarterbacks. In a game. You never know what could happen. So circumstance could compel a team to do that. Then that team could be in a situation where ownership and their head coach are more open to that if that happened to their quarterback. ... If the stars align, where desperation was created at that position, then maybe (a team) would. I will say never say never. But I will say that it still remains less likely than what we saw just happen with Eric Reid.
SN: After you spoke with journalism students, they said, "Josina gave it to us straight. There was no BS." Your thoughts?
JA: The thing about my career, while I can come across so passionate, and maybe have a fortitude of my spirit in how I can talk, is because I’ve been through a lot of stuff. Even at this point in my career, I still go through stuff. I still get hurdles put in front of me. I still get people who challenge me. I still get things that are put in my way to limit me. That still goes on. Even in getting here, it wasn’t given to me because I’m cute. Or I’m the Flavor of the Month. Or somebody rubbing the back of my agent I have, for real, busted my behind through each market and actually know what I’m talking about in addition to whatever color I can present with my personality, or how I dress or however else. All of that to me is secondary, tertiary. So hopefully, when I’m talking to your class, or people see me on camera, or I’m interacting with athletes who trust me enough after building a Rolodex of contacts, I think what they’re seeing, and hopefully what your class saw coming across or they heard it in my spirit or my voice, is real s—. Because I’ve been through real s—.