Holly Rowe (born June 16, 1966) is an American sports telecaster currently working for the sports television network

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. Rowe is best known as a sideline reporter for

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

games which are telecast on ESPN. Rowe made

Utah Jazz The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference, Northwest Division (NBA), ...

team history on October 22, 2021 as the team’s first female color commentator in a game against the

Sacramento Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...

History with ESPN

Rowe has been with ESPN since August 1998 as a full-time college football sideline reporter. In that capacity, she has been a part of numerous regular season games and post-season bowl games. Before working full-time as a college football sideline reporter, she served as a part-time sideline reporter in certain ESPN broadcasts during the course of 1997. (Prior to that, with

ABC Sports ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Televisi ...

, in both

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

and 1996.) With ESPN, Rowe has also been a part of broadcasting women's

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

games, and women's college

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

(both since 1998; generally in a play-by-play capacity as opposed to her college football sideline duties). Other broadcasts that Rowe has been a part of during her time at ESPN include play-by-play for Women's

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

matches, coverage of the

Running of the Bulls A running of the bulls ( es, encierro, from the verb ''encerrar'', 'to corral, to enclose'; oc, abrivado, literally 'haste, momentum'; ca, correbous, 'run-bulls') is an event that involves running in front of a small group of bulls, typicall ...

, coverage of

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

, and broadcasts of track & field events. Being a woman in the sports broadcasting industry, Rowe has been profiled by other media and news organizations. She is the lead sideline reporter for ESPN's coverage of Saturday-night college football (including the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

), women's college basketball (including the

NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 women's college basketball teams from the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic ...

), the WNBA and

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

, the

Women's College World Series The Women's College World Series (WCWS) is the final portion of the NCAA Division I softball tournament for college softball in the United States. Eight teams participate in the WCWS, which begins with a double-elimination tournament. In other wo ...

and

NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament The NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament is an annual event that leads to the championship in women's volleyball from teams in Division I contested by the NCAA each winter since 1981. Texas won the most recent tournament, defeating Louis ...

, and also works on men's college basketball and NBA.

Other work

Before and during her time with ESPN, Rowe has worked with several other broadcast organizations. Rowe has been a broadcaster for women's college basketball games broadcast by

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

since she started in 1993. Rowe also worked as an analyst for the WNBA’s

Utah Starzz Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

. The Blue & White Sports Network in

Provo, Utah Provo ( ) is the fourth-largest city in Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the largest city and county seat of Utah County and is home to Brigham Young University (BYU). Provo lies between the ...

employs Rowe in many of their broadcasts, and is the network which syndicates several

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington (state), Washington, and Texa ...

(WAC) sporting events. In addition, she has held a position on the team at

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

which produces the men's Final Four. Rowe joined the

broadcast team in 2021 as an analyst.

Before becoming a sportscaster

After graduating from

Woods Cross High School Woods Cross High School is a public high school (serving grades 10–12) in Woods Cross, Utah, in the Davis School District. It is sometimes abbreviated as WXHS. As of the 2019–20 school year, the principal is Deanne Kapetanov. The assistant p ...

Woods Cross, Utah Woods Cross is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden– Clearfield, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 9,761 as of the 2010 census, with an estimated population in 2019 of 11,431. Histor ...

in 1984, Rowe attended

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...

. At BYU, she was the news anchor for the campus TV station, KBYU-TV. Although Rowe attended BYU for two years, she did not graduate. During this period, she also spent time as a sportswriter for the

Daily Utah Chronicle The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of D ...

and the Davis County Clipper. She later returned to school and earned a broadcast

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...

degree in 1991 from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

. Right after college (1991–1992), she interned at

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...

References

External links

*
Rowe ESPN bio''Daily Oklahoman'' article on RoweVideos of Holly Rowe while broadcasting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowe, Holly 1966 births Living people American television sports announcers Arena football announcers ArenaBowl broadcasters College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers National Football League announcers Softball announcers University of Utah alumni Volleyball commentators Women sports announcers Women's college basketball announcers in the United States Women's National Basketball Association announcers American women sportswriters