Fran Charles (born October 19, 1968) is an American

television personality Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...

for

MLB Network The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox C ...

, formerly for

NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NF ...

Career

Charles attended

John Burroughs School John Burroughs School (JBS) is a private, non-sectarian college-preparatory school with 631 students in grades 7– 12. Its 49-acre () campus is located in Ladue, Missouri (US), a suburb of St. Louis. Founded in 1923, it is named for U.S. natu ...

in Ladue, Missouri; then earned a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in Communication at Stanford University and a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

from the

Columbia School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism sc ...

. Charles began his career in broadcasting in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, as an overnight reporter, news writer and assignment editor at KSDK-TV. A year later, he became a weekend sports anchor at

WDTN WDTN (channel 2) is a television station in Dayton, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to Springfield, Ohio–licensed WBDT (channel 26), a ''de facto'' owned-and-oper ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

. After three years in Dayton, Charles became the weekend sports anchor at

WHDH-TV WHDH (channel 7) is an independent television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by Sunbeam Television alongside Cambridge-licensed CW affiliate WLVI (channel 56). WHDH and WLVI share studios at Bulfinch Place (nea ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. Charles served as the blow-by-blow announcer for the HBO Sports series ''

Boxing After Dark ''Boxing After Dark'' is an HBO boxing program, premiered on February 3, 1996, that usually showed fights between well-known contenders, but usually not "championship" or "title" fights. Unlike its sister program, ''HBO World Championship Boxin ...

'' from 2000 to 2007 and has also worked on ''

KO Nation ''KO Nation'' is an American television series which featured up-and-coming boxers in a hip-hop format. Shown on HBO every Saturday afternoon (later moved to late-night in January 2001) from May 6, 2000 until August 11, 2001, the show featured ...

'', ''HBO Pay-Per-View Boxing'' and '' World Championship Boxing''. From 2002 to 2006, Charles was the host of the weekly golf show, ''PGA Tour Sunday'' on

USA Network USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...

, serving as lead anchor for studio segments during

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

events. Charles was also an anchor and reporter for NBC Sports, where he anchored the weekend ''Sportsdesk'' show and provided live reports and interviews for ''

NBA on NBC The ''NBA on NBC'' is the branding used for presentations of National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by the NBC television network in the United States. NBC held broadcast rights from 1955 to 1962 and again from 1990 (when it obtai ...

''. He also anchored sports at

WNBC WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo stati ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

while working for NBC Sports. At the start of the 2006 season, Charles joined

, where he shared duties as host of '' NFL Total Access'' with

Rich Eisen Richard Eisen (; born June 24, 1969) is an American television sportscaster and radio host. Since 2003, he has worked for NFL Network as a host of various pregame, halftime, and postgame shows. He also hosts a daily sports radio show, ''The Ric ...

. From 2010 to 2013, Charles hosted '' NFL GameDay Final'', joining

Steve Mariucci Stephen Ray Mariucci (born November 4, 1955), nicknamed "Mooch", is an American sportscaster and former football coach who was the head coach of two National Football League teams, the San Francisco 49ers (1997–2002) and the Detroit Lions (200 ...

, Deion Sanders and

Michael Irvin Michael Jerome Irvin (born March 5, 1966) is an American sports commentator and former professional football wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). In 2007, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fa ...

to review each Sunday’s action with highlights, interviews, and analysis from each game. During that time, he also co-hosted NFL Network’s ''Thursday Night Kickoff Presented by Sears from Los Angeles'' alongside analysts

Kurt Warner Kurtis Eugene Warner (born June 22, 1971) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons, primarily with the St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals. His career, which saw him ascend f ...

, Sterling Sharpe,

Jay Glazer Jason Charles "Jay" Glazer (born December 26, 1969) is a television personality and sports reporter. Since 2004, he has worked as an National Football League (NFL) insider for Fox Sports' NFL pregame studio show, '' FOX NFL Sunday'', on which he r ...

Brian Billick Brian Harold Billick (born February 28, 1954) is an American former football coach and commentator. He was the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings from 1994 to 1998; the team broke the NFL scoring record in the 1998 season. He the ...

and Jim Mora. He was also a studio host for NFL Network's coverage of the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

. Charles was portrayed in

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

' ''

Madden NFL 10 ''Madden NFL 10'' is an American football video game based on the National Football League that was published by EA Sports and developed by EA Tiburon. The 21st installment of the ''Madden NFL'' series, it is the first game to feature two players o ...

'' as the main host of “The Extra Point”, a weekly recap show that broke down the highs and lows in a network-style show.

Alex Flanagan Alex Flanagan (née Wystrach; born September 22, 1973) is an American sportscaster. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona. She began her career as a news reporter and anchor and began covering sports in 1998. She has worked for networks ...

was his co-host. Charles made his

debut as studio host during the

2013 World Baseball Classic The 2013 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, held from March 2 to March 19, 2013. This was the third iteration of the WBC, following the two previous tournaments, held in 2006 and 2009. Unlike t ...

on March 9.

References

External links

*
Fran Charles Bio
at hbo.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Charles, Fran 1968 births Living people African-American sports journalists Arena football announcers Boxing commentators Golf writers and broadcasters National Football League announcers National Basketball Association broadcasters Major League Baseball broadcasters College football announcers NFL Network MLB Network personalities People from St. Louis Stanford University alumni 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people