On Friday, Beth Mowins made history.
Assigned to call the 76ers-Hawks game at State Farm Arena, the veteran broadcaster became the first woman to call an NBA season game on ESPN.
She called the game along with ESPN analyst and former NBA head coach Jeff Van Gundy, and Cassidy Hubbarth, whose reporting duties were on the sidelines.
The Hawks honored Mowins Pregame for her achievement with a custom jersey.
In ESPN’s history of broadcasting games, Hall of Famer Doris Burke became the network’s first full-time NBA game analyst for the 2017-18 season.
Who is Beth Mowins?
Mowins is a professional sports broadcaster and journalist for ESPN, CBS, and the Marquee Sports Network.
In 1989, Mowins graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree and followed with a master’s degree from Syracuse University.
Congratulations @bethmowins – make history tonight as the first ever voice actress on ESPN #NBA game.
Once a point guard, Beth commanded the team @LafayetteWBB team, was the all-time 3X, 1,000-point scorer, and remains the school’s all-time career support leader. pic.twitter.com/2qYJIU0jaL
– bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) December 4, 2021
Mowins began his career in 1991 for WXHC-FM Radio in Homer, New York as its sports and news director. She joined ESPN in 1994 to cover various college sports, including basketball, soccer, soccer, and volleyball while leading for the network’s softball coverage.
In 2011, she was paired with Cat Whitehill on ESPN’s high school broadcast team for the ESPN Women’s World Cup. This was the first of many television techniques that broke the path she was going to be in.
A few years later, in 2015, Mowins became the voice of the Oakland Raid (later Las Vegas) games in their pre-season games. In 2017, she became the first woman broadcaster to call a nationally televised regular-season NFL game on ESPN when she was selected for the opening week broadcast of the Thursday Night Soccer League. Two of ESPN’s between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Denver Broncos.
That assignment made her the second female broadcaster in NFL regular season history after Gayle Sierens, who served as NBC Sports announcer for an NFL regular game in 1987. She also became the first-ever female broadcaster in CBS Sports’ 58-year history when she called a regular game between the Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts in 2017.
Earlier this year, she became a game-by-game announcer for the Chicago Cubs games on Marquee Sports, becoming the first woman to call one of the team’s regular games.
