Beth Mowins will be in the booth doing play-by-play for the Chargers-Broncos matchup on Monday Night Football. This marks the first time in 30 years a woman has called play-by-play for an NFL game.
Who is Beth Mowins, ESPN’s play-by-play announcer for ‘Monday Night Football’?
There’s a woman calling play-by-play for the Chargers-Broncos game, and it’s about time.
Jeanna Kelley has been covering the Falcons for The Falcoholic since 2011 and the NFL for SB Nation since 2015.
She’ll join Rex Ryan in the booth in Denver for Monday’s late game. The main Monday Night Football crew of Jon Gruden and Sean McDonough will call the early matchup between the Saints and the Vikings.
Mowins has been calling play-by-play for college football games for ESPN since 2005. She was only the second woman in NCAA history to do so. She’ll start her NFL play-by-play career on one of the league’s biggest stages: Monday Night Football. She’s ready for it.
“It’s going to be a challenge, but one that I’m ready to take on,” Mowins said in an interview with CNN Money sports business reporter Ahiza Garcia.
Longtime Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico believes in Mowins.
“The stage may be bigger. The name ‘Monday Night’ may be bigger than doing a Big Ten game on a Saturday,” Tirico said via Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times. “But doing so much college football, she’s as experienced as anyone getting a chance to do it. She’s going to kill it.”
Mowins brings 26 years of sports journalism and play-by-play experience at the college level to her NFL debut. She has also been calling preseason games for the Oakland Raiders since 2015.
How did Mowins get into play-by-play? She was inspired by former Miss America Phyllis George, who was a reporter for The NFL Today on CBS with Brent Musberger and Irv Cross. Seeing a woman on TV talking about football made Mowins think that could be her path, also, and she got an early start.
“And that was when I sort of got into my head that maybe this was something I could do as a career,” Mowins said. “I had a Mr. Microphone one year for Christmas, and that’s when I first started calling games. It would be out in my backyard, whether it was kickball or wiffle ball, or we had a basketball hoop out in front, or we were playing football with all the kids in the neighborhood.”
Gale Sierens was the last woman to call an NFL game, a matchup between the Seahawks and the Chiefs, back in 1987. Now it’s Mowins’ turn.
What does this opportunity mean for Mowins? She understands what this moment means to women and girls who dream of finding a place in sports broadcasting, and especially play-by-play.
“And I want to do well at it. I want to be successful at it,” Mowins said. “You have a chance to call this kind of game and to work on a Monday Night franchise, that’s a big deal. I grew up watching that.”
Now Mowins is in a position to inspire others, just like George inspired her years ago.
What is her approach to calling games? Mowins told Garcia that it’s about being informative and entertaining, and having the right timing. But that’s not all.
“But I think the most important thing to remember is it’s about the game, and and it’s about the guys,” Mowins said. “For me personally, I want people to know, and I hope it will come across, that we’re having fun. We’re calling a football game. We have a similar sense of humor. We see things sort of a similar way, Rex and I. And I hope that’s what will come across. That’s my personality, that’s who I am.”
This won’t be Mowins’ only time in the booth calling NFL games this season. She’s scheduled to call play-by-play for a Week 3 matchup between the Browns and the Colts alongside former NFL kicker Jay Feely.
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