Before she was pacing NFL sidelines in freezing weather while millions watched, Erin Andrews was a young girl in Florida who was glued to the TV, obsessed with sports, and with a dream of being on screen one day. She was born in Lewiston, Maine, and raised in Valrico, Florida. Andrews would accompany her father, TV journalist Steve Andrews (who won an Emmy), to games. She always described herself as a tomboy and fancied point guards and post-game interviews over princesses. Her future was set in stone by the time she started high school: sports journalism or nothing.

She was a telecommunications student at the University of Florida. But she wasn’t content just watching from the stands. She was already planning on how to turn her passion into a full-blown career. She began covering the Tampa Bay Lightning in the early 2000s and soon became one of the most well-known faces in sports broadcasting after landing national roles at ESPN and then FOX.

However, last week, Erin Andrews exchanged the sidelines for studio lights. For a week, the seasoned sportscaster co-hosted TODAY with Jenna & Friends alongside Jenna Bush Hager, co-anchor of NBC’s dominant morning lineup and the daughter of a U.S. president. It was more of a change in attitude than a media crossover. On set, Andrews appeared relaxed and happy, even though the cameras were rolling in a completely different arena.

But alas! The farewell at the conclusion of the week was brief, kind, and sincere. To mark the end of a wonderful week, TODAY with Jenna & Friends shared a collab post with Erin and captioned it, “Thanks for spending the week with us @erinandrews! We had a blast 🫶 #JennaandFriends.” To which Erin commented with a six-word message, “So sad it(s) over! Thank you @jennaandfriends 🫶 🫶.” It’s rare when we see two powerhouses from different media lanes collide like this. Maybe because Jenna is more than simply a broadcaster; she is a $14 million powerhouse in American media, with a resume that combines daytime ratings gold with presidential ancestry. Since joining Hoda Kotb as co-host of TODAY’s fourth hour in 2019, Jenna has contributed to the program’s continuous success in the Nielsen ratings.

Off-camera, Jenna has written several New York Times best-selling books. Her first book, Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope, sold over 500,000 copies worldwide and was inspired by her fieldwork with UNICEF in Latin America. After that, she wrote Everything Beautiful in Its Time, which made it to the New York Times Bestseller List in 2020 and included her thoughts on her grandparents.

And that’s why part of Jenna’s attractiveness is her reliance on her personal life for connection. Turning what should have been PR disasters into moments of public dependability. She went viral by reading a love letter from her husband live and candidly talking about body image problems, miscarriages, and even her 2001 alcohol arrests. That’s also why pairing her with Erin made perfect sense. Because Erin Andrews is the queen of relatability herself, this leads us to the more significant question. Was this tearful parting merely the conclusion of a cameo? Or the beginning of something significant?

Erin Andrews just made the career pivot we didn’t see coming

Knowing how to read a room, Erin Andrews realised she needed to make the most of her next opportunity when her contract with FOX expired earlier this year. No one knew exactly what that next move would entail, but Andrews had been in this situation before: hungry, directionless, and without a contract. And she seized charge of the situation, just as she had done in the early 2000s.

Andrews talked candidly during her guest appearance on Jenna & Friends about the daring move that launched her into the spotlight of sports broadcasting. Thinking back to her time with the Atlanta Thrashers and Tampa Bay Lightning, she remarked, “I knew ESPN had the hockey coverage… and I was coming from hockey.” But bullet points on a resume weren’t enough to get into ESPN. It had to do with real-time networking. “I knew the ESPN crew would be at a bar after the game. I showed up, introduced myself, and said, ‘I think this network is gonna get rid of me. Do you think there would be availability at ESPN?'”

And the good news? There was. After landing the job at ESPN, she covered major sporting events and college football for almost ten years. Then FOX arrived. Erin’s face became as recognizable as the athletes she interviewed after twelve years, Super Bowls, and innumerable prime-time games. Even though her comeback is questionable, Andrews said on her Calm Down Podcast, “I love FOX so much… they’re my extended family.”

In any case, Andrews isn’t waiting around. She’s demonstrating that she can write her next chapter—on her terms—by combining her charisma in the daytime with her intensity on the field. Erin Andrews is more than simply a sports reporter now. She is a storyteller, a podcaster and a fighter.