On a recent episode of her podcast, sportscaster Erin Andrews responded to a listener’s question about the best way to share constructive criticism. “Communication for me in general is horrible,” she said, “and that really sucks because I majored in telecommunications.”
This is the kind of remark that’s common on Calm Down—as it is in every conversation the decorated Fox NFL Sunday reporter and member of FOX Sports’ A Team has, recorded or not. What you see is what you get, whether it’s on the sidelines at the Super Bowl or in an interview with nosy reporters who come prepared with pushy questions about her personal life.
Quick-witted, down to earth and often self-deprecating—and today, one of the most high-profile names in professional sports broadcasting—Andrews has also become a powerful voice for women’s health issues. It’s a subject she began speaking on a few years ago when she shared her journey with cervical cancer, and it’s continued over time as she’s talked honestly about the fertility challenges she and husband, Jarret Stoll, faced.
Lately she’s had another topic to add to the mix: the joys and challenges of navigating motherhood as a working mom. “I feel like I’m back in school,” she chuckles. “I’m learning every single day.”
Early breaks at the Sunshine Network and ESPN
Andrews’ career began at Fox Sports Florida in the early 2000s, where she worked as a freelance reporter before becoming the Tampa Bay Lightning reporter for the Sunshine Network. She would eventually cover the Atlanta Braves, Thrashers and Hawks for the Turner South network.
Back then, she says, she didn’t worry or care about sharing her personal life with audiences. For one, it wouldn’t really have been possible—there was no Instagram, Twitter or TikTok.
“You’re not putting your outfit of the day on and that kind of stuff—which, thank God, because what I wore was hysterical,” she says. “For me, when I first started, I was just so excited to have my job. I love sports so much…. [I was] just so excited to learn, to read, to study about these athletes that I’m a huge fan of.”
Even if she’d had an avenue with which to share her innermost thoughts (and OOTD videos), Andrews was intently focused on her career then. “I worked my ass off, [and] it was never enough,” she says. There was a point when she was doing two football games a week—“That is so friggin’ hard,” she says of the experience. When she joined ESPN in 2004, she did it all: college football, college basketball, Major League Baseball, college baseball, the Little League World Series and the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Finding her feet at Fox Sports
But it wasn’t until around 2012 or so, when Andrews joined Fox Sports (where she continues to work today), that she says she started to share more of herself with athletes and viewers.
“I think when I went to Fox, I really was able to… show who I was,” she says. “I remember somebody telling me, like, ‘We want to see you smile and having fun with the players. We want your personality to come out.’”
By then, Andrews had been around for a few years, so she was more comfortable, calm and able to laugh with the players. This helped her bring out their personalities in addition to her own—which in turn raised her profile, led to endorsements and marketing deals, and eventually gave her the confidence and access to found her own clothing brand, WEAR by Erin Andrews.
When it comes down to it, Erin says the reason she’s been so relatable to and popular with viewers and fans is simple. “I’m such a fan,” she says. “I really enjoy what I’m doing, and I’m having such a good time. And I think people can see that.”
Still, none of this came easy. Andrews worked very hard for a very long time to get to the place she is today. As a woman in a male-dominated industry, she had to.
“Hence why I got married so late, hence why I had a baby so late—I really put my career first,” she says.
She and partner Jarret Stoll, a former NHL player who won two Stanley Cup championships with the Los Angeles Kings, were married in 2017, around the time Andrews went public with her cervical cancer diagnosis. She was diagnosed at age 39, and doctors encouraged her to freeze her eggs before beginning treatment (which she did).
Surgeries and fertility challenges
Andrews underwent two surgeries and is cancer-free today, and she’s since become a vocal advocate for women’s health, encouraging early testing. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, she says that “going to the doctor saved my life.”
Then came the fertility challenges.
“I’ve been told ‘no’ my whole career, my whole life,” she says. “And for me, that just fuels me…. You’re telling me no, but I’m going to figure out how to get it done.”
The same hard work and tenacity that propelled Andrews in her career became integral to her pregnancy, a grueling ordeal that involved a nine-year in vitro fertilization (IVF) journey and an eventual surrogacy that was not without its own challenges.
She went public with those struggles in 2021 as she began her seventh round of IVF.
“I just said, ‘This sucks. This just absolutely sucks! And I am so sick of sticking myself with needles and going in there and having a happy face and not telling anyone about it,’” she recalls.
The response was “amazing,” she adds. Players on the sidelines, strangers on the internet—everyone responded with warmth and generosity. “I think that’s what helped fuel us to have the podcast,” she says. “These are really tough conversations to have, but if they can help one person, I’m grateful for that.”
As has been the case for Andrews throughout her career, the hard work did pay off. In 2023, she and Stoll welcomed a baby boy, Mack Roger Stoll, via a surrogate.
Balancing a public persona with private life
Andrews is characteristically straightforward about the challenges of being a public persona while maintaining an internal private life. “My husband would rather we not be so public—me not be so public,” she says. It was something that came up often during the couple’s fertility journey. “He was just like, ‘Why do we have to say this?’ And I said, ‘Because these waiting rooms are packed.’”
Calm Down has been a fulfilling avenue for Andrews and cohost Thompson to share the more personal parts of themselves. The duo describe it as a text chain turned into a podcast. On the show, Andrews has spoken candidly and at length about her years-long pregnancy journey. The story has resonated with listeners, and many have opened up themselves in YouTube and Instagram comments.
But this is yet another thing the journalist/clothing brand owner/public figure/mom has added to an already overstuffed plate. The idea of work-life balance is something she grapples with—on the podcast, internally and in her personal life.
“I talked about it on a walk with my husband last night as we were walking our dog—we’ve got a lot going on,” she muses. She says this just days before the start of the NFL season, the time each year when her life gets “absolutely crazy” and the boundaries between work and downtime can blur or disappear.
“Plus it’s a Super Bowl year,” she adds. “We have Tom Brady on our broadcasting crew this year. So it’s going to be a lot.”
Motherhood and professional life
The last year and a half have given Andrews a newfound respect for working mothers and the sacrifices they make to ensure that their kids have a good life. She’s more obsessed than she ever thought possible with checking the baby monitor while she’s out of town, and she’s gotten more familiar with squeezing interviews in while Mack takes his nap. She thought her son would be something she could fit into her existing life, but she quickly realized that it would be the other way around. Not that she’d trade any of it for anything, of course.
“It also doesn’t last forever, and I’m very well aware of that,” Andrews says. “Unfortunately for me, I don’t know any other gear besides ten. Maybe nine and a half.”
This article originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of SUCCESS+ digital magazine.
Photo courtesy of Erin Andrews
