New Voices: How Philly Became a Great Place for Women in Sports Journalism

NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Taryn Hatcher / Photograph by Linette Messina

There are some glamorous moments in the life of a television personality. This, however, is not one of them.

It’s one of those Sundays in late June when the real-feel temperature touches 100 degrees, and on the field at Citizens Bank Park, it feels like the surface of Venus or one of the deeper circles of hell. Down in the camera well, adjacent to the home dugout, even veteran shutterbugs groan when the cloud cover lifts and retreat for shade between innings.

NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Taryn Hatcher — who, in addition to covering the Sixers courtside and the Eagles in studio, is currently the network’s Phillies reporter — does not have that luxury. Minutes before the game begins, she sets up her workstation in a cramped, sun-soaked corner: makeup kit, microphone, orange extension cord connected to a power strip for her essential devices (phone, iPad, and, perhaps most necessary, a $40 mini air cooler). Heatstroke and profuse on-camera perspiration are not the only risks here; there’s netting at eye level, but pop-ups are still a concern, as are other flying objects. When franchise cornerstone Bryce Harper tumbled over the fence in pursuit of a foul ball in March, he landed, hard, just inches from her. The next day in the clubhouse, he asked Hatcher why she didn’t catch him. “You would have killed me,” she said. Harper agreed.

By the end of today’s matchup with the Miami Marlins, Hatcher will have a total of three on-air “hits” — short segments to add some color and context to the action. They’re designed to fit seamlessly into the broadcast, but Hatcher’s research began days ago at the start of this home stand, with player and coach interviews. This morning, she joined a scrum around Kyle Schwarber, was granted an audience with the sometimes elusive Nick Castellanos, and huddled with fellow reporters in manager Rob Thomson’s office. (When she asked if any players are pressing a bit these days, Thomson said yes. “Care to share?” she said. “No,” he replied to laughter.) Scores of interview notes stored on her iPad will never be used. Her contributions to the broadcast follow the flow of the game and change on the fly: After an infield error, she scraps a segment on the team’s recent exceptional defense.

Although Hatcher has been in the business for only a decade, she acknowledges that this is a new era for women in sports media. As an intern at the start of her career, she was told by a female supervisor never to wear shorts on the field — too distracting. “She was trying to be helpful,” Hatcher says. “That was the standard at the time.” Lululemon golf shorts and a pink Phillies tank top can’t save her on a day like this, but they sure beat long pants. “It’s nice not to be snickered at,” she says, “dripping sweat while trying to interview an athlete.”

Hatcher is the only woman on the Phillies broadcast, but four others had settled into the stadium press box before the first pitch. Their presence, and the fact that their presence goes unnoticed, are signs of a bigger shift — one that, unless you’re Harrison Butker or a “trad wife” cultist, is long overdue. Philadelphia sports fans have never been viewed as paragons of progressive behavior, what with the need for a jail at Veterans Stadium, and all the clichés about thuggery have become as much a part of our identity as cheesesteaks and Rocky. Consider too that women’s roles in sports media are still limited; a report in 2015 showed that only 10.2 percent of sports coverage was generated by women, and analysis by the Associated Press in 2018 found that 90 percent of sports editors at major newspapers and websites in the U.S. and Canada were male. A study this year analyzing more than 2,000 sports articles found that only 5.1 percent were written by women. In a 2021 radio trade publication rank of the top personalities in sports talk, all 100 were men.

In that light, it’s even more remarkable that there are now more women covering teams here than ever, across all platforms: Along with history-making Sixers TV shot caller Kate Scott, you’ll find eight women in the Inquirer sports department, three on air at 94WIP (including one with co-host duties), multiple TV news talents (one of whom is this market’s first biracial female sports anchor), a handful of bloggers and podcasters, and three at Hatcher’s regional network. “It feels really cool to be a part of [this moment],” says Devan Kaney, a rising star with significant roles at WIP and Fox 29 News. “I hope we’re setting a trend.”

The cozy broadcast office at the Phillies ballpark is strictly a no-diva zone — perhaps save for color analyst John Kruk, who’s in peak ornery form before the Marlins game, thanks to a broken AC at home and some odd fan mail he’s opening (“I ain’t goin’ to no weddings,” he grumbles). Hatcher’s workstation is next to his, and like the others here, has zero frills; there’s an old Seinfeld DVD set on a shelf and a child’s drawings from a previous occupant that she never bothered to take down.

When asked about what Hatcher brings to their team, Kruk opens with a playful dig — “She don’t know nothin’” — then compliments her thorough reporting and diligent homework. “Men will say, ‘What does she know, she’s a woman,’” he says of the attitudes Hatcher and her peers still face at times. “Well, what the hell do you know? Just because you’re a man doesn’t mean you’re an expert.” He’s a fan of one of Hatcher’s NBCSP colleagues too: Kruk says watching Sixers games with his family at his Florida home without hearing Kate Scott is, well, less than satisfying. “It pisses us off,” he says of the out-of-town broadcast teams. “Their announcers are crap.”

That a member of the ’93 Phillies “Macho Row” gets grumpy when he can’t hear his favorite basketball announcer, and said announcer is a woman, is yet more evidence that times have changed. Taylor Swift’s impact on NFL ratings aside, the numbers offer proof: Viewership among women 18 and older for NBCSP’s coverage of the big four local teams is growing, with increases ranging from 10 percent for the Sixers to a whopping 37 percent for Phillies games.

The seeds for this demographic shift were planted in 1972, when Title IX opened the door for the growth of women’s athletics. Soon after, pioneers like Lesley Visser, the first female NFL beat writer, proved that journalism chops were more important than pageant titles for covering men’s games on TV. In print, Langhorne’s Clare Smith became the first female MLB beat writer in 1983; she later joined the Inquirer as a columnist. By the late ’80s and ’90s, women continued to earn marquee broadcast roles, including ESPN stars and Philadelphia natives Andrea Kramer, the network’s first female correspondent, and Suzy Kolber, in 2006 the first woman to win the Maxwell Club’s Sports Broadcaster of the Year award.

Locally, Rhea Hughes got her start in radio in Wilmington in the early ’90s; female role models in the region were few, and sports opportunities were so scarce that she volunteered to cover the Eagles for free. More sports assignments followed, as did challenges. “I encountered some issues in the locker room,” she says, adding that Charles Barkley once told her that if anyone gave her a hard time, he’d take care of it personally. The daughter of a radio DJ and a tough mom, Hughes was determined to stay the course. “My mother said, ‘Listen, you’re going to deal with bullshit. Just do your job.’” She joined WIP in 1992 as an overnight producer, working exclusively with male hosts, and was promoted to the morning show with Angelo Cataldi in 1997 as its first female voice. “Angelo only cared that you worked hard,” she says.

That same year, Comcast SportsNet debuted, and skeptics wondered if a 24-hour channel covering only local teams could survive. Leslie Gudel’s role as the city’s first female sports anchor added to the station’s experimental feel. “I was getting in [the media business] when things were shifting a bit, but there weren’t a lot of women that knew enough about sports to cover it,” she says of a time when media guides were printed and stats appeared in the next day’s newspaper. Those with bona fides, like CSN colleague and hoop-head Dei Lynam, were fighting for limited roles and airtime. “We were not besties back then,” Gudel says of Lynam. “We’re really good friends now, but even then, women were still trying to find their place.”

Not long after Gudel moved from the anchor desk to the Phillies beat, she learned that longtime coach John Vukovich thought women “should be home cooking.” One day, after covering the team for a few years, she brought a roast to the clubhouse and dedicated it to all the women who could cook and do their jobs, earning laughs and Vuk’s respect; the two were close friends until his death in 2007. Gudel left Comcast SportsNet in 2016, and after a brief stint blogging and podcasting, walked away from sports media to spend more time with family and pursue business interests. She describes her strategy for surviving in a man’s game for two decades: “I always took the approach not that I deserve to be here and you better let me in and treat me with respect, but like, this is your sandbox, can I come in and play?”

Thanks in part to pioneers like Gudel, Taryn Hatcher’s generation doesn’t need to ask for permission. Hatcher grew up playing soccer in South Jersey and watching sports with her dad, but her heroes weren’t Donovan McNabb or Allen Iverson — they were fellow Delran native Carly Lloyd and Heather Mitts of the Philadelphia Charge. When a knee injury ended Hatcher’s hopes of earning a college scholarship, she shifted focus to sports journalism and saw a path forward thanks to women like Gudel and Amy Fadool, who’s now a colleague and mentor.

Hatcher focused her competitive spirit and work ethic on her new goal: In addition to graduating early from Rutgers in New Brunswick with a journalism/political science double major, she took internships at CBS in New York and CSN in South Philadelphia, all while picking up waitress shifts at Chickie’s & Pete’s in Bordentown. Like Hughes on the radio, Hatcher has the hustle gene, and she applied it to her first gig — as a sports anchor and reporter in Hawaii, of all places. “I was in so over my head,” she says of her early days at Hawaii News Now. “Once I got comfortable and found a rhythm, they really let me be creative and show my personality, which I think helped me here.”

Hatcher arrived at CSN — newly rebranded as NBC Sports Philadelphia — in 2018 to enhance the network’s digital content and report on the Flyers from rinkside. “For the first three or four months, I felt like I’m not as good at this as I want to be,” she says of her initial hockey segments. Viewers were quick to reinforce that feeling on social media. “When people didn’t like me, I agreed with why,” she admits. “I think it helped me in the long run.”

One thing that hasn’t changed for women in the industry is the need for thick skin, especially for those on camera. “It’s such a smart fan base, and they expect you to be on your toes,” says Amy Fadool, a 15-year NBCSP veteran and now also a contributor on 97.5 The Fanatic. “But as a woman, you felt doubt. I’m not from Philly, so now I’m down a peg. If I say something wrong, that’s another peg.”

Today, Fadool goes out of her way to create a supportive atmosphere with station colleagues Hatcher, Scott, and Ashlyn Sullivan, a Florida transplant who’s caught on quickly since joining NBCSP in 2022; Sullivan covers all sports and also fills in occasionally on WIP. “I will force my friendship on people and let them reject me,” Fadool says with a laugh. “I joke that they probably think I’m a crazy person. But I want them to know I’m not threatened by them and want to help them do their best. They may take your job someday, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”

Inside the neon-accented WIP studios after the morning show wraps on a Wednesday in June, Radnor native Devan Kaney talks about the network she’s built with other women in the local market. She’d been following Breland Moore on social media since the two covered pro lacrosse in different cities; when they met for the first time in person, at Kaney’s birthday party, their bond was so immediate that her friends couldn’t believe they’d never been in the same room before. Kaney had just started part-time hosting at both Philly sports radio stations, and Moore — who was Hooter the Owl for her four years at Temple University — moved back for the sports anchor gig at Fox 29.

Moore later introduced Kaney to Alex Coffey, who’d recently been hired as a Phillies beat writer by the Inquirer, and the trio became both fast friends and a support system. “I’m so grateful for that group,” says Kaney, whose quick wit and warmth are the same on microphone and off. “Girlfriends who understand the grind. We can say in our group chat that something happened in the clubhouse, off the record, and just laugh about it. Or vent, like this thing happened and it made me uncomfortable. How do I handle it? And it’s never competitive.”

From left: Alex Coffey, Breland Moore, and Devan Kaney / Photograph by Linette Messina

The three women took distinctly different paths to their current roles. Like Hatcher, Kaney had a plan, but hers started in Hollywood, where she worked in the mailroom at William Morris Endeavor alongside the daughters of current Disney CEO Bob Iger and former New York bar member Rudy Giuliani. Los Angeles wasn’t for her, but a few years there gave her the confidence to get her master’s in journalism at American University and pursue sports broadcasting. She bounced from D.C. to Boise to Chicago until a reporting gig with the Philadelphia Wings lacrosse team brought her back to the Delaware Valley.

Pandemic boredom led her to share sports takes on TikTok, which she credits for attracting attention from both Philly radio stations. Fill-in gigs turned into twice-weekly contributing roles on the WIP morning show, co-hosting duties on Saturdays, and weekend sports anchoring on Fox 29 — like Fadool, she’s a rare crossover talent between radio and TV. Kaney says that traveling to London for WIP’s Phillies coverage in June and the chaos of Jason Kelce’s 2023 summer fundraiser in Sea Isle City are “moments that make me feel grateful for how far I’ve come.”

For all three friends, the road has had its share of bumps. Breland Moore is open about the challenges they have faced along the way to their varying degrees of Philly sports fame. “Devan had a very difficult route on WIP,” she says. “Some of the comments whenever she posts a photo on Twitter are just horrid.” Moore can relate, dating back to her mascot days when most people she interacted with assumed a dude was flapping away inside the owl costume. As the first woman of color anchoring sports in Philadelphia, Moore is sometimes the subject of potent toxicity on social media. “With age and maturity comes a better understanding of how to deal with this stuff,” she says. “That really used to get under my skin: ‘We have a bet going: Are you chocolate, vanilla, or a swirl?’ ‘We don’t want Beyoncé doing our news.’ First of all, I love Beyoncé, so that’s a compliment. You just learn to roll with the punches.”

While most athletes and first-time, longtime callers have embraced women in the arena, social media is the throwback locker room of the internet, and there’s no Sir Charles to keep the cro-mags in line. “I was allowed to grow into my position,” says WIP’s Hughes. “Women today need to hit the ground running or social media will kill them. I wouldn’t have survived the social media era.”

Former Athletic beat writer and current Inquirer Phillies reporter Alex Coffey keeps a relatively low profile online, but still found herself in the middle of a viral storm unlike any her peers have endured. Of all the young women in local sports media, she had the best view of what awaited in this line of work, thanks to her father, longtime New York Daily News sportswriter and author Wayne Coffey. Seeing how tough the business was firsthand, particularly when her father was laid off in 2015, initially led her toward a career in public relations, but the creativity of journalism called to her. Coffey says her father never voiced concern about her joining the jocks and ink-stained wretches. “Being the only woman around every day can be an advantage,” she says. “When I first started, they all remembered my name. Women are naturally more empathetic. I can talk to a player about his wife without it seeming a little weird. I don’t think gender is all of it, but it’s in the mix.”

Coffey has written some excellent, moving stories, including long reads on Brandon Marsh’s family after losing his father to cancer and on pitcher Andrew Bellatti, who found unlikely support from the wife of a man he killed in a car crash as a teenager. But if you’re not a byline watcher, you may know her best for an interview with former Phillies great Pete Rose. Rose’s presence at Citizens Bank Park for a 2022 ceremony honoring the 1980 championship team was controversial in light of court testimony accusing him of having had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl in the ’70s. Coffey was the only reporter to ask him about the matter and the message his presence sent to women. “It was 55 years ago, babe,” Rose responded. He later offered to sign 1,000 baseballs if he’d offended her.

The online maelstrom that followed Coffey’s resulting article was “pretty intense,” she says (one YouTube reaction video was titled “Woke Alex Coffey Tries to Propel Career by Embarrassing Pete Rose”). “All of a sudden I’m a nasty woman,” she recalls. “MAGA Twitter took that and ran with it. I really didn’t want to make it about myself. It was a polarizing topic, but I don’t have any regrets about what I asked or how I handled it.”

Perhaps the most disappointing outcome of the Rose story was not his comments or the online culture-war attacks that followed — neither was a surprise — but that, as Coffey tells it, support for her from men in the press corps in the aftermath was mixed. The sisterhood she’s formed with Kaney and Moore is essential in moments like these. Coffey says she told her friends about someone who was guilt-tripping her about how she reported a recent story. “Devan and Breland immediately shut it down,” she says. “‘Why are you giving this person so much power?’ They built my confidence back up.”

There’s an inescapable irony in a story such as this one, applauding the rise of women in a sports media market that’s evolved from the old 700 Level days but can still be as rough and unforgiving as Vet Stadium turf. By celebrating their gender roles, we’re also defining these journalists and hosts by their gender roles. Coffey and her peers are not unlike female stand-up comics who want to be known as funny, full stop. “I don’t want to be the best woman sportswriter in Philadelphia,” Coffey says. “I want to be the best sportswriter I can be, period. I don’t want to lead with my gender.”

Perhaps the most useful tool in Hatcher’s kit is not her mini-cooler, but the ability to laugh at herself. Growing up with an older brother and learning the nuances of chops-busting also comes in handy on the job. (Of Kruk’s earlier crack that she knows nothing, she says, “John gives me shit the way he does with his friends. I’d be really worried if you asked him about me and he didn’t give me a hard time.”) Rhea Hughes says Hatcher is a favorite follow on X for her withering shut-downs of trolls; when informed of this, Hatcher can’t believe she’s on Hughes’s radar (“She is idol status to me”) and shares her favorite social media comeback: After a long and particularly grueling day covering the Flyers somewhere in Western Canada — including an errant shovel-load of ice shavings dumped in her shoes while on camera — a woman messaged her on Instagram to say, “You dress like a cheap hooker.” Hatcher looked over the woman’s profile and noticed a familiar name tagged in a birthday post. In response to the hooker note, Hatcher sent a screenshot from another viewer — the woman’s son, who’d been DMing frequently with offers to buy used articles of Hatcher’s wardrobe. She added a message: “It seems like your son likes my clothes just fine.”

Along with a healthy sense of humor and some unhealthy social media comments from strangers, something else Hatcher shares with some of her peers is relatives who can’t understand why she doesn’t get more airtime. Hatcher chuckles at the well-meaning support, yet acknowledges one of the persistent cruelties of the industry — while men can sit on Sunday NFL panels and call games well into their AARP years and past their prime, women aren’t extended the same courtesy. Long careers like those of Hughes and Fadool are the outliers. “Can you imagine at 35, having to figure it out all over again or get a different degree or a different job?” Hatcher asks. “The trajectory for women, when you’re younger, can be faster. But the shelf life still feels shorter. That isn’t fun to think about.”

After the Phillies complete a comeback victory over the Marlins, Hatcher heads back through the bowels of the ballpark. Team staffers call her “TH,” like one of the guys. One crew member yells that she did a great job today. “You didn’t even watch, did you?” she says without missing a beat, and they both laugh at the called bluff. She’s in her comfort zone here — in the South Philly sports complex, in this region — and her default setting is grind. As of press time, Hatcher was finalizing a contract extension with NBCSP and is doing more freelance work, like sideline reporting for the Big Ten Network this fall. The last time we talk, she’s literally brushing her teeth before running out to host a video tour of the city (Liberty Bell, Art Museum steps, etc.) for visiting Liverpool FC’s social media. Then she’s back to the Bank to cover what turns out to be a heartbreaking 12-inning loss to the Yankees.

“Philly is like when your son or daughter invites a significant other to dinner for the first time,” she observes, putting an unintentionally modern twist on Gudel’s “stay in the kitchen” story. “You’re like, ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ but you’re also sussing them the whole time. Are they funny and fun? Are they a good partner? That’s my favorite part of Philly. People say we’re mean. Yeah, but who do you say the worst stuff to? We are at the family dinner, all of us, all the time.”

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Published as “We’ve Embraced New Voices in Sports Media” in the September 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.