Erin Andrews tells us what it's like to be the NFL's top sideline reporter, from screaming players to late-night anxieties

AP

Erin Andrews.

• Fox Sports' Erin Andrews spoke to Business Insider about the preparation she's doing before working the sideline for Super Bowl LIV.
• Andrews revealed some of her most memorable encounters with NFL players that weren't caught on camera.
• She also talked about what she's doing off the field to expand her brand, including the clothing line WEAR and her hopes to one day host a talk show.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

It's the calm before the storm: the week between the NFL conference playoff games and the Super Bowl.

It gives the players on the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers time to heal up any nagging injuries and their coaches time to plow through hours of game footage to help strategize.

But for Erin Andrews, there's nothing calm about it. The Fox Sports NFL sideline reporter is in major prep mode to also take the field Sunday at Super Bowl LIV.

"You do all this prep and end up not using a quarter of it," Andrews told Business Insider over the phone from Montana last week, where she stayed for a few days before flying down to Miami for the big game. "But I have to do it. It's the chip on my shoulder. It's what makes me so competitive."

That chip on her shoulder has added to her hard work ethic, which, combined with an absolute obsession with sports, has made her the most recognizable female journalist in sports.

Eric McCandless/Getty

Erin Andrews with Tom Bergeron co-hosting "Dancing with the Stars."

Take the day we talked to Andrews as an example.

In the morning, she said she was on the treadmill watching a San Francisco 49ers game from earlier in the season. Before getting on the phone with Business Insider, she was reading a story on 49ers defensive end Dee Ford. And later in the day, she was planning to rewatch the 49ers game Fox covered earlier this season and go over her notes from that game. She's going heavy on the the 49ers research as she'll be on their sideline during the Super Bowl.

Then once she gets to Miami, things get even more hectic. There's interviews with players, attending practices, and doing an interview with Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes that will air during the pregame. 


This isn't Andrews' first time on the sidelines for a Fox-aired Super Bowl, but it doesn't matter, she said. She still has a fear that when the lights shine the brightest, she won't be ready.

"I'll have nightmares at night," Andrews said. "That I end up being late to the game and not being there until the second quarter, or I'll totally blank during the game. These are the things that just creep into your mind."

Dealing with players screaming at her is just part of the job.

Andrews, 41, has been working hard to expand her brand. In 2019, she completed her fifth season cohosting ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," and in October she launched WEAR, an NFL clothing line for women.

But she said reporting on the sidelines for NFL games, which she's been doing since 2014, is still her dream job.

"This is it, I have to be honest," Andrews said. "I'm such a sports fan that I get into it. I can't expect a game Fox is doing and I'm not involved in it."

Mike Roemer/AP

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers being interviewed by Erin Andrews.

Even when she's working the sideline of a team that's completely getting blown out and there's nothing much to report - like the Green Bay Packers during this year's NFC Conference game - she powers through.

"I remember my producer was like, 'Do you have anything?'" Andrews said, looking back on that game. "And I was like, 'Come to me,' and I think I said something like, 'The vibe down here is there isn't one.' That's a bummer, but there are times when teams are getting their a--es handed to them and they do start having meltdowns. I was on some Giants sidelines when we saw Odell [Beckham Jr.] have fits."

Andrews said it's rare when there isn't something on the field to dive into and report. Who can forget the post-game interview she did at the NFC Championship in 2014 with then-Seattle-Seahawk cornerback Richard Sherman that went viral?

"It's the best unscripted reality show there is," Andrews said of her job, without a hint of hyperbole.

But some of Andrews' most memorable moments on the field are those that aren't caught on camera, she said.

"I have a monitor with me so players come and talk to me all the time," Andrews said. "One of the craziest moments for me was the Dez Bryant non-catch against Green Bay [in 2014]. [Aaron] Rogers came over to where I was standing and was like, 'What are they saying?' Just screaming at me, and I was like, '[Fox Sports rules analyst Mike] Pereira said it was a catch,' and he said, 'That's why he's out of the league!' It turned out it wasn't a catch. It's funny, a lot of players will come over because they will see the replay on my monitor. They want to know if it's a catch or a first down. I'm just like, 'Stop screaming at me.'"

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott speaking to Erin Andrews.

Then there are moments when the sports fanatic in her can just geek out - like when 49ers general manager and former player John Lynch showed up to where she was with the Fox team after the NFC Championship game.

"I just get into it," she said of talking shop. "I talked to him about being a GM and he told me all these stories from when he was a player. I called my husband that night and he was like, 'God, you're fired up.'"

Andrews said the friendships she's built with players, coaches, and executives in the NFL since starting at Fox have come from the fact that she prides herself on not burning bridges. If she sees a player on the sideline who clearly looks injured or appears to be suffering from a concussion, Andrews said she won't go on air with a report until the team has cleared it - if for just the simple reason that she knows their families and significant others are watching and deserve to not hear conflicting information.

In return, it's led to her landing big interviews. There was New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton speaking to her right after his team's heartbreaking loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the 2019 NFC Championship game over a controversial call ("No way in h--- Sean Payton wanted to do that interview, but he came out and answered the questions, it was probably one of the biggest interviews I've ever done," Andrews said). Then there was landing a rare sit-down with Tom Brady.

"I want to puke every single time," Andrews said of talking to the New England Patriots quarterback. "I wrote Tom the first time I interviewed him, it was a Thursday Night Football game, and I was like, 'I have to apologize because I didn't smile throughout the interview because my lips were quivering so bad because I was so nervous.' My parents were like, 'What's wrong with you?' And I was like, 'He's the G.O.A.T., I didn't want to mess it up.'"

Nick KovaErin Andrews sporting a bomber jacket from her WEAR line.Could an Erin Andrews talk show be on the horizon?

Andrews said that if there's anything that might come close to her love of being in the mix with the biggest names in sports, it's her WEAR line. The women's clothing brand is made up of denim shirts, hoodies, track pants, long-sleeve T-shirts, and bomber jackets - discreet game-day gear with fashionable designs and small team logos on them. Following the soft launch in October, the line will soon expand to include NCAA teams.

According to Fanatics, which operates e-commerce for the NFL and partnered with Andrews on the WEAR line, the launch of WEAR was its largest women-specific launch of 2019.

Andrews is also thinking about what else she can do on TV. She said the "Dancing with the Stars" job has given her the interest to try more on the entertainment side. She said that she's pitched a TV series idea as a producer, and would love to do a talk show.

In fact, she already knows who would be the best co-host for her.

"I'm on Kevin Hart's a-- right now to do a talk show with me," Andrews said. "He's hilarious, he calls me out. He called me a couple of weeks ago before the Eagles game to get me to give him some inside information and I was like, 'Before I do that, let's talk about this show.'"

A talk show with Hart might sound like a pipe dream, but do you really want to be the one who underestimates Erin Andrews?

NOW WATCH: Why hydrogen cars will be Tesla's biggest threat