By Women dominate on the field, ice, and court and off it. There are influential women in sports running teams, scouting players, managing players, and writing about the sports/athletes. Women in sports are often under-appreciated and looked down on despite their many contributions to how the sports landscape looks now.
March is Women’s History Month, and during this time it is appropriate to celebrate the women that make the sports work go round. These influential women often make the athletes we love the people we root for.
Michele A. Roberts
In 2014, Roberts stopped her career as a trail lawyer and was named the executive director of the NBA. Before her sports career, she was a public defender in D.C. She became the first woman to hold that position and the first woman to head a major professional sports union in North America.
Roberts announced plans to retire in 2020 but after the pandemic hit, she had to go back into negations to help with the bubble season. She is slated to retire in the summer of 2022.
Lisa Joseph Meletus
Meletus joined as CAA Sports agent in 2011 and has helped her players, including big named basketball players, gain endorsements and carry philanthropy services. CAA stands for Creative Artist Agency and it’s one of the most popular management agencies in the business. They manage all kinds of public figures from athletes to actors.
In 2020, Meletus was promoted to the CAA Board which focuses on day-to-day management of the agency. She also serves as one of the founders of Play Make Her. A brand that focuses on uplifting women through networking.
Kim Ng
The highest ranked female baseball executive for the Miami Marlins and the first woman to serve as a general manager of a team in the big four North American sport leagues. Ng is also the first person of Asian descent to hold this position.
She worked her way up through the ranks started playing softball herself and transitioning into front office work for several MLB teams. She got her position in with the Marlins in 2020.
After her promotion to this position she made several list as one of the most influential women currently in the sports world.
Blake Bolden
In 2015, Bolden became the first African American player to compete in the National Women’s Hockey League. She is a three-time NWHL All Star and has won a defensive player of the year award.
Recently she has moved her talents from the ice to the scouting reports. Bolden now works for the Los Angeles Kings as the NHL’s first Black woman pro scout.
Erin Andrews
There is no way you could mention sports broadcasters and journalist and not mention Erin Andrews. Andrews has been gracing our screens since 2004 when she started working for ESPN. She then became the lead sideline reporter for the NFL after leaving ESPN for Fox Sports in 2012.
Her journey began with covering hockey in the south before moving onto ESPN National Hockey Night in 2004. She then transitioned into college football and MLB reporting. Her versatility is one of her best attributes.
Andrews has even branched out from sports; she went on shows like Dancing with the Stars and hosted competitions like the National Spelling Bee.She has also had to overcome hardships like a stalking incident that went on for several years before being settled in court.
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