ESPN Veteran Talks Life in Montana, NIL Deals & More

She got her start in horse racing, and her husband had a 30-plus year career in D1 football. We had a great time catching up with former ESPN sports reporter Jeannine Edwards, who now lives in Red Lodge.

We talked about life in Montana, her recent appearance on the Outkick podcast talking about men in women's sports, and how NIL deals are totally changing college sports.

She started as an apprentice trainer and jockey, and ended up on ESPN Sportscenter. You can see her in the photo above reporting on the sidelines for college football.

What does she think about Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals in college sports?  

Edwards: "I can only speak to my experience as both a reporter and being the wife of a coach. It has completely changed the- you can just sense that the whole atmosphere has sort of been permeated with this now. It's all about the money. And, you know, there's that old saying, the love of money is the root of all evil. It's not actually money that's the root of all evil. It's the love of money."

What about men in women's sports and the transgender debate? 

Edwards: "First of all, I think if there were enough transgender athletes out there, why don't they create their own division? Okay, let's have a third- let's have a third section, then. Let's do a third gender. And that way it's really fair, because that way the men can compete with the men, and the women can compete with the women, and the trans people can compete with their own and let's call it a day. I personally don't agree with men competing against women. It's just physiologically not a fair competition. Men are bigger, they're stronger, they have greater lung capacity, they have more bone density, they have more muscle mass. It doesn't matter if you take hormones, those physiological assets and attributes have been there since the day you were born, and as you started growing through childhood and puberty, you're just built differently than a woman."

Remember when ESPN Sportscenter was THE show to watch each day, before ESPN got more political than politics? 

Edwards: "They did kind of lose their way for a while. And it was- it was a little unsettling, because politics- none of that stuff had ever come up before in any production meetings, in any directives that would come down the pike. But then we started getting directives about, you know, covering different issues- LGBTQ and this and that. And it was like, what does this have to do with the game on tomorrow, what does this have to do with Michigan and Ohio State?"