CBS Sports announced Sunday that Lindsay Czarniak is joining CBS Sports HQ as a host, with her debut set for tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET. She’d already done some work for the network before, contributing to CBS’s Pittsburgh Riverhounds-Louisville City FC USL Championship broadcast on July 18.
Lindsay Czarniak had to educate @MikeWattsOnAir and @DevonKerr9 on Picklesburgh 😂#USLonCBS | @bestwestern pic.twitter.com/eLvOqOyQk1
— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) July 18, 2026
Czarniak spent six years at ESPN, debuting on SportsCenter in August 2011 and later taking over as co-host of the network’s 6 p.m. edition in December 2012, stepping into the chair Jay Harris vacated when he moved to the 11 p.m. show. Her time there also included a milestone moment in 2013, when ESPN and ABC tapped her to replace Brent Musburger as host of the Indianapolis 500 broadcast, making her the first woman to host the telecast. Her ESPN contract quietly expired in August 2017, and the two sides moved on without much fanfare. She resurfaced the following spring on a short-term deal contributing sports insight to CNN’s New Day alongside Chris Cuomo, then moved to Fox in 2019, where she split weekend hosting duties on NASCAR Race Hub with Sara Walsh, in addition to working NFL sidelines.
Since then, she’s hosted Superstar Racing Experience broadcasts, co-hosted NBC’s On Her Turf alongside MJ Acosta-Ruiz, and hosted USA Network’s coverage of this past winter’s Milan-Cortina Olympics, which she called the most emotionally resonant Games of her career. She also hosts the interview podcast Things no one tells you and fronts the Investigation Discovery true-crime series Game Day Murders, a Shaquille O’Neal-produced show examining crimes with sports ties, including the murders of Sean Taylor and Lorenzen Wright, that premiered in late July.
Her debut on CBS Sports HQ airs tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.