Bridget Howard hired as Royals host and sideline reporter. Credit: Kansas City Royals
By Sam Neumann on

The Kansas City Royals have made a historic hire of sorts.

On Wednesday, the organization announced that Bridget Howard would be a host and sideline reporter for the team’s Royals.TV operation moving forward. That’s notable not only because Howard’s hire marks the first time a woman will appear consistently on Royals’ broadcasts in franchise history, but she has her own history with the organization, too. The 27-year-old is the daughter of former Royals infielder David Howard, who played for Kansas City for seven seasons (1991-97) in the ’90s.

“The Royals have always been a part of my life,” Howard told MLB.com’s Anne Rogers. “I understand what they mean to the city. And this job has always been the North Star for me. I always knew I wanted to work in baseball, and to be able to come home and do it for my hometown team, I still don’t even know if I can put it into words. It’s just an incredibly full-circle moment.”

After graduating from Kansas State, Howard was hired by the Mountain West Conference, where she worked as a studio host, sideline reporter, and color commentator for the better part of five years. She most recently moved to TNT Sports, where she served as a sideline reporter for college football and basketball games covering the Mountain West and Big 12. She’s also done sideline reporting for Unrivaled women’s basketball and play-by-play work for the National Women’s Soccer League and select NCAA conference championships.

Howard will bring that wealth of experience to a broadcast booth — which ranked No. 21 in Awful Announcing’s local MLB announcer rankings last season — that remains largely unchanged. She’ll slot in alongside Jake Eisenberg and Ryan Lefebvre, who split play-by-play duties while Jeremy Guthrie — a former pitcher who spent five seasons with the Royals from 2012-16 — and Rex Hudler serve as analysts.

“I hope what shows up is energy, preparation, and storytelling,” Howard told MLB.com. “My goal is always to enhance the broadcast, not interrupt it — that’s how I’ve always tried to conduct myself on the sideline. And this isn’t just a job to me. I love Kansas City, I grew up in this city, and it’s such a massive responsibility to me to do well and to represent this organization well.”

The Royals are overhauling their local broadcast setup this season after joining MLB’s media arm. Kansas City was one of nine teams that terminated its contract with FanDuel Sports Network in January to move under the league’s control, with MLB taking over production and distribution responsibilities for their local games. The Royals were one of those teams making the transition, and will do so with Howard now on board.

She’ll make her debut Thursday when the Royals broadcast their spring training game against the Rangers.

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.

View all posts by Sam Neumann