Kaylee Hartung will embrace the nerves during first Super Bowl broadcast

As much as Kaylee Hartung will treat Super Bowl LX like just another game and broadcast, she knows this one is different.

Hartung joined this week’s episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast to preview the first Super Bowl broadcast of her career. And when that’s over, Hartung will be on a 1am flight from California to Italy where she’ll cover the Winter Olympics for NBC.

Last month, NBC announced Hartung will join Melissa Stark as the two sideline reporters for its Super Bowl broadcast. Hartung said she’s known about the assignment for most of the NFL season, but it didn’t feel real until the announcement was made. Announcers will try to tell themselves it’s just another game, but it’s hard to ignore that fact that this is the Super Bowl and 120 million people will be watching when the broadcast is thrown to you. And for Hartung, who works as a sideline reporter for Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football broadcast during the regular season, she’s used to working through nerves on live TV.

“I’m nervous every time I go on live TV. That red light goes on Thursday nights, when I hear Al Michaels’ voice and the national anthem has just finished and we are moments away from kickoff and I know he’s coming to me, I get nervous,” Hartung admitted. “I feel the flutter. I think nerves are healthy. I think they remind your body and your mind that you care. And I care so much about this job and I care so much about serving the broadcast in the best way that I can. So yeah, there will be nerves on Sunday, I am mentally preparing myself for that.”

Kaylee Hartung said she was recently watching interviews of Michele Tafoya talking about covering the Super Bowl, and the former NBC sideline reporter preached the importance of taking a moment to soak in the crowd during kickoff.

“You can’t ignore it, I’m going to treat this like another game as much as I can. But you cannot ignore that this is Super Bowl 60 and these games live forever,” Hartung continued. “More than anything, what I think about is the moment that this is for the players and the coaches and their families…it’s not about me. None of this is about me, it’s about them and it’s about honoring them. That’s how I take the pressure off myself in some way and get out of my own head.”

Listen to the full episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast featuring Kaylee Hartung on Super Bowl LX, the Winter Olympics, Al Michaels, Mike Tirico and much more. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.