It’s not a bad time to be Mina Kimes. The ESPN personality is one of the biggest rising stars in the industry. Along with a successful writing career, Kimes is now a ubiquitous face across a number of ESPN shows like Highly Questionable, Around the Horn, and others. Her profile is only expanding at the network, hosting an NFL podcast and being one of the names mentioned as a possible host for a daily ESPN podcast.
This August, Kimes will add another line to her growing resume—game analyst. The Los Angeles Rams announced on their Twitter page that Kimes would be serving as a preseason analyst in their broadcast booth this preseason.
Analyst ✅
Host ✅
Writer ✅
Podcaster ✅
🔜 Color commentator @minakimes is joining us in the booth for preseason! pic.twitter.com/olcN7DWSAX— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) July 30, 2019
Kimes is a noted Seattle sports fan and the Seahawks Twitter account didn’t take long to have some fun with the assignment.
Take good notes for us @minakimes 🤪
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) July 30, 2019
Kimes’ presence in the broadcast booth is sure to gain attention this preseason, given that we rarely see people who aren’t former players serving in an analyst capacity in the broadcast booth. Naturally, it will bring to mind the grand Tony Kornheiser experiment when he served as a Monday Night Football analyst from 2006-2009.
The Kornheiser Era will never be remembered as Monday Night Football’s golden age, but that doesn’t mean the idea could never work in the right context. Kimes is clearly very talented and well versed in the NFL, and she could provide a lot of new insights in the broadcast booth.
Furthermore, isn’t the preseason the perfect environment to try something new and different? If it doesn’t work out, then it’s not like the entire football infrastructure in this country will collapse upon itself because of the Ram’s preseason broadcast booth. But if it does work, it can open some new doors for new voices in covering the game. In the preseason, there’s plenty of time to explore X’s and O’s, tell stories, and talk about the backgrounds of players further down the depth chart that may not see the light of day in the regular season. If Kimes does well in the booth, at the very least perhaps more teams may go this route and get more creative with their broadcasts in the future.
[RamsNFL on Twitter]
