Taryn Hatcher has found her next gig, and it is not one anyone would have predicted.
Per the Philadelphia Inquirer, Hatcher has joined The CW as part of its broadcast team covering the Professional Bowlers Association, working alongside former NASCAR lead announcer Rick Allen and professional bowler Kyle Sherman. She is doing the same kind of in-stadium reporter work she did with the Phillies, including post-victory interviews with bowlers, most recently with Anthony Simonsen after he won the Illinois Classic in Decatur, Illinois, two weeks ago. The PBA season runs through April 26, with The CW airing events on Sundays at 4 p.m.
Hatcher told the Inquirer’s Rob Tornoe it has been “so much more fun” than she anticipated, calling the opportunity “a perfect fit.” That’s notable given that she recently revealed on her personal Instagram that she’s been dealing with a health situation that has caused her to turn down other roles, including a full-time MLB sideline reporter position with a franchise she declined to name. The health situation is not dire, per Hatcher, but it has been enough to shape which opportunities she has pursued since leaving NBC Sports Philadelphia.
“I’ve known this was happening for a few months, like over the course of the winter, and obviously so has my agent. And during that time, I have gotten some incredible job offers,” Hatcher said. “Like, I never thought anybody would come seeking out little old me for some of these potential jobs. There’s one that’s actually killing me: 110 games baseball sideline, pre- and postgame. The franchise is incredible. The broadcast crew is phenomenal. The money they offered was tremendous. However, I have a bit of a health issue going on. It’s not dire; it’s not terrible. I am fine, but it is priority number one by a million miles, and because of that, I am kind of picking and choosing the jobs I’m taking a little differently for the short term.
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After Hatcher’s contract expired at the end of the 2025 season, the network eliminated the position rather than replace her, and NBC Sports Philadelphia vice president of content Alexandra Matcham framed it publicly as an evolution in how the network covers baseball. The network later laid out what that evolution actually looks like, which amounts to leaning on digital video producer Spencer McKercher for in-stadium content and sending Ben Davis to the dugout for more field-level work, something that became official earlier this week. None of that is a direct replacement for what Hatcher did. She joined NBC Sports Philadelphia in 2018, spent seven seasons covering the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles, and had already been scaled back to home games only by the time her contract expired. The writing had been on the wall, given that NBC Sports Regional Networks signaled as early as 2020 that it was moving away from in-game reporters across its properties, making Hatcher’s run at the network longer than it probably should have been, given the company’s stated direction.
The PBA on The CW is not where most people would have guessed she’d land next, but the schedule flexibility it offers — the season wraps at the end of April — presumably makes it a reasonable bridge while she manages her health situation and figures out what comes next.
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.