{"id":264467,"date":"2026-08-13T07:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/264467\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T07:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:52:12","slug":"wip-wont-replace-eagles-sideline-reporter-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/264467\/","title":{"rendered":"WIP won’t replace Eagles sideline reporter this season"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIP\u2019s Philadelphia Eagles broadcasts will go into the 2026 NFL season without anyone specifically assigned to work the sidelines. Merrill Reese and Mike Quick, entering their 29th season calling games together, will lean on other WIP personalities for in-game updates instead of a dedicated reporter, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer\u2019s Rob Tornoe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Per Tornoe, Eliot Shorr-Parks is expected to inherit some of the duties Devan Kaney previously handled, although in a limited capacity. WIP\u2019s Eagles beat reporter is already scheduled to do a pregame hit from the sideline ahead of Saturday\u2019s preseason contest against the Baltimore Ravens, as the station looks to effectively \u201creplace\u201d the Chicago-bound Kaney\u2019s role in the aggregate.<\/p>\n

Kaney, who\u2019d held the sideline role since December 2024, was laid off by WIP in March<\/a> as part of a wider round of cuts at parent company Audacy. She assumed the sideline post after Howard Eskin\u2019s abrupt departure<\/a> amid several other controversies<\/a> earlier that year and would spend 15 months in that role. She had\u00a0been with the station since 2022, routinely co-hosting the morning show alongside Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie, before Audacy\u2019s March layoffs, which eliminated roughly 200 positions companywide following the broadcaster\u2019s emergence from bankruptcy, claimed her position too.<\/p>\n

Kaney stepped away from her weekend anchor post<\/a> at Fox 29 in June, announcing on social media that she was trading Philadelphia for a \u201cbigger market\u201d to cover the Chicago Bears for Fox 32<\/a>. She\u2019s also rejected the idea that she is a \u201cPhilly turncoat,\u201d turning the tables on a troll by maintaining that she opted to leave for the Windy City to get paid a living wage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WIP\u2019s decision not to fill Kaney\u2019s position has already played out elsewhere in Philadelphia sports media. NBC Sports Philadelphia went through a similar process with the Phillies after eliminating its own in-stadium reporter position once Taryn Hatcher\u2019s contract expired at the end of the 2025 season. The RSN got rid of the role altogether<\/a> rather than replace Hatcher, and vice president of content Alexandra Matcham explained the decision<\/a> as an evolution in the network\u2019s storytelling, telling the Philadelphia Business Journal the goal was \u201cto add to our storytelling in new ways,\u201d rather than acknowledge it as a cost-cutting measure that everyone else saw it for.<\/p>\n

Hatcher joined NBC Sports Philadelphia in 2018 and spent seven seasons covering the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles before her role was scaled back to home games only in her final year, and by the time her contract lapsed, NBC Sports\u00a0had previously been signaling that it wanted out of the in-game reporter business<\/a> across all of its regional networks.<\/p>\n

With LeBron James now in the City of Brotherly Love, NBC Sports Philadelphia is reportedly budgeting to bring a courtside voice back to its Sixers broadcasts<\/a>. The network has pretty much conceded that eliminating the role came with costs it hadn\u2019t fully accounted for, particularly after the Kate Scott-Alaa Abdelnaby booth finished 29th out of 30 teams in Awful Announcing\u2019s 2025-26 local NBA announcer rankings<\/a> for a third consecutive season, with several reader comments specifically pointing to Hatcher\u2019s absence as a downgrade. Hatcher, meanwhile, has landed an on-air role covering the Professional Bowlers Association for The CW<\/a> after turning down several MLB sideline reporting opportunities following a health scare.<\/p>\n

For WIP, there\u2019s no indication a dedicated Eagles sideline reporter is coming back anytime soon. The station appears comfortable spreading those duties around its existing lineup,\u00a0just as NBC Sports Philadelphia was comfortable doing with the Phillies<\/a>, viewing a full-time voice on the sideline as expendable rather than essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WIP\u2019s Philadelphia Eagles broadcasts will go into the 2026 NFL season without anyone specifically assigned to work the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[111655,97909,111656,111657,15618,69,4538,71,70,56724,111658],"class_list":["post-264467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-audacy","tag-devan-kaney","tag-merrill-reese","tag-mike-quick","tag-nbc-sports-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-taryn-hatcher","tag-wip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}