ESPN\u2019s \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d will have a new look on its sidelines this season \u2014 longtime NFL host and reporter Laura Rutledge will join Lisa Salters as a permanent sideline reporter for all 20 games that the top team of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Salters will call this season.<\/p>\n
The move sets up the on-air talent roster for what will be ESPN\u2019s most important live broadcast ever: Super Bowl LXI on Feb. 14, 2027, the company\u2019s first-ever Super Bowl broadcast.<\/p>\n
Rutledge said on Tuesday that her \u201cNFL Live\u201d duties will remain the same. Her Monday NFL Live show (3-5 p.m. ET) will now air from the site of Monday Night Football. She will continue hosting the show from the Bristol-based studio for the other days of the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonday Night Football is the pinnacle and it\u2019s always been a dream of mine,\u201d Rutledge said. \u201cI still get chills every time I hear the MNF music. Really excited to continue to work as hard as possible to earn this role.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an additional move, ESPN has added Katie George and Peter Schrager to its game coverage. George and Schrager will join Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky and Louis Riddick for five games, including the four weeks Monday Night Football has multiple games (Weeks 2, 4, 6 and 7). They will also be working a doubleheader Saturday in Week 18. George makes her NFL debut in Week 2 of the season. George now has assignments in the NFL, NBA and college football for ESPN. It seems clear management is setting her up for an extended run in these sports.<\/p>\n
ESPN also announced they have extended the contract of Salters, who is set to enter her 14th season and has been a reporter for ESPN and ABC since 2000.<\/p>\n
Rutledge signed a contract extension earlier this year. Tuesday\u2019s news lands her on ESPN\u2019s most important property.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that has become most important is just being on the biggest events, on the biggest games, hosting, reporting, doing whatever is asked, which I do,\u201d Rutledge told The Athletic prior to the extension. \u201cI enjoy being at those big events and being a part of that and also being a daily presence. So wherever that can happen, that\u2019s what\u2019s important to me. \u2026 This place has meant a lot to me. I\u2019ve been here since I was 25, and I\u2019m 35 now. It\u2019s almost 10 years, and it has gone by in seemingly a blink of an eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo of Laura Rutledge and Eli Manning: Kirby Lee \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN\u2019s \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d will have a new look on its sidelines this season \u2014 longtime NFL host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99,1794],"class_list":{"0":"post-77375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-sports-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}