Erin Andrews On Honoring 56 Women In Sports With Crown Royal For The Super Bowl

Fox Sports broadcaster Erin Andrews is teaming up with Crown Royal —— the first-ever whisky sponsor of the NFL —— to gift 56 of the most influential women in sports the brand’s newest offering, Crown Royal Aged 18 Years, ahead of Super Bowl 56.

In addition to each gift, $1,000 will be donated in the recipient’s name to a charity that supports young women in sports and their individual journeys.

Andrews, who became the first female recipient of the Pat Summerall award (given to a national broadcaster or prominent sports personality who has had an outstanding career and who has made a significant impact in their community) on Thursday, is happy with the progress of opportunities for women in sports.

“I’m happy with any sort of progress,” Andrews told Forbes via Zoom on Wednesday. “It’s an exciting time right now, you have women in the front office that are making huge decisions in the NFL, we have women down on the sidelines coaching, we have women that are officiating the games. I think it’s a very exciting time.

“I appreciate the NFL being so open to the change. I appreciate the players, the male coaches that are willing to say, hey, let’s shake it up a bit. Let’s add some women to this highly-successful and powerful league and I think we’re off to a great start.”

Andrews, who’s been with Fox Sports since 2012 after coming over from ESPN where she started in 2004, drew inspiration from Melissa Stark and her work on “Monday Night Football” in the early 2000s.

“For me, I was a huge Melissa Stark fan, still am. Loved watching her with John Madden on Monday Night Football and Al Michaels,” Erin said. “And I’ve been really [fortunate] to get to know her throughout my career. She’s given me good advice.

“Talked with her about a lot of things, laughed with her a lot. She’s been really influential with me. I loved the way players reacted to her, I loved the way they responded to hear, I loved the way they answered her questions and I really, really wanted to be like her. I cut my hair like her.”

Andrews launched the Calm Down podcast in October with fellow Fox Sports personality Charissa Thompson.

“I kind of with my team thought, ‘Should I do this with a guy? Maybe who’s not involved in football, we could talk about different things…’ But Charissa and I have dealt with a lot of the same things in our career kind of on and off camera,” Erin said. “It’s hard to have a relationship in this industry; it’s hard to keep friends.

“Sometimes they don’t understand why 18 weeks out of the season you can’t go out to dinner on a Friday night. We’ve gone through with the industry, just being women and dealing with men, wanting to be really feminine but just being one of the guys. Obviously we have a lot in common and we thought maybe people would like to hear about those stories.”

Andrews isn’t too surprised with the splash the podcast has made given the candid nature of the show and the topics they discuss.

“Not really because I know kind of what moves the needle with some publications when it comes to clickbait,” Andrews said. “I kind of had a feeling that people wanted to hear what I had to say about the Aaron Rodgers hug. I saw (Tuesday’s) story about me shagging balls with Tom Brady in Montana last summer get a little bit of a pickup. It’s a fun story, I thought people would like to hear that.

“This is why I think we decided to do the podcast, I only get 15 seconds on the sidelines to kind of give a quick injury update or kind of a give a report that Aaron Donald is trying to get his team hyped up on the sidelines and we don’t really get a chance to show our personality that much in our job. So we thought we’d have a chance to do it on the podcast.”

Erin recently made headlines on the show when she broke down her raw reaction to Tom Brady announcing his retirement.

“I heard all the rumblings leading up to that divisional game and I just kind of thought, ‘How could he go out when he’s throwing the ball as well as he is?,’” Andrews said. “He said this was the best his arm has felt. I know all the work he had put in with Alex Guerrero. I kind of felt like they were just a couple plays from advancing to the NFC Championship, potentially to win maybe another Super Bowl.

“Yeah, I’m bummed out. I’ve been very vocal about that, but that’s me being selfish. I know Tom wants to spend time with his family and everything like that but I’ve really, really enjoyed covering him. It’s been one of the coolest experiences in my career.

“I didn’t get to cover Michael Jordan. I wanted it to keep going because it’ll be something I’m able to tell my kids about. But that again was me being selfish and I know that about myself. I wish him all the best in whatever he’s up to next.”

As mentioned on the podcast, Erin’s on-field interviews can span around only 15 seconds at times. It’s her sit-down interviews and work on features for Fox that allow her to take a deeper dive and showcase her unique connection to the players.

“I always love doing a sit-down interview. I feel like it’s really my chance to show my personality but also show my interaction with players,” Andrews said. “People don’t really get to see that, maybe in the postgame interview and everything like that, but I really do have a great relationship with a lot of these guys and it’s a chance to feature a different side of me, a different side of them, and that’s really my whole thing in broadcasting is I just want the guys to know that I care, I work hard, I’m prepared, and I respect what they do for a living.

“I think the experience with me could be a little different in terms of it’s not like you’re sitting at your locker and I’m like, ‘Anyways, what happened at third and four?’ I’m like, ‘How’s your family?’ ‘How’s your family dealing with this new team? New surroundings being here…’ Stuff like that. I kind of feel like I’m able to add my different spin to it or twist to it all.”

Erin added a lot of twists and spins when she competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2010, taking third place in the finals. She later co-hosted the show from 2014 to 2020. Initially, Andrews felt a lot of people wanted her to stay in her lane as a sports reporter, but she drew inspiration from a well-known colleague to follow her heart.

“I think when I danced on Dancing with the Stars I did begin to get a lot pushback because there were publications that said, ‘Oh, she’s a reporter, how could she be doing this?’ But I looked to my friends and my Fox colleague Michael Strahan and I thank him for opening the door,” Andrews said.

“Nobody says anything about ‘Stray’ doing Sunday’s Fox pregame show and then going and doing what he does Monday through Friday on GMA, where he’s talking about [cooking] tips and interviewing George Clooney, doing whatever he does all week long. So I think he’s really opened the door for people like me to just show, hey look, I can talk football and be really good at it but then I can go do something in the entertainment world but have a good time and be good at that as well.

“So I’m grateful for ‘Stray’ for kind of just showing, hey look, athletes can do a bunch of things. You can have guys like Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, or Tom (Brady) just do what they do and have a ton of interest, broadcasters can as well. Why does it have to be so serious all the time?”

Sunday should make for some serious football as the Cincinnati Bengals take on the LA Rams in Super Bowl 56. Erin notes how meaningful it would be to see veteran NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford walk away from the big game with his first championship after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Detroit Lions back in 2009.

“He’s had a great career, but come on, this would be the icing on the cake, right?,” Andrews said. “We did the NFC Championship game on Fox last Sunday and it was 365 to the day [he was traded by the Lions].

“I had actually spent time with Matthew when he did sign the deal and just joked around that, ‘Hey, I want the big interview when you make it to the Super Bowl, and we got it. We said all those things, I mean there’s a lot that goes into that.

“I know the Rams hoped to be in this position, but reality versus dream, who would have ever thought? They wanted it, so they got it obviously, but yeah, this is huge for him. It’s all about the rings for the quarterbacks isn’t it? It changes the way you’re talked about. It changes the way you’re looked at.

“This would be huge for him. This guy has been through it in his career, off and on the field, and it would be very exciting, not only for him, but a lot of those other guys, Andrew Whitworth, Aaron Donald, Sean McVay… That organization put it all on the line for this.”