Cover Story Magazine
Front

"Queen Ann First lady of sports interviewing is a self-made woman"
By: Harvey Solomon

The world of sports broadcasting is still dominated by men, but female broadcasters are beginning to make their mark in the industry. For example, this past summer, when ESPN was touting its pro football season coverage to a roomful of reporters, it brought out four commentators – all women.
Only one woman has fought her way to the top without climbing the corporate network ladder: 33-year-old Ann Liguori, who hosts, owns and syndicates a weekly half-hour sports talk shoe that appears on regional cable sports networks reaching more than 22 million homes.
"When I started out,"Liguori says, "not only was I selling myself as the talk show host, I was selling the advertising for the show and clearing it on all the regionals aroung the country."
Now, six years later, her "Sharp Sports Innerview" has earned her the nickname "queen of locker-room talk."
"Being persistant and having the confidence; those are skills I really developed as an athlete," she says. "I've always had to open doors for myself and create my own opportunities. When I was growing up, my junior high school did not have a girl's track team, so I played on the guy's team."
After graduating from the University of South Florida, she went from playing sports to covering them for ABC Radio, USA Today and HBO. She worked as a gofer for Brent Musburger on CBS's "The NFL Today" but left to pursue a free-lance career and wound up covering such events such as the Olympics, Super Bowls, the World Series and the NBA Finals.
Full-time freelancing is a leap few try and even fewer make. Liguori hasn't looked back.
"I chose to be an entrepreneur and maintain the rights to the TV show, and it's best thing I ever did," she says. "I am my own boss. I have flexibility as to the format of the show, where it's seen, who our guests are. I call all the shots, and there's nothing better than that."
Operating out of New York, Liguori conducts most of her interviews in hotel rooms or on location. She does not have her own studio but still manages to thrive.
Over the years, "Sharp Sports Innerview" has profiled hundreds of athletes from dozens of sports, from the well-known likes of Mickey Mantle and George Freeman to three-time gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer Nancy Hogshead and behind-the-scenes superagent Leigh Steinberg.
"To me, it's not as much what kind of career they've had as it is are they interesting, can they hold a 30-minute interview, and do they have redeeming quality that transcends sports," she says. "I don't just get somebody on because he's a legendary athlete. That to me is what my shows all about, "sports innerview"; we don't just talk about their sports career."
The TV talk show fills some but not all of Liguori's plate. She also hosts a weekend sports talk show on New York's WFAN.