Elizabeth Mowins (born May 26, 1967) is an American play-by-play announcer and sports journalist for ESPN, CBS, and Marquee Sports Network.[1] She typically calls women's college sports, and became the second woman to call nationally televised college football games for ESPN in 2005.[2] She began doing play-by-play for NFL games in 2017 and became the first woman to call a nationally televised NFL game. In 2021, she became the first woman to call play-by-play for an NBA game on network TV.
Mowins began her career in 1991 as news and sports director for WXHC-FM Radio in Homer, New York, and is one of the 2009 inductees into the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame.[8]
Mowins joined ESPN in 1994, covering college sports, including basketball, football, softball, soccer and volleyball.[9] She has been the network's lead voice on softball coverage, including the Women's College World Series.
In May 2017, Mowins was reported by Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch to be the chosen play-by-play announcer on ESPN's Monday Night Football opening week late broadcast between the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos.[12] She did that announcing job in September of that year, and thus became the first woman to call a nationally televised NFL game.[13][14] That also made her only the second female play-by-play announcer in NFL regular season history; Gayle Sierens was a play-by-play announcer for a game of the NFL regular season in 1987 for NBC Sports.[4]
Mowins also became the first female play-by-play announcer to call NFL for CBS Sports in the network's 58-year history when she called the 2017 season's Cleveland Browns–Indianapolis Colts matchup with Jay Feely.[15] In February 2021 Mowins was named as a fill-in play-by-play announcer for Chicago Cubs games on Marquee Sports.[16] On May 8, 2021, she became the first woman to call one of the team's regular season games.[17]
In 2021, Mowins made her NBC Olympics debut hosting softball for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.[7] In the same year, she began calling the NBA games on ESPN.[18] In 2022, she worked with analyst Doris Burke in calling an NBA game, as part of ESPN's plan to have an all-women broadcasting and production crew for the first time on a national scale.[19] Mowins and Burke returned together the following season during International Women's Day 2023.[20][21]