Regardless of what you think of in-game sideline reports in any sport — and most people don’t become heavily invested in them — this week’s admission by longtime sideline reporter (and current host of Amazon’s Thursday Night Football broadcast) that she sometimes fabricated the reports she was supposed to give sent shockwaves throughout the industry.
Thompson joined Barstool Sports’ Dan Katz and PFT Commenter on the Pardon My Take podcast, and had this to say about it.
“I’ve said this before,” Thompson noted. “I haven’t been fired to saying it, but I’ll say it again. I would make up the report sometimes, because A, the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime, or it was too late and I didn’t want to screw up the report. So I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make this up.’
“Because first of all, no coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field.’ They’re not gonna correct me on that. So I’m like, it’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.”
As Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing noted, Thompson had previously admitted to embellishing reports on Erin Andrews’ podcast. but that was not this.
Again, whether you take sideline reports and sideline reporters seriously, making up the news on the fly is a serious issue, no matter the subject. And as you might expect, Thompson’s admission sent shockwaves through the industry.
