Award-winning broadcast journalist Andrea Kremer, who has enjoyed a distinguished career marked by trailblazing roles, is the Association for Women in Sports Media’s 2020 recipient of the Mary Garber Pioneer Award.
More than 30 years since working as a sports editor in Ardmore, Penn., Kremer remains one of the giants of the industry — male or female. Kremer has been honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame and recognized as one of the top 10 female sportscasters of all time.
The Pioneer Award, AWSM’s highest honor, has been given annually since 1999 to individuals who have distinguished themselves in the sports media field while reflecting and advancing the values and mission of AWSM. The award was named in 2006 for Garber, one of the industry’s original pioneers. Kremer is a longtime AWSM member.
“I’m profoundly honored to be selected as AWSM's 2020 Mary Garber Pioneer Award recipient. Although I’m chafing a bit at the moniker of ‘pioneer,’ just looking at the recipient list of the women before me is quite humbling,” Kremer said. “The AWSM convention is always a tremendous educational and networking experience, and I can’t wait to catch up with old friends and meet the next generation of female sports journalists as well.”
Kremer’s thriving career and legacy continues to grow as an NFL game analyst for Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football,” correspondent for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and NFL Network chief correspondent. She helped launch CBS Sports Network's "We Need to Talk" in 2014, the first ever all-female nationally televised weekly sports show, and now serves as a contributor to the program. In addition to her TV roles, Kremer is also a Boston University professor.
Last year, Kremer won the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, which recognizes “longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football.”
In 2018, Kremer also became the first female full-time NFL game analyst, partnering with Storm, to create the first all-female broadcast team for any major men’s sport.
“Andrea Kremer wears so many hats in the world of sports media and plays every role exceptionally well,” AWSM Board Chair Kelly Burke said. “Her breadth of experience is unparalleled. Who else was shattering glass ceilings in the 1980s as ESPN’s first female correspondent and now, more than 30 years later, is still paving new roads as the first full-time, female NFL game analyst? She embodies the meaningful change we hope to see in the sports media industry, and she does it with class, hustle and quick wit. It’s been fun to get to know her during the past year because she is just as magnificent of a a person as she is a respected journalist, wife, mother and friend.”
Kremer joined NFL Films as its first female producer in 1984, then became ESPN's first female correspondent five years later. She’s won multiple Emmys and other awards during her wide- ranging career, which has included covering more than 25 Super Bowls, the Olympics and NBA, NHL and MLB playoff games.
