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Longtime ESPN Anchor and Reporter Announces She’s Leaving Network

Andy Nesbitt

Michelle Steele is leaving ESPN after 14 years with the network.
Michelle Steele is leaving ESPN after 14 years with the network. / Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Michelle Steele, a longtime reporter and anchor at ESPN, announced Thursday that she will be leaving the network after 14 years at the end of the month.

Steele has appeared on SportsCenter, NFL Live, Outside the Lines and other ESPN platforms over the years. She has most recently been a reporter in Chicago.

She shared the news with an in-depth post on social media, shouting out the start she got in Boston, the wide-ranging events she covered during her time with ESPN, and why she's deciding to make the move.

She wrote:

I'm turning the page...

After a 14-year journey at ESPN, spanning assignments in Bristol, Boston, and Chicago, this chapter as a bureau reporter concludes on Aug. 1.

My Day 1 assignment in the Boston bureau was the day Aaron Hernandez was arrested - fulfilling my dad’s prophecy that you really will be surprised what you wind up doing in life. Great times with great people covering Monday Night Football on SportsCenter, the women’s hoops juggernaut, the National Spelling Bee and the Warrior Games, which I loved so much because of my family’s military connection. Along the way, there was a heavy dose of SportsCenter anchoring and a little podcasting, too.

ESPN has some of the best storytellers, producers and editors around, and I’m thankful to have learned so much.

Recently, I shared advice on a friend's podcast for those entering the industry: "walk through open doors.” Don’t be too rigid about your career, open yourself to possibilities. It's that approach that got me from reporting on Wall Street to the anchor chair in Bristol and front and center at championship games. Now, I'm taking my own advice.

Up next: Looking forward to building and growing…if you're at AAJA in Seattle this month, let's connect… watch this space.

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Andy Nesbitt
ANDY NESBITT

Andy Nesbitt is the assistant managing editor of audience engagement at Sports Illustrated. He works closely with the Breaking and Trending News team to shape SI’s daily coverage across all sports. A 20-year veteran of the sports media business, he has worked for Fox Sports, For the Win, The Boston Globe and NBC Sports, having joined SI in February 2023. Nesbitt is a golf fanatic who desperately wants to see the Super Bowl played on a Saturday night.

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