In the summer of 2012, Kayla Braud and the University of Alabama Crimson Tide softball team achieved their ultimate goal by winning the Women’s College World Series. It was the culmination of years of hard work, persistence and dedication to the game of softball; a crowning triumph in a career awash of mesmerizing feats and outstanding accomplishments.
From her sophomore to senior years in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Braud was named as an All-American softball player with a career batting average of .471, the second highest mark in program history. Furthermore, she realized excellence in the classroom and in the community, graduating magna cum laude and being honored as the recipient of the 2013 Senior CLASS Award. At a glance, these accolades encompass an ideal college career positioning a graduate well for professional success. However, there is a semblance of regret for Braud because of a decision she made early as an undergraduate student.
“I was always interested in broadcasting in college; in fact, I tried to change my major to broadcasting in my sophomore year,” Braud said. “My academic adviser told me not to because no one makes it in broadcasting. I ended up getting my degree in public relations instead.”
Although she wanted to craft a career in sports media, Braud was preparing to take a job with Nike, a company with whom she had interned in brand marketing during the summer after graduation. But broadcasting had a hold on Kayla. She was fascinated watching softball analysts like Jessica Mendoza, Michele Smith and Amanda Scarborough.
As if by fate, Braud received a phone call from an ESPN producer that summer where she learned of the SEC Network, and was told that the venture needed a softball analyst who played in the conference. Once she was formally offered the job, Braud did not think twice, responding with an emphatic, “Hell, yes.”
From the moment she joined the SEC Network in 2014, Braud received chances to refine her craft as a game analyst and was paired with Michele Smith in the booth. It was a stark transition for her in moving from corporate offices to the broadcast booth.
“It was like trial by fire,” Braud said. “I didn’t really know what to expect; I didn’t really know how calling a game would go. The transition was challenging but, man, the first day that I did the job and I went in the booth, I knew it was for me because I got an adrenaline rush. It kind of felt like playing again.”
In preparing for a typical broadcast, Braud took a similar approach to what she used to do as a player. Centered around watching game film, she looks at 20 to 30 at-bats for each player to try to get a feel for their skill at the plate and adjustments they have made or need to make for more effective performance. In addition to watching previous games and reviewing statistics, Braud also prepares by conversing with teammates, coaches and other personnel to gather a more comprehensive picture.
“My style lends itself to a little more of a casual viewer,” Braud said. “I’m definitely not as polished as maybe most analysts out there, but I keep it fun and I’m going to bring up really good intelligent points when I can.”
Aside from solely focusing on softball broadcasts and their concomitant personalities, Braud thinks about her job in a broader sense and continues to examine a wide array of programming to guide her analysis. She listens to a litany of play-by-play announcers and thinks about new ways to enhance the presentation of softball.
“I listen to Kirk Herbstreit every Saturday,” Braud said, “and I listen to some of the best basketball analysts. I pick up what they’re doing and take little nuggets from each person and their analysis and what I like.”
Outside of the broadcast booth, Braud also appears on select studio programming for the SEC Network, including on the show Rally Cap. These shows tend to focus on more than just one matchup, rendering the preparation process more broad in scope. Braud and other analysts are forced to concisely divulge their points to generate a compelling and entertaining discussion. This requires them to genuinely have a thorough understanding of what it is they are talking about on a daily basis and be comfortable with industry jargon.
“I took it as a challenge,” Braud said. “I don’t think it was necessarily intimidating. It kind of felt like you’re breathing through a firehose a little bit. It just made me hungry to do more.”
Maria Taylor, who currently works with NBC Sports as host of Sunday Night Countdown, used to host SEC Now on the SEC Network as one of its inaugural personalities. She proved instrumental in helping Braud assimilate into sports media through teaching her essential tasks. In exchange for her knowledge and expertise, Braud explained the ins and outs of softball to Taylor, a nuanced sport with various similarities to baseball.
An aspect of the job that was difficult if not near impossible to teach Braud was in critiquing players. Having played softball for the better part of a decade, Braud is cognizant of the daily grind and balance student athletes have in juggling their responsibilities both on and off the field. At the same time though, the way in which she diligently carries out her role and ensures honest and worthwhile analysis is by being forthright and straightforward in her breakdowns.
“The audience needs to know what went wrong and why it went wrong, so we need to do a good job in documenting the game and holding these kids and teams to high standards,” Braud said. “I’ve tried to be a little bit more fair in terms of my criticism and recognizing that if I had made an error [at the] time, I would have been pretty hard on myself.”
For most athletes immersed in the thrill of competition, rivalries are unequivocally evident across conferences and can serve as a motivating factor to hold oneself to higher standards. Braud specifically remembers her time facing Madison Shipman, a shortstop for the University of Tennessee Volunteers softball team, over the three years their SEC careers intersected. Both are three-time All-Americans and are regarded as top players in their programs’ history, and they were surely squared off on the field. Yet when Shipman joined the SEC Network as an analyst in 2018, she quickly gravitated towards Braud who decided to pay it forward and guide her in the transition process.
“We never once communicated and never once acknowledged each other off the field,” Braud said of Shipman. “That’s just kind of how it was back then; there was no social media, [and] you didn’t really get to know your opponents at all.”
Following years of requesting to broadcast an Alabama vs. Tennessee game together, Braud and Shipman received the chance this past March alongside play-by-play announcer Eric Frede. The former rivals turned friends wore their softball jerseys and divided their time between the broadcast booth and reporting from different vantage points from around the stadium. ESPN dubbed the broadcast as the Throwback Throwdown game, and both commentators reflected on the time as one of their most memorable moments in the booth thus far.
“It was a really nice balance of calling it back to our careers and the incredible runs both of our teams went on,” Braud expressed. “It laid the groundwork for these two programs and here they are now; here’s how far they came. It was just really cool.”
Women’s sports have grown across the board over the last several years, achieving record viewership. Braud has noticed college softball being televised more often than before, reminiscing on how her team was only on a major network two to three times per year.
“These kids are on TV every single weekend, and they’re getting to show this product to tons and tons of fans [and] to people across the country and they love it,” Braud said. “It’s a short, quick game that’s enjoyable to watch. As a broadcaster, we want people to enjoy the game by also being fun and making the game enjoyable and giving expert analysis to the people at home.”
Over the years, Braud has broadcast various softball tournaments with ESPN and the SEC Network, sometimes on short notice. When one analyst had to pull out of a superregional game, she was called upon at the last second to join the broadcast for the Lafayette Leopards super-regional matchup against the University of Louisiana Ragin’ Caguns. Additionally, she is frequently featured on coverage of the SEC Softball Tournament, sometimes finding herself at the ballpark from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. at night immersing herself in the game she loves.
Braud is also breaking boundaries in the industry by expanding her analysis to more than just softball. Through a conversation she had with her broadcast agent in which she expressed an eagerness to work past the end of the softball season (usually June), Braud landed a chance to contribute to Seattle Mariners broadcasts on ROOT SPORTS. A majority of her work takes place in the studio, but Braud has also appeared throughout the course of the game. Just recently, she spoke about the sabermetrics instantiated in the modern game and how to best follow the action.
“From an analyst perspective, I can watch the game and I know confidently how I would approach a situation [and] what that fielder or hitter is feeling like,” Braud explained. “That being said, the biggest difference in baseball is the pitching, so that’s been kind of learning and doing a lot of film work on pitchers around the league.”
Although Braud is comfortable in her role, she urges viewers to broaden their horizons and focus more on the analysis rather than determining credibility based on one’s gender, race and/or ethnicity.
“You hear from a lot of women in this industry who are covering a men’s sport, ‘I’ve got to work 10 times harder to prove I know what I’m talking about,’” Braud said. “That’s a shame – these women are intelligent [and] successful. I think when we compare that to the men’s game – whatever it is – I think it does a disservice to what these hard-working women are doing every single day.”
While it is difficult not to think about where her burgeoning career could take her in the future, Braud prefers to stay focused on the here and now through committing to getting better and refining her craft each day. Akin to the way she thought about improving as a player, she is aware that achieving her goals is a process, and one she faces with the utmost determination.
“This Mariners thing, this baseball thing is something new, and I’m just excited to try it and see where I can go with it. I don’t have any big, major goals. I’m not one of these people who says, ‘I need to be on ABC Primetime’ or whatever. I’m more about working as hard as I possibly can and seeing where that takes me. The goal is to continue in this industry and make a name for myself.”
Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, email Derek@BarrettMedia.com or find him on X @derekfutterman.
