As Elle Duncan approaches a decade working at ESPN, she has embraced her time at the enterprise contributing across different facets of its multiplatform sports coverage. Remaining informed towards an array of leagues, teams and athletes, she has become synonymous with the 6 p.m. EST weekday edition of SportsCenter in recent years. Throughout this ongoing stint with the company, Duncan has witnessed a seminal paradigm shift that has permeated through sports media surrounding both journalistic integrity and authenticity concurrent with advances in technology and alterations in consumer proclivities.
Reflecting back on her early days with the network, Duncan acknowledged that SportsCenter anchors were dissuaded from giving their opinions or revealing their favorite teams. Being a fan herself though, she knew that operating under the auspices of depicting neutrality would not be entirely veracious towards the audience. Although Duncan has a platform to broadcast the latest developments and highlights while showcasing her personality, she values her versatility and communicates to viewers with undeniable candor and panache.
“I have a really cool opportunity to be a broadcaster in this space, but I’m also a huge fan of sports, so I am going to always convey stories in that same vein as if I were a fan, and I hope that I can bring that kind of perspective to any show that I’m doing,” Duncan said. “That’s always the goal.”
Duncan is currently maintaining an industrious schedule hosting editions of SportsCenter and anchoring studio coverage surrounding games within the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. As Texas, South Carolina, UConn and UCLA battle in the Final Four and seek to garner the coveted national title, Duncan will be breaking down the action alongside analysts Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike on College GameDay live from the proceedings in Tampa, Fla. ESPN continues to invest in women’s sports as a company and has accrued strong aggregate viewership surrounding the broadcasts over the last several years.
“I think for most companies, women’s sports was sort of an add-on, it was a place where people would come and learn,” Duncan said. “If it was your first time producing, maybe you’d do women’s sports, right? If it was your first time running prompter, maybe you’d do women’s sports, and I’ve seen over the last four or five years that I’ve been doing it, it’s completely changed.”
Running the Point at the Final Four
Duncan shares earnest relationships with Carter and Ogwumike, both of whom formerly played women’s basketball and have contributed to conversations on various ESPN platforms. Even though Duncan conveyed that both analysts describe her as the point guard of the show who throws lob passes for them to dunk, she contends that there is a better analogy. Duncan feels she constructs enriching discourse by having her colleagues battle at the jump to gain the possession and offer their insights.
“I have never worked with two colleagues who can process information accurately as quickly as they can and also with so much personality and joy and love and education,” Duncan said. “The ‘E’ in ESPN starts with entertainment. They understand that aspect, but as women, we also have to be really, really good about being without fault and knowing what we’re talking about, and they absolutely nail it.”
Through her time working on women’s sports coverage, Duncan has witnessed consumer loyalty to players and supporting brands that back the game. In addition, college basketball contains several star players who remain with programs for several years, some of whom have included Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers. Facilitating growth through multiple levels of innovation, Duncan recognizes the distinctive aspects of the sport and believes that the crowd is overindexing and maintaining growth.
“There are some sports who are facing existential crisis in terms of their audience is getting older and aging out a little bit,” Duncan explained. “We are really unique in that our audiences are young, they’re consuming on different platforms and the investment from a company like ESPN, which has been around for 20 years investing in this space, is paying those dividends now.”
Duncan has continued to foster proliferation amid the action, demonstrating her abilities as a host in aligning her colleagues for success and keeping the broadcast moving at a steady cadence. Balancing the responsibilities around women’s basketball, which also contains anchoring WNBA Countdown in the summer, she leans on her SportsCenter teammates to assist in efficiently dividing and conquering the workload.
“We have to know a little bit of everything, but you just have to recognize the season that you’re in,” said Duncan. “Right now, I’m in women’s basketball season, so with all due respect to the NBA, you’re going to get my focus as soon as the Natty is over, and then I’ll be able to really focus in on W[NBA] and NBA. You have to sort of pick what season you’re in and recognize what’s going to be the most important things that you need to be watching, but that’s where the research comes in as well.”
What Could Lead Into 6 p.m. SportsCenter?
While Duncan co-anchors the 6 p.m. SportsCenter with Kevin Neghandi, ESPN has yet to reveal shifts in its programming lineup with the impending conclusion of Around the Horn in May. A report from CNBC last December cited that ESPN was in the midst of developing a women’s sports show on Disney+, but it remains unknown if such a program could join the ESPN linear television lineup. Purely speculating on the matter without any intention to hint at potential developments of which she has no knowledge, Duncan attests that shrewd, business-minded executives run the company and are likely discussing the best direction forward.
“They’re a company that recognizes the difference between a trend and a movement,” Duncan said. “They’re a company that’s been at the forefront of women’s sports, and it would not shock me at all if there had been some high-level conversations about bringing something like that to the network.”
Whereas Duncan distinguishes clear identities for the morning and night iterations of SportsCenter, she views the 6 p.m. edition as somewhat of a hybrid. Since this edition of the show occurs in a prime breaking news window, there are also instances where Duncan and her contemporaries need to follow and advance developing stories.
“I think we have the absolute best team [in] the business of knowing that while we think we know what’s going to happen, we are prepared to pivot and we always have a backup plan, and that’s what’s really cool about our show,” Duncan said. “They are always prepared.”
From Actress to Anchor
Meeting the moment is nothing new for Duncan, who became comfortable speaking extemporaneously and performing in front of crowds early in her life. Growing up with ambitions to be a lawyer, pediatrician and actress, she ended up deciding on the latter and majored in theater at the University of West Georgia. Duncan later took a hiatus from college and moved to Los Angeles during pilot season but ultimately ran out of money. From there, she recognized that she aspired to have a job that would allow her to be herself rather than portraying others.
“When people sort of find out that I had a start in acting, I think it makes more sense in terms of my personality and my delivery and the things that I tend to gravitate to,” Duncan said. “I have a bit of theatrical flair with how I broadcast, and so it’s really cool to have a job where you can tap into those things, and also you just get to be yourself for a living, which is ultimately the goal.”
Duncan landed a broadcasting role shortly thereafter working as a traffic and entertainment reporter for 790 The Zone and later became an on-air personality on the hip-hop radio station V103. When she was laid off from V103 after seven years, 11Alive offered her a job reporting traffic on television, and she accepted the role with the caveat of being permitted to cover the Atlanta Falcons and file a package for the nightly news once per week. Through these endeavors, Duncan continued to grow her portfolio and was eventually hired by NESN in Boston.
“It was really cool to be able to start in a place where they had a lot more grace and leeway, and then go to a place where you had to know your s**t, you had to be on it,” Duncan said. “You had to understand what was happening, and I think that there was not a better place where I could go sort of learn and go through those machinations than Boston.”
Taking the Stage in Sports Debate
When Duncan started at ESPN, it was indicative of a successful realization of her dream, but she knew people were questioning how a traffic reporter who dropped out of college had secured a spot at the network. Nonetheless, she has sought to portray her true personality and is comfortable with facing the dissent of audience members.
Towards the end of the NFL season, Duncan gave her opinion about New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones delivering what was ostensibly a farewell message to the organization before later being released. The segment, during which she offered a rewrite of the statement that would have Jones apologize for winning a single playoff game under a lucrative contract, elicited criticism from the franchise. In the end though, she stands by the fact that she had not said anything that had not already been disseminated and thinks that some fans decided to direct their anger towards her.
“Anybody that knows me knows that my love language is s**t-talking,” Duncan said. “It’s totally fair if people felt like it was cold and out of pocket – that’s totally fair. I opened myself up to that because that’s my job and role, but the thing that I need people to understand is that I never do it just for the sake of being mean or being inflammatory. I’m not trying to stoke anything. If I am asked my opinion on something, I give it, period, full transparency.”
Duncan considers herself to possess a symbiotic relationship with social media and tries not to overly engage with users, although there are times when she stands up for others who are being mischaracterized. Comprehending the responsibility that comes with visibility, she does not hesitate to divulge her opinions and has ventured into the space on television with appearances on First Take.
“It’s one of those things where I spend a lot of time preparing,” Duncan said. “A debate show like First Take is chess. If I’m going to sit across from Dan Orlovsky and tell him that I think his point is wrong – one of the best minds in football – then I need to be clear as to why, and I need to be able to pivot when the conversation turns.”
Duncan has a penchant for sports and disseminating her opinions, and she remains inspired by aspiring professionals who explain how they feel inspired watching her on ESPN. Consistent in her approach on SportsCenter, NCAA women’s college basketball coverage and First Take is an unrelenting work ethic and remaining genuine with the viewing public. As Duncan continues to live her dream, she will aim for more chances to push the envelope, but also refrain from demarcating her next steps and remain open to possibilities down the road.
“Success to me is hearing someone on one show tell someone on a new show or project that I’m going to be working on that like, ‘Elle’s going to show up professional, she’s going to show up prepared. She’s probably going to show up with her little speaker and play music, but she’s going to be a great teammate and she’s going to work her a** off and she’s going to be prepared,’” Duncan said. “Anything else that happens after that – ratings, fanfare – that’s a byproduct of showing up for your teammates and showing up as a professional.”
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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.
