ESPN has re-signed award-winning national reporter Jeff Darlington to a multi-year agreement, extending his tenure with the company beyond a decade. Darlington, who joined ESPN in 2016, has been a mainstay of the network’s NFL coverage and will now expand his role to include regular contributions to ESPN’s golf and tennis broadcasts.
Darlington’s expanded portfolio will include coverage of the Masters, PGA Championship, and The Championships, Wimbledon, with his responsibilities extending beyond reporting to feature storytelling essays. He will continue to appear across ESPN platforms. This includes SportsCenter and tournament-focused programming, leveraging his narrative skills to provide context and insight beyond the live coverage.
Darlington first reported on the Masters and PGA Championships in 2024 and debuted at Wimbledon in 2025. His work has already drawn national attention. Notably during the PGA Championship when he covered Scottie Scheffler’s early-morning arrest outside the tournament in Louisville, Kentucky.
Later that year, Darlington reported on the arrest of Miami Dolphins star Tyreek Hill outside the team’s home stadium just hours before kickoff. Further highlighting his aptitude for breaking news coverage.
Despite his new golf and tennis responsibilities, the NFL remains central to Darlington’s work. He contributes weekly to Sunday NFL Countdown and appears year-round across studio shows. For the past four seasons, he has been embedded with one of the competing teams during the Super Bowl, reporting extensively for SportsCenter and Postseason NFL Countdown.
Darlington’s storytelling prowess has been widely recognized. He earned a 2020 Sports Emmy for the feature Wide Open, chronicling former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown. Also Emmy nominations for Art of Inspiration, profiling Dak Prescott, and Hey Noah, a moving story about a young Buccaneers fan battling cancer. These features continue to define his reputation as one of the NFL’s most insightful and empathetic journalists.
A Florida native, Darlington began his career covering the Florida Gators for the Orlando Sentinel in 2004. He then reported for the Palm Beach Post and the Miami Herald before joining NFL Network as a national reporter from 2011 to 2016.
Now based in South Florida with his wife and two children, Darlington remains a versatile journalist whose reporting continues to shape ESPN’s coverage across multiple sports.
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