From the time she was young, Lisa Kerney considered herself to be a jock. Growing up in Leawood, Kan. as one of five children, Kerney was raised in a household where sports and competition were relatively quotidian and always in the stream of consciousness. After all, her mother was a marathon runner and her father played college basketball at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, so athletics were entrenched in their DNA.
She and her siblings were captivated by the game of football though and it quickly became a part of their Sunday routine after church and yard work. Once Kerney viewed several live game broadcasts and forms of studio programming including SportsCenter on ESPN, she recognized that she wanted to one day be on the other side of the screen.
“At some point when I was 6 or 7 years old, it kind of clicked for me that I was like: ‘Oh wait, I can actually live out these stories and be the one to share [them] with sports fans around the world’,” Kerney recalled. “I became committed to being a sports broadcaster when I was very little and truly had blinders on; I never came up with a Plan B.”
Kerney frequently used her four siblings, other family members, and friends as mock interview subjects throughout her childhood, immediately trying to hone her craft before she had any real-world experience. At the same time though, Kerney played basketball at Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Overland Park, Kan., and ultimately chose to attend Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. to study broadcast communications and play on the school’s basketball team on a scholarship.
While her primary focus was always to build a career in sports media, playing sports enhanced her abilities as a broadcaster and afforded her perspectives that could have otherwise been left unrealized.
“Being part of a team is such a gift,” she said. “You learn so much not only about yourself but about how to work with others. You learn how to push your limits; you learn how to collaborate; you learn how to communicate. All of these things are critical skills in life.”
Balancing studies and athletic commitments can often be difficult for college students, but Kerney embraced working hard rather than loathing it. By her senior year, she was the team captain of the Lynn University Fighting Knights and was named the school’s scholar-athlete of the year. At the same time, she worked as an intern at Metro Sports, giving her professional exposure to sports media before she graduated with honors.
“I thrived because I really learned how to lean into hard work as well through sports and it became such a part of my fabric,” Kerney expressed. “If I’m not working hard, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing it right.”
Kerney’s first job out of college was at local television station KXLF in Butte, Montana; she started in September 2004 working as a sports reporter and anchor. One year later, she was selected as the best sports reporter and best television personality at the Montana Standard People’s Choice Awards, representing monumental achievements for Kerney as she sought to break into the industry.
Entering that first job in market No. 296, she took the opportunity seriously and tried to be authentic with her audience by being herself on-camera rather than adopting a television persona.
“I just learned early on that it was okay to be me,” Kerney said. “Not only that as I grew that it was okay to be me, but it was the best way for me to grow and succeed to just be the same on-camera as I am off-camera.”
As she experienced success early in her career, Kerney was quick to hire an agent and explored opportunities to continue to report on sports in a larger market. After nearly taking a job in San Diego and interviewing for a role in Austin, she was informed by her agent of a chance to join KING-TV in Seattle, which turned out to be the perfect fit.
Working in a major sports city for the first time in her career, she noticed a stark contrast in the culture and its associated expectations, requiring her to intensify her efforts to progress as a reporter. It was early in her tenure when she conjectured that she had a lot to learn if she wanted to keep her position at the station and responded by making connections with colleagues and being inquisitive, looking to maintain a positive growth trajectory.
“I had no idea how much work I had to do on me because I was just living it up; I was living my dream job even when I was in Montana – and little did I know it was very different in Seattle because the expectations were so high,” she said. “All of a sudden you were so visible. I really took a step back when I got to Seattle…. [but] I just started asking a ton and ton of questions and really invested in making myself better.”
After hosting Northwest Sports Tonight featuring local, collegiate, and professional coverage of sporting events and athletes, along with anchoring weekend sports coverage, Kerney came to the east coast for the first time in her career. She began her time in the New York metropolitan area in Secaucus, N.J. working at MLB Network as a sports contributor and reporter for nearly a year before transitioning to work directly in “The Big Apple,” the number one media market in the world, with CBS 2.
Beginning her shift at 4:30 a.m., Kerney was the sports anchor on CBS 2 News This Morning, recapping the previous day’s action and previewing what was forthcoming in the day ahead. Once that show ended at 7:00 a.m., she walked across the studio to host Live From the Couch – a morning show grounded in entertainment news.
Working alongside John Elliott and Carolina Bermudez, Kerney and the team welcomed actors, authors, and other guests who typically appear on morning programs such as Today and Good Morning America. Moreover, the show would also have lifestyle segments, such as those illustrating beauty secrets and demonstrating cooking tips, for their viewers to enjoy and learn from.
“It was a great departure for me because I was able to extend myself and really kind of put a toe in the entertainment world,” Kerney expressed. “….As much fun as that was, my heart and soul has always been in sports. It was a short-lived show and a ton of fun but I was ready to move off of that morning shift.”
When she was growing up in Leanwood, Kan., Kerney was mesmerized by the thought of one day working in sports media, specifically at ESPN as a SportsCenter anchor. Whether it was Hannah Storm, Robin Roberts, Linda Cohn, or others, Kerney found herself inspired and motivated to succeed whenever she watched women working in the industry.
“That is such a gift that I took for granted for a really long time because I thought in my world that women were always a part of the sports world,” Kerney expressed. “….Growing up being able to watch them and be such professionals and so well-versed in their craft and be able to go toe-to-toe with men and be able to deliver sports equally. It was something important for me to see as a young girl.”
Before landing her dream job as a SportsCenter anchor at ESPN, Kerney had previously turned the network down two times – largely because the timing did not work out. From the first time she began to consume sports content though, being a part of the ESPN team was something Kerney long desired, even telling adults as a child that she sought to work for the network. Despite not being taken seriously by some of her peers when younger, Kerney focused on achieving that goal from the day her interest was piqued and did so when she officially signed on with the network in February 2014.
“I don’t think we can say enough about SportsCenter because you have every single element of sports television in [each episode],” Kerney said. “You have highlights; you have interviews; you have breaking news and also each SportsCenter [during] each time of the day is completely different. We have our pre-production meetings and we map out the whole show, but at any point, if breaking news comes in, you just throw those scripts away and you’re just basically ad-libbing and moving on the fly and pivoting and taking interviews from across the country.”
Aside from anchoring the network’s signature program, Kerney also penetrated into the podcasting space as the host of ESPN’s first internally-produced podcast called Stay Curious with Lisa Kerney. Once she began working in her hosting role and became a regular voice on the network, she was given the opportunity to host Fantasy Football Now on Sunday mornings throughout the National Football League season.
One of the first subjects taught to students in science classes is Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion – the law of inertia – which states that an object will sustain motion at a constant speed unless acted upon by an outside force. As her momentum trended upward at ESPN, Kerney became hesitant to decline any new opportunities presented to her, essentially removing the word ‘No’ from her lexicon.
Yet as she tried to raise a family with four young children and routinely drove 73 miles from her home to work at ESPN’s primary campus in Bristol, Conn., she found that accelerating her career and maintaining her work-life balance was unsustainable.
“As much as I wanted to give to ESPN and wanted to continue – and I had a contract on the table that I walked away from which a lot of people are like, ‘How do you do that?’ – it was a time in my life where I bet on myself and bet on my future,” Kerney said. “Sure enough, I get into an industry where betting is the next thing in sports.”
Kerney interviewed to join FanDuel in 2018, a time when the sportsbook was exploring opportunities to grow within sports media and working to turn its vision of launching its own network and OTT streaming platform into a reality. Following her initial conversation with Executive Producer and Vice President of TV Kevin Grigsby, Kerney was captivated by what was written on the company’s whiteboard and signed on to be a host of the platform’s first sports betting program called More Ways to Win.
Five years later, Kerney’s show is a central part of the recently-launched FanDuel TV, which includes shows featuring Kay Adams, Michelle Beadle, Shams Charania, Pat McAfee, and Bill Simmons.
“We’re so proud at FanDuel because we’ve positioned ourselves in a way to play a significant role in the changing landscape,” Kerney said. “We’ve had our show and we’re the core of a sports betting network in More Ways to Win, and I’m grateful to be able to host our show.”
The linear and digital network evolved out of TVG Network, an affiliate of FanDuel, and is available on multiple dissemination platforms including social media outlets and the FanDuel Sportsbook mobile application. According to Kerney, the network has various pieces of news to share regarding content development in the fourth quarter and into the start of the new year: one of which is the launch of a new NBA show called Run It Back featuring Beadle and Charania, along with Chandler Parsons and Eddie Gonzalez.
“I’ve been here almost five years at FanDuel and it feels like five minutes because of how fast our industry is growing and how quickly we’re changing,” Kerney expressed. “It’s thrilling to be a leader in this space.”
Kerney describes her hosting style as energetic and relatable, supplementing the analysis provided by betting experts and former players with her own commentary and ability to keep each show both dynamic and engaging. She is eagerly anticipating the show’s continued evolution and is cognizant in communicating her authenticity with viewers and aims to evoke genuine interest in sports betting.
“I’m just a sports fan that gets to talk about sports for a living,” Kerney said. “I’m grateful for every opportunity that I’m at the desk and am a point guard of our show. I don’t give out specific bets but I have really smart analysts and experts that are on the show with me.”
The show seeks to appeal to all audiences whether or not viewers have partaken in any form of sports betting. In essence, it serves a dual purpose of assimilating new customers to sports betting and the FanDuel Sportsbook while enriching the expertise of existing sports bettors and keeping them interested.
“We want to bring you along with the game; we want to bring you along with the terminology; we want to help you understand while giving you information to help you place your bets and what bets we think are going to play out in a certain way,” Kerney said. “A lot of times our experts and our analysts don’t agree and they explain why and that’s the fun part…. At the same time for seasoned bettors, you get really insightful information and statistics and really deep research that you wouldn’t get on other shows.”
Following a decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2018 in the court case Murphy v. NCAA that struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act – which prohibited sports betting in all states except Nevada – it has been delegated to states to adopt legislation officially legalizing it if they so choose. At the moment, more than 30 states have legalized some form of sports betting and many others are considering the measure including California, whose voters will decide the fate of two propositions this coming November regarding the practice.
“They’re coming fast; we see them falling so quickly,” Kerney said of states legalizing sports betting. “The regulation is so important not only for the safety of all of our players, but obviously the positives that come with each state legalizing and the taxing and where those tax dollars can go to help improve schools and roads and all those things.”
Nearly 20% of American adults say they have bet on sports sometime in the last year according to a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center. The National Football League, its teams, and its players encompass an ideal property for bettors to follow and gamble on, Kerney says, largely because of the existing popularity and wide variety of bets that can be made on any given play. From props to teasers to parlays, sportsbooks like FanDuel continue to pitch to fans the ability to go beyond the game and have a stake in the action – a sort of metadrama instilled within the manifestation of competition in live sports.
“Back in 2018, the way I described sports betting to people is [that] it’s truly like playing a game within a game within a game,” Kerney expressed. “It keeps you interested beyond the score; it keeps you interested beyond… who won, who lost and what [a team’s] record [is]… Our slogan is ‘Make Every Moment More’ because literally in every moment, you could have a bet riding which is really exciting to turn up your Sunday a notch.”
Social media is a new content avenue that has augmented the power of viewer choice, leaving it in the hands of the consumer pertaining to just when or where to immerse themselves in multimedia – and nearly all distribution platforms have adapted themselves to be accessible in this way. It was a change facilitated by evolving technologies and shifting psychographics within the marketplace, combined with meeting an immediate and symbiotic need to continue to connect with sports fans through a global pandemic amid the cessation of game competition.
More Ways to Win was initially distributed through local regional sports networks – usually in states that had legalized sports betting. The problem came in finding the show as since it was distributed on a wide array of networks, consumers sometimes ran into trouble locating where it was in their market. With content offerings on multiple platforms, consumers may opt to watch or listen to programming that they can more easily find; therefore, new and innovative platforms are emphasizing enhancing their ability to be found.
“When we started our show back in 2018, we had a great product but our challenge for a long time was distribution,” Kerney said. “….I would be putting out through the magic of social media; I kept posting like, ‘Hey, catch our show here,’ and then it would be a rundown of 30 different states and local markets and times. We were all over the place and it was not a streamlined process of how best to find our show and at the time our show, More Ways to Win, was the only forward-facing content FanDuel had from a linear perspective.”
While she was unable to comment on any specific future opportunities, Kerney alluded to chances to continue to hone her craft and try new things down the road. Having worked in sports media for nearly two decades, she remains curious and ambitious in her own career pursuits, along with helping to grow the reach and actualization of the full potential of FanDuel TV.
“I’m competitive as hell, and not only with people around me but with myself to just get better and better every day,” Kerney said. “Now having FanDuel TV, a new challenge for us at FanDuel, this has really been the highlight of my career – getting to step out of my comfort zone and expand in ways that I haven’t yet. The best is yet to come for sure.”
Being able to step outside one’s comfort zone can often be difficult to embark upon and subsequently achieve for aspiring professionals. Coping with feelings of discomfort though is usually essential in finding one’s niche and effectuating vertical movement in the industry. One of those sources of uneasiness is small-market television and the thought of moving away to a great unknown. Young journalists, sometimes oblivious of the value starting in a small market garners, can feel crestfallen and apprehensive towards opportunities in those locales – which is why Kerney tries to disseminate a positive message to those she encounters.
“Small market TV is such a gift when you’re just starting out,” Kerney said. “Go to the small markets; be in markets that are barely visible. You can mess up; you can ask questions; it’s not going to stay with you. You can really get reps that are so valuable before you move on and really build your confidence.”
Working in smaller markets though should not preclude journalists from taking the job any less seriously than they would if they were in larger markets. Usually, the experience and connections made in smaller markets prove to be valuable as time goes on; therefore, it is imperative the job is viewed in the same light and executed as such.
“Hard work and sacrifice are non-negotiable in this business,” Kerney said. “We work holidays; we work crazy nights and mornings… constantly running on very little sleep. It’s hard work; it’s sacrifice.”
While Kerney has had the opportunity to interview athletes widely regarded as elite including Aaron Judge and LeBron James, she affirms that it is the broadcast teams with whom she has worked that have made her career invaluable. She looks forward to what the future holds both at FanDuel TV and in other opportunities not yet divulged, along with continuing to raise her four children with her husband and former two-time NFL Pro Bowl defensive end Patrick Kerney.
“We’re just getting started and that’s very true,” Kerney said. “Now that I’ve been in the industry for almost two decades, I have perspectives and a voice that is valued and respected. It is allowing me other opportunities that I can’t share right this second, but you’re going to see me outside [of] the TV box very soon.”
