Get ready to see a lot more of Tracy Wolfson and Allie LaForce on your television sets and mobile devices this fall.
SI has learned that CBS is moving Wolfson from her role as the lead sideline reporter on CBS' SEC football coverage to a lead sideline reporter role for the network's upcoming NFL Thursday Night Football primetime package. She'll work with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms on those games as well as on the Sundays that CBS' No. 1 NFL crew works. CBS Sports management has long been high on Wolfson's work and they view the move (and the added money that surely comes with it) as a promotion for her. Wolfson is also expected to continue her role as the lead reporter for CBS and Turner's coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament. She will work Monday's title game between Connecticut and Kentucky in that role.
On Sunday, when contacted in Dallas at the Final Four, a CBS Sports spokesperson declined comment.
So who will get Wolfson's high-profile gig as the sideline reporter for CBS' weekly Saturday telecast of SEC football? SI has learned that Allie LaForce has landed Wolfson's old role beginning this fall, where she'll work with game-callers Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson. That assignment continues a dizzying rise for a 25-year old who graduated from Ohio University just three years ago. Though it's a show with less viewership than most streets in Manhattan, LaForce is also the co-host of "Lead Off" on CBS Sports Network, where she has gotten daily television reps, an important experience for a young broadcaster. She also worked the sideline in the AFC divisional playoff game between the Colts and Patriots.
CBS Sports management both publicly and privately have been
pushing LaForce's star for the past couple of months. She had a very good NCAA tournament, asking smart and pointed questions and showing versatility with the content of her interviews. (Her
interview with the grandson of St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli went viral.) LaForce clearly knows her stuff when it comes to college basketball, having played guard at Ohio and working the NCAA tournament the last two years. Now she gets a different challenge.
