How Kate Scott built a résumé of many firsts, from broadcaster to Madden play-by-play

Kate Scott didn’t set out to create a career of firsts in sports media. But her latest first is mind-blowing.

How does a girl from Clovis, Calif., someone who wanted to be a teacher like her mother, end up as one of the play-by-play voices in the Madden NFL ’25 video game? Talent is key. Hard work is important. Having an infectious personality people are drawn to is an added bonus.

Scott has all of those characteristics, but the longtime broadcaster/play-by-play announcer still finds herself wondering how this is her life.

“I was shopping and turned a corner, and there’s this huge Madden ’25 display,” Scott said. “I just stopped — and somebody almost ran into the back of me because I stopped so suddenly — and I just thought, ‘I’m in that video game that people are pulling off the shelf right now and putting in their carts.’ It’s extremely surreal.”

Scott is one of three play-by-play announcers (Brandon Gaudin and Mike Tirico are the others) included in Madden NFL ’25, which was released in August. Each play-by-play announcer is joined by one of three color commentators — Brock Huard, Charles Davis or Greg Olsen — in the game. Scott is the first woman featured in the play-by-play role and virtually sits alongside Huard in the booth.

EA Sports will have three commentary teams for Madden NFL 25:

1) Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis

2) Mike Tirico and Greg Olsen

3) Kate Scott and Brock Huard.

There will be over 42,000 new recordings in the game at launch. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/MaooBpqVUu

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) June 14, 2024

It’s a historic moment for Scott and for the Madden franchise. But to those who know Scott, it’s no surprise she’s breaking barriers. It’s what she’s done for years.

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Scott first attended the University of California in 2001. In dealing with firsts, she became the first woman to serve as what’s now known at Cal as “Yell Leader” for sporting events. Back then, it was a role known as a “Mic Dude.” Scott wasn’t bothered when some began calling her “Mic Chick,” particularly after seeing young girls dressed as Scott in Yell Leader attire — khaki shorts, collared shirt and blue and gold striped necktie — for Halloween.

Scott’s professional bio shines equally bright, if not brighter. She is currently the only woman to have done play-by-play for the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA football, the Olympics and a FIFA World Cup — all of that before Madden.

Scott became the first woman to call an NFL game on the radio in 2016. She joined the Pac-12 Network later that year, then becoming the first woman to call football for the network in 2017. Her broadcasting résumé in college included West Coast Conference and Atlantic 10 Conference basketball games for the NBC Sports Network and NBC Sports Bay Area.

Scott took her turn at hockey on International Women’s Day in March 2020 and was part of the first-ever all-women’s broadcast crew for an NHL game in the United States. A year later, she became the first female play-by-play announcer for the Golden State Warriors in March 2021. Additionally, Scott was the first woman to call men’s Copa América and Gold Cup soccer in June 2021.

Throughout her career, Scott has gained multiple admirers and built many friendships. She worked with Mike Golic for Learfield’s “College Football Saturday Night,” which aired a national game of the week on more than 110 radio stations across the country starting in August 2021. While calling games for Learfield, she was hired to be the play-by-play voice of the Philadelphia 76ers.

“I’ve told her she’s going to be in the Broadcast Hall of Fame someday. I told her that a year after I worked with her,” Golic said. “And I told her I’ll be at the induction ceremony.”

In addition to adding more soccer coverage (U20 Women’s World Cup and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in July 2023) to her résumé, Scott became the play-by-play announcer for Seattle Seahawks preseason games in August 2023. Working with Madden enhanced her bio even more, as Madden is one of the top-selling video game series of all time. She’s now a part of video game history.

Madden has had women in its previous games, but they’ve been featured as sideline reporters. When asked to audition for a play-by-play role, Scott didn’t hesitate. It is a dream job for many passionate about broadcast journalism, but crossing over into video games helped to bring Scott to a fresh audience.

“It was an audition like every other job — like the Sixers job, like the Seahawks job,” Scott said. “EA Sports said that they wanted to make extensive changes for this year’s version, that they were going to install a meticulous recording process and that they were looking for new and fresh and authentic when it came to the voices that they were wanting to add to the game. I said I would love to audition, and they apparently liked what they heard.”

“This is pop culture that she’s now a major part of,” added Adam Amin, Scott’s friend who has called NFL and MLB games for Fox Sports and also is the play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Bulls. “It’s not that they brought a person of quality work to come in and do quality work; it’s the fact that she’s a big part of pop culture now when it comes to those of us who play the game. That was the cool, kind of jarring part of it.”

Scott initially had concerns about how she would record with her busy NBA schedule. Some announcers skip the auditions knowing if selected, they don’t want to commit to more than 100 hours of recording before the game is released and after release with game updates. Additionally, she had to keep Madden a secret from the public for two years.

Scott’s NBA travel schedule is a grind. There are times when she can spend less than 24 hours in a city before leaving for the next destination. Getting to bed before 2 a.m. after a game can feel like a luxury. But EA Sports has been a willing partner to make sure things work out with her.

“I can have four games in six days, but they have worked around my schedule,” she said. “A producer, editor and scriptwriter Zoom in with me for every session. If I worked an intense basketball game that went to overtime the night before, they would give me less intense lines to preserve my voice the next day. They’re always working with me because we’re hoping that I keep calling games and maybe get to be a part of this game for a long time.”

“We knew that when we auditioned, her genuine enthusiasm to want to be a part of Madden was going to be important because it is a demanding role,” EA Sports game producer Rocky Rivero added. “It’s one of the main reasons that we’re excited to have partnered with her for the game.”

Huard, a former NFL quarterback, said working with Scott during the audition process went well. It didn’t take long for him as the color commentator to tell that she was “equipped for this.”

“EA, Madden really wanted to push the connection between play-by-play and partner,” Huard said. “I remember even telling my wife (that) Kate was really, really wired for this. … I had a sense that it clicked and it went pretty well chemistry-wise. I wasn’t surprised that they ultimately made that decision with Kate.”

Like Scott, Huard has a radio background. Huard still hosts a show in Seattle. Radio hosts have to think and react off the cuff; EA allows them to do the same.

“You have to create content where you’ve got to have an opinion where your voice has got to be heard and you’ve got to cut through,” Huard said. “She’s got great experience and a backbone that she brings to it. … I’m pretty thankful they ended up making that choice because she was the best.

“It’s groundbreaking. It’s really cool. She breaks through that barrier, but she wanted to be picked because she was the best of the candidates, and she was totally equipped and has just crushed it.”

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Before Scott focused on sports media, she was a multi-sport varsity athlete at Clovis High School, competing in basketball, soccer, tennis and track and field. She always wanted to play football, but her parents wouldn’t give their permission.

Scott said she was “obsessed” with sports as a child. Her mother recently showed her sports drawings she made during her childhood. Holiday shopping was made pretty easy, too.

“Every birthday, every Christmas, I wanted sports things,” Scott said. “I talked (my parents) into allowing me to wear a San Jose Sharks sweatshirt to Christmas because it had some red and green on it. (They were) like, ‘That’s what she’s going to wear. Grandma is going to be pissed, but Kate’s going to wear this.’”

She was a self-proclaimed “sports nut,” but Scott planned to be an educator upon graduation. Her mother spent 30 years as a special education teacher. Scott had friends who wanted to teach, and it was a career that would allow her to have a positive impact on youth.

Her high school adviser, Ed Schmalzel, had other ideas. He reminded her that she not only played four sports but also was on the microphone leading cheers at football games and serving as a public address announcer for soccer games. He suggested she look into sports journalism at Cal.

“It wasn’t until that conversation that the light went on and I thought, ‘I love sports,’ and it would be great to be able to stay involved with them when it comes to my career,” Scott said.

Scott majored in communications at Cal. Shortly after graduating, she began working in radio for Metro Networks as a reporter, anchor and producer. She gave traffic, news and sports updates while also hosting Cal football’s postgame radio show.

But the idea of play-by-play wasn’t on her radar early in her career. It was Paul Aldridge, a producer on the Cal Sports Report, who broached the idea of play-by-play after he was asked to produce a season of high school football in the Bay Area right after Scott graduated.

“Even at Cal, I thought that sideline reporting and anchoring were going to be what I would be allowed to do as a woman in sport,” she said. “He said, ‘Kate, I would love to have you call games.’ And I said, ‘Are you freaking crazy? I’ve never called anything.’”

Aldridge told her that the high school circuit is where she could break in as a play-by-play announcer, and she agreed to give it a try. By 2011, Scott was hired by KNBR, the flagship station for the San Francisco Giants and Golden State Warriors at the time, where she was a morning and midday anchor. Scott stayed busy as a sideline reporter for the San Jose Earthquakes and San Jose Giants, in addition to calling high school football.

One of Scott’s biggest breaks was calling college football for Learfield in 2021, where she became good friends with Golic and producer Tom Boman while traveling the country for college football, sampling new restaurants, whiskey and cigars. Their group chat is still active today.

Boman believed Scott could be the new voice of Cal football, replacing the legendary Joe Starkey, who retired after the 2022 season. But the Sixers swooped in and hired her first. Boman, however, recognized Scott’s loyalty when he asked her how the new job would impact Learfield. He remembers her discussing how she would have to miss some games because of her word to Learfield.

“She got the offer, then she accepted the job. And she stayed with us the entire 13 weeks because she said with different releases with the Sixers that she honors her commitment,” Boman said. “That’s kind of person Kate is.”

Scott once considered herself a “token woman interview” and said her career wouldn’t be where it is if not for some of her male counterparts who were her biggest supporters, including Golic, Amin and Boman. Golic is adamant that Scott is a future Hall of Famer. He doesn’t believe Madden will be the last first for her.

If anything, Scott, to Golic, is simply scratching the surface.

“I love telling that (she’s going to be in the Hall of Fame) and embarrassing her,” Golic said. “She’s broken through too many ceilings, and she’s been the first to do too many things. She’s paved the way for other women to be announcers in sports. She’s just done too much to not, in my opinion, end up in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame someday.”

(Top photos: Brian Murphy / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images and Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)