Taylor Rooks is preparing to open another field of study.
The Bleacher Report’s preeminent and up-and-coming Turner Sports channel has signed a new multi-year deal to broadcast on both the digital sports outlet and TV programs produced by Warner Bros. Discovery’s sports division, although they are separate has secured a role as a feature reporter for the new “” streamcast being handled by Amazon’s Prime Video.
Rooks is known for her coverage of the NBA. She intends for this to continue. But she also wants to make a splash with her time covering the NFL.
“I don’t want to be someone who can only do one thing or be pigeonholed,” she says Diversity. “It’s really easy in this business to throw people into something tight. I see myself as an incredibly versatile broadcaster and I want to be successful in all areas.”
Rooks is the latest in a recent parade of sports broadcasters who have secured a deal that will allow her to work for more than one company. In fact, several members of Amazon’s Thursday Night Football squad — including Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit, and Charissa Thompson — have all retained roles at their current employers, NBC Sports, ESPN, and Fox Sports.
“We’re not surprised that someone else has recognized what she has to offer in the sports landscape,” says Tara August, TK. “These things are never easy, but as much as we want her to grow and allow her to work with someone else in the sport space, that gave us pause, but we’re happy to do it as it’s a tremendous opportunity and just speaks to the insights that she has. She is really able to converse with all sports and have a great conversation.
Rooks will be speaking a lot more in the coming months. As part of her new deal with Turner Sports, she will continue to do interviews for Bleacher Report, but will also expand to do special interview segments and appearances for NBA on TNT and other Turner Sports programs.
“We’re looking at other ways to expand it beyond the TV and digital side,” August says, and that could affect Turner’s NHL and MLB rights packages.
Rooks has become known for authentically engaging and entertaining sports interviews. One way to do this is to highlight fan questions during interviews, but another way, Rooks says, is to dig deeper. A lot of sports interviews are made up of “hits and headlines,” she says, but “there’s not really a ‘Let’s sit down for an hour and talk about everything.'”
She says she’s eager to develop her NFL chops. “The NBA does a really good job of telling stories that are mostly about people, about who these NBA players are, what they like, what they don’t like, what their families are like. They’re better at telling about these players as a whole person,” Rooks says. “I really want to bring that approach to the NFL as well.”
Football was everywhere when Rooks was growing up in Georgia. “We lived, breathed and ate football,” she says.
Amazon relies on her to bring that enthusiasm to its games. “Taylor Rooks is an incredibly talented journalist who has already established herself as one of the best interviewers in sports,” said Marie Donoghue, vice president, Global Sports Video, Amazon, in a statement. “We look forward to bringing their compelling and insightful conversations to our Thursday night football coverage.”
But she will still do many of the things that caught her attention. She will continue to host the “Taylor Rooks X” vodcast and live Twitter spaces throughout the NBA season.