Michele Tafoya has been the sideline reporter for “Sunday Night Football” for the past decade, but her run with NBC will soon come to an end.
NBC announced on Tuesday that Tafoya’s last game with the network will be Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13. Tafoya, who is 56, indicated she is not retiring and will pursue other career opportunities.
“Some may consider me crazy to walk away from one of the more coveted roles in sports television, and I do not doubt that I will miss many aspects of the job,” Tafoya said in a statement. “But for some time, I have been considering other areas I would like to explore both personally and professionally. I couldn’t ignore that little voice anymore after what we have all endured over the last few years. There’s no better way to walk away from covering the NFL than with one more Super Bowl!”
The news confirms what Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported last month. Tafoya was absent for a stretch of a few games, and Marchand noted that those games were all in cold-weather cities.
NBC has not yet announced who will replace Tafoya. Her departure comes at a time when NBC could be losing another huge member of its “Sunday Night Football” broadcast. Things may look a lot different for the network during the 2022 season.
Photo: Oct 17, 2021; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; NBC ports sideline reporter Michele Tafoya reports from the field as the Seattle Seahawks play the Pittsburgh Steelers during the first quarter at Heinz Field. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
