At just 25 years old, LSU grad Kelsey Wingert is making a name for herself as reporter and host for Fox Sports South and Fox Sports Southeast in Atlanta.
Wingert’s primary role is covering the Atlanta Braves, 225 details in a new Q&A feature, She works about 150 of the Braves 162 game season. You’ll also find on the job for Atlantic Coast Conference college football games and doing in-studio cut-ins during NBA and NHL broadcasts. In other words, she’s come along way since working a broadcast job at KALB-TV in Alexandria.
“I always tell people, when you apply, market size doesn’t matter, just get that first job,” she tells 225. “In order to get better you have to be on-air. And when you’re in those small markets … you get on air every single day.”
Wingert wasn’t looking for a job while working in Alexandria, but jumped at the chance to interview for the Fox Sports position after learning it was open.
Her days are typically long, usually arriving at the Atlanta Braves stadium four hours before the first pitch and then having post-game responsibilities. At the park, she connects with her in-game and pregame producers, collects soundbites from players, attends pregame press conferences, sits in on a pre-production meeting, keeps a score book during the game, and conducts post-game interviews.
“A lot of people think I just go on camera and talk, and that’s it,” she says. “They don’t realize all of the research I do before every baseball series, and all of the emails I send out to different public relations people for different interviews and to all of my producers to give them my report ideas for that particular series.”
Read the full 225 Q&A. Here’s a sample of what you’ll find:
What brought you to Atlanta?
I was in Alexandria, Louisiana at [KALB-TV], before Atlanta. In a week and a half, I went from not looking for a job actively to hearing about this job to having a phone interview to having an in-person interview to accepting this job to quitting at KALB to having my last day at KALB to getting in my car and moving to Atlanta.
