Katie Nolan signed up for an unconventional approach to the MLB booth, and she opened up about the pushback she has received while doubling down on her philosophy.
Katie Nolan spoke to Mike Golic Jr. and Brandon Newman on DraftKings’ “GoJo” podcast about her decision to join the baseball broadcast booth on Apple TV+’s Friday night package, and the challenges that come with it.
She explained that Apple’s decision-makers approached her and pitched her that, despite the stated preferences of some, baseball might never speed up, so why not fill the expansive time in between action with levity and entertainment?
“Now, I’m learning the downsides are that, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but as a sport, baseball — not big on change,” she said.
Katie Nolan, in the Apple TV+ MLB booth, says she is not there to know every stat about the game. Instagram / Katie Nolan“And so they’ve been, let’s say, a little hesitant to welcome in your girl with open arms. I’m experiencing a lot of things I thought I was past in my career. You kind of think, OK, I got through the misogyny. I dealt with it. Now I have an Emmy. I’ve been here for a minute. I’m not gonna have to deal with it, and then boom, it comes right back.”
If you have been on Twitter during the past couple of Friday nights, you likely have seen some criticism of the style she has sought to bring to the booth. Critics of the Apple+ broadcasts have included Boomer Esiason and Keith Olbermann.
“[The criticism comes] the second that you don’t know someone’s ERA one minute off the top of your head — which would be useless for me to know!” Nolan exclaimed. “Because I’m sitting next to Hunter Pence, who won two World Series’, and Stephen Nelson, who is an encyclopedia of baseball knowledge.”
Nolan, 35, left ESPN last year and worked at Fox Sports before that. She does not see her role in the booth as being someone who has intimate knowledge of the stats at-hand.
Katie Nolan left ESPN in 2021. Getty Images“If what I’m bringing to the table is knowing someone’s ERA, then why am I there? I would be useless,” she said. “What I bring to the table is, ‘Hey, umps’ pants are really big. Are we ever gonna talk about how they don’t know how to hem their pants properly? I understand why they need to be baggy, because there are pads underneath them. There is no reason for there to be three extra inches of fabric clustered up at the bottom right by their shoe. I’ve been thinking it and so I’m gonna say it.”
She praised baseball announcers for knowing how to let the game “breathe” — and said that’s an aspect of the job that she’s working on.
“The point of it is for me to be there and be like, look, if you like sports, you can like baseball. Baseball announcers have incredible voices. They’re melodic in terms of knowing when to pause, to let the game breathe,” Nolan said. “That’s the hardest of the job — learning when to shut the f–k up. I’m getting a little better at it, but it’s slow learning.”
She said that numbers go “in one ear and out the other” for her, and that she’s there to “watch the sport.”
“I feel like a lot of people have turned recess into homework,” she said. “And if that’s how they enjoy it, go for it, but that’s not how I enjoy it. It’s recess! It’s games! Anything can happen. So predictive analytics, and all these stats and stuff, I’m sure they’re interesting to people who are good with numbers. I’m not good with numbers. To me, I don’t want to know the odds of this guy are 15 percent. I want the guy to get the hit, because that’s what makes sports sports.
“I’m not trying to change the way anyone watches sports. I just feel like Friday night, when we’re all getting a little turnt, why not have a national baseball game that is a little bit silly, but not irresponsible?”
