Lesley Visser’s BFOA Honor A BFD
• Lesley Visser, the only sportscaster — male or female — to have worked on the network broadcasts of the Final Four, the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, the Triple Crown, the Olympics, the U.S. Open, and the World Figure Skating Championship, has been named as the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient from the Broadcasters Foundation of America (BFOA) — the first woman to be so honored.
Voted the No. 1 Female Sportscaster of All-Time by the National Sportscasters of America, Visser is in sevenHalls of Fame, was named a Muhammad Ali “Daughter of Greatness,” and won Billie Jean King‘s only “Outstanding Journalist Award.” She is the first woman to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the first woman to report from a Super Bowl sideline, the first woman on Monday Night Football and the only woman to have presented the Championship Lombardi Trophy at the Super Bowl. She was also the first woman NFL analyst in both radio and TV, the first female sportscaster to carry the Olympic Torch and the first woman to win the Sports Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. Over the course of her 45-year career, Visser has also worked for The Boston Globe, CBS, ABC, ESPN, HBO and Westwood One.
Visser will be recognized on Monday, March 14 during the Golden Mike Award gala and fundraiser at New York’s Plaza Hotel, which this year honors Hilton H. Howell, Jr., Chairman & CEO of Gray Television and Atlantic American Corporation. “Lesley has an extraordinary number of ‘firsts’ in her accomplished and impressive career,” said Scott Herman, Chairman of the Broadcasters Foundation. “We’re very proud to recognize her many accomplishments, not only as a pioneering female sportscaster, but as a prominent leader in sports broadcasting, overall.”
Visser said, “I’m enormously honored to be recognized by the Broadcasters Foundation of America, which is vital to our colleagues who find themselves in need of help during times of unimaginable hardship. It’s essential that we acknowledge and support such a charitable endeavor.” For more information, please visit broadcastersfoundation.org, call 212-373-8250, or email info@thebfoa.org.
