Veteran NFL Sideline Reporter Leaving After 23 Years
FOX's NFL broadcasting lineup will look a little different this season following the departure of one longtime reporter.
Laura Okmin has been a fixture on FOX since being hired by the network in 2002. The 30-year broadcasting veteran is the third-longest tenure sideline reporter in NFL history, having just finished her 23rd season.
After a long run of success, the University of Kansas graduate is leaving the sideline. Okmin told Front Office Sports she will be stepping away from FOX after 23 years.
“They sent me the contract. I printed it out. I sat there. It was just my voice saying, ‘It’s time, this is it,'" Okmin told FOS. "I called my boss and my friend Jacob Ullman, who I’ve known as long as I’ve been at Fox Sports. I’m happy to say he was very surprised. I would have been very disappointed if there was any other reaction. It was a really nice call, because I got to have it with my boss and my friend.”
Okmin already has her next steps lined up. She will continue to call NFL playoff games and the Super Bowl for Westwood One Radio, and will devote much of her time to her company, GALVANIZE, which helps train and connect women who are preparing for a career in sports.
"Always passionate about her job, GALVANIZE gave Laura a purpose: Training and mentoring young women entering the sports world on – and more importantly – OFF camera," Okmin's personal website says. "Its genesis was to give young women something Laura didn’t have growing up in this business … a network of other women. By conducting seminars around the country, GALVANIZE boot camps teach participants to build their own foundations by establishing relationships, gaining confidence, going deeper in their interviews, and all the while, empowering themselves … and each other."
Before FOX, Okmin got her start in broadcasting at TNT Sports and CNN, while also working for SportsChannel in Chicago.
In her career, she has covered over 20 Super Bowls, as well as multiple Olympics, the NBA Finals, World Series and Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Additionally, only Pam Oliver and Michele Tafoya are believed to have worked more NFL games as a sideline reporter than Okmin.