Fox Sports Reporter Speaks Out After Fake Sideline Report Controversy
Veteran sports broadcaster Charissa Thompson incensed fans when she appeared to admit to repeatedly falsifying sideline reports in a recent interview. Thompson was appearing on Barstool’s Pardon My Take podcast alongside Big Cat and PFT Commenter when she made the revelation.
Though currently a host of Fox NFL Kickoff and Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, Thompson was previously employed as a sideline reporter tasked with grabbing soundbites from coaches during the game. On Pardon My Take, Thompson explained why it was sometimes necessary for her to fabricate those interviews.
“I, and I’ve said this before, so I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again,” Thompson began, “I would make up the report sometimes because the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime or it was too late and I was like, I didn’t want to screw up the report, so I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make this up.’”
Thompson attempted to rationalize the choice by specifying she never made anything up that a coach wouldn’t have said themselves. “No coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over... and do a better job of getting off the field,’” she explained, as the PMT hosts agreed. “Like, they’re not gonna correct me on that.”
Charissa Thompson says she made up sideline reports.
— Kendall Baker (@kendallbaker) November 16, 2023
Should do wonders for the legitimacy of that gig! Why would you ever admit this? https://t.co/087ixtYHkZ
The news sent fans into convulsions, with many wondering why Thompson would even admit such a thing. Kendall Baker, senior sports writer at Yahoo News and former sports editor at Axios, wrote on an X (formerly Twitter) thread: “Sideline reports and coach interviews (like the ones they do for basketball games) were already seen as mostly meaningless and a waste of time because coaches don’t say anything of substance. This doesn’t help!”
Andrew Marchand, a sports columnist for The New York Post and co-host of the Marchand & Ourand Sports Media Podcast, fired off a statement condemning Chapman. He said she "messed up" by "making up reports" and thought "revealing that was an odd choice... All the sideline reporters who do the job correctly look bad as a result."
Charissa Thompson messed up on many levels.
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) November 16, 2023
1) Making up reports. Pretty self evident as to why.
2) I get it PMT is a relaxed environment, but revealing that was an odd choice
3) All the sideline reporters who do the job correctly look bad as a result.
Thompson first admitted to falsifying reports during a 2022 interview with fellow former sideline reporter Erin Andrews on the latter’s podcast Calm Down with Erin and Charissa. “I was like, ‘Oh, coach what adjustments are you gonna make at halftime?’ He goes, ‘That’s a great perfume you’re wearing.’ I was like, ‘Oh, fuck, this isn’t gonna work.’ I’m not kidding, I made up a report,” Thompson said.
“I’ve done that too,” Andrews confided. “For a coach that I didn’t wanna throw under the bus because he was telling me all the wrong stuff!”
Thompson later issued a follow-up statement, saying she had chosen the "wrong words" to describe what happened. She went on to say that she had never "lied about anything or been unethical," but rather would "use information that I learned and saw during the first half to create my report." Thompson also added taht she has "nothing but respect for sideline reporters."
You can read her full statement below: