Kings TV shows women and non-binary broadcasters: ‘You can dream it, you can do it’
Kings TV made history Saturday night at Golden 1 Center, with the franchise’s first all-women and non-binary broadcast announcing and coverage team.
Men, women and children throughout the region tuned in to see the Kings beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 100-98 on a 3-pointer by Harrison Barnes at the buzzer. The viewing audience included a 2-year-old girl named Jayde, who stayed up past her bedtime to watch the game with her grandpa while her mommy was at work. One day Jayde will understand how her mother, Kings TV analyst Kayte Hunter, might have inspired other little girls while providing color commentary alongside play-by-play announcer Krista Blunk.
“It’s a powerful message for her,” Hunter said. “It’s a powerful message for our son, who is 7, and for all children, regardless of gender, to see women in these types of roles and positions of empowerment. You see Kamala Harris as vice president now. It’s important for the youth to see that because we are the ones who kind of form their ideas of the world.”
The Kings partnered with NBC Sports California to present their first-ever women and non-binary broadcast announcing and coverage team across all platforms, including pregame and postgame shows, the live-game telecast and social media content. The broadcast featured Hunter, Blunk, Laura Britt, Layshia Clarendon, Morgan Ragan and Sophia Jones, the daughter of Kings play-by-play announcer Mark Jones. The theme of the night: “Breaking Barriers.”
Britt and Clarendon opened the broadcast with some inspirational words of their own.
“Some new faces on your screens this evening,” Britt said to start the pregame show. “Laura Britt alongside Layshia Clarendon for a historic night here in Sacramento, and it’s an exciting night, a night that we want to tell you, all you young ladies out there, that you can dream it, you can do it.”
Britt asked Clarendon what the moment meant to her.
“It means a lot to me,” said Clarendon, a WNBA player who identifies as trans and gender nonconforming or non-binary. “We have to have the representation. We have to see it to believe that we can become that.”
No hesitation
Hunter and Blunk said the women who made the special broadcast possible were Devon Fox, NBC Sports California’s senior director of live events and special projects, and Joelle Terry, the Kings’ senior vice president of communications. Terry, a Sacramento native who previously worked for the 2008 Obama campaign and later the White House, spent her final day with the Kings on Saturday after accepting a new job in Washington, D.C., as Comcast NBCUniversal’s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion communications.
“When Joelle reached out, there was no hesitation. I was like, ‘Yes, I want to do this,’” said Blunk, the former television voice of the Sacramento Monarchs, who now works as a play-by-play announcer for the Pac-12 Network and as an analyst for Westwood One.
“Not only would I just love to call an NBA game, but to be back in Sacramento means a lot. The most important thing I thought was ‘I’ve got to do this for the next generation of broadcasters.’ It’s been a difficult road in this business. It is not an easy business. I don’t care what gender you are, it’s not an easy business. So to be able to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to get to broadcast a game covering the top players in the world,’ that was important to me to show if I can do this, anybody can do this. It is possible.”
Aspirations and opportunities
Hunter is in her 11th season with the Kings as the team’s TV analyst and sideline reporter. She spent six seasons in the WNBA and later worked as a color analyst for the Phoenix Mercury and ESPN’s coverage of women’s college basketball.
Hunter has been inspired by the likes of Ann Meyers, who worked as a color analyst for the Indiana Pacers and Phoenix Suns; Kara Lawson, who worked as the primary TV analyst for the Washington Wizards; Sarah Kustok, the TV analyst for the Brooklyn Nets; and Doris Burke, an NBA game analyst for ESPN.
Hunter said she aspires to join the list of women who have worked as full-time NBA game analysts.
“I would love to have the opportunity to one day be a full-time analyst on a game broadcast for the NBA,” Hunter said. “That is 100% a goal of mine. And it’s also a goal of mine just to be able to have longevity in this industry because that’s something for women that has traditionally been an enormous struggle.
“We age out of this industry way faster than men do, so I would look at that type of position as something I would love and something that offers longevity in this field for me. Those jobs are coveted and they do not come up often. Once you get those jobs, you’re in them, and so as these jobs become available in the future, I hope they look at women and minorities as equally as they look at men through the interview process. It doesn’t mean I want a woman or a minority to get the job based solely on that, but I do want them to have that opportunity.”
This story was originally published March 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
