Kate Abdo has figured that, subconsciously, those intense, unforgettable, captivating weekends in front of the TV schooled her for everything to come. Her parents dishing it out to one another in their own definitive color of red was the start of it all. The hook. Fandom was a vital portion of family life. And, you know, bragging rights.
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That was her childhood in South Manchester, born to a Manchester United-crazed father and a devout Liverpool-supporting mother, as the household would simultaneously divide and unite in the name of the game every Saturday and Sunday. For as long as she can remember, she’s been planted firmly in the epicenter of banter and sport.
“It really feels like home to me,” Abdo said in a recent hour-long interview with The Athletic. “I don’t know if it makes sense, but it does.”
It’s said that, in the world of live TV, it’s all about reps. More reps means more chances down the line. As Kate Abdo rewinds the tape of on her elongated path to becoming one of the most respected, recognizable and versatile sports hosts in the world, it’s obvious that she got her first reps right there in her very own living room.
“First and foremost,” said Maurice Edu, analyst with CBS Sports who has previously worked with Abdo at Fox and Turner Sports, “she’s just really, really good at her sh*t.”
Today, those close to her view her as paramount to the success of soccer coverage watched by millions, especially in 2022 as the face of CBS Sports’ broadcasts of the UEFA Champions League as well as World Cup qualifying for the U.S. men’s national team.
“She’s a force,” said Pete Radovich, CBS Sports’ creative director.
How she powered up, learned to command a stage, and vowed to not only ditch her fears but embrace them makes Abdo’s ascent in the industry more significant. In the decades since being forged in the divergent soccer viewpoints within the family, Abdo’s rise hasn’t been meteoric; it’s been circuitous, meticulous and filled with several leaps of faith into various unknowns all around the world.
Before she was hosting the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony and shared the stage with megastars like Lionel Messi, before she was trading friendly barbs with Jamie Carragher at halftime of Champions League broadcasts, Abdo was like so many others: an avid soccer spectator. But back then, she said, girls weren’t playing soccer even at the school grounds the way boys were. When there were available tickets to United matches, her dad took her brother, not her. Growing up near Stretford, she spent inordinate amounts of time at the nearby track running sprints instead. At 15, she worked at a bakery near Old Trafford and remembers that a palpable buzz strengthened in the city. The ball would roll the next day, and the red side of Manchester was certain to erupt, the same as it always did.
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Then, a bit of wanderlust that befell Abdo. At 17, she enrolled in essentially a study abroad program and told her parents, both physical education teachers, she was going to finish her secondary education in Spain. More specifically: in Málaga, a five minute walk to the sun-soaked beach, the hometown of Pablo Picasso. She was due to attend university in Birmingham, but instead she called the audible of all audibles, moving to the coast of the Alboran Sea to live with a host family she found on her own, finishing out high school and working in a bar as many nights a week as possible.
At first, the plan was to lean into that study-abroad approach for six months, become as versed in Spanish as swiftly as possible and then come back to England. That didn’t last. Instead she stayed, attended college in Spain and fell further in love with her aspirations to study foreign languages.
“I love anything that is international. I love culture. I love understanding different people’s religions, their approach to life, the way they culturally function, which is so different from where I was from,” Abdo explained.
Television, let alone sports broadcasting, was nowhere near her professional radar in college. She wanted to become a full-fledged translator, fluent in English, French, German and Spanish. To go see the world and help strangers connect with any number of languages through her own mastery. One of her professors she was doing administrative work for as a part-time job told her that a news station in Germany was offering translator internships and that she should apply. Once at Deutsche Welle (DWTV), Abdo was in a groove doing what she wanted. Then, the station’s news director asked various in-house employees if they would be interested in trying out on-camera. Abdo was among them.
“I’d hate that,” she told him.
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But when asked again soon after, she agreed to try a casting audition. She was 23. She’s seen the tape since. She cringes. “I would say it’s … wooden.” She said she was more acting as a broadcaster instead of reading the script. But clearly, something took. In the years that followed, Abdo was offered a job at Real Madrid TV during the Los Galacticos era, which she turned down, was eventually hired at CNN in the U.S., and made a move back to Europe to work for Sky Germany and later Sky Sports in England.
Eventually, she was sent on loan, as she puts it, from Sky to Fox Sports to host coverage of the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada. Three years later, she was back for another World Cup in 2018 in Russia. Working as a sports broadcaster in the U.S. full-time unlocked something in Abdo: she was invigorated by the various personalities, freedom on the air, the waves of creativity — this was, according to Abdo, totally different from what sports coverage should look like coming up in Europe.
She was brought on to host Champions League coverage for Turner Sports in 2018. Two years later, when the broadcast rights were open to bidding once again, CBS won out.
Said Radovich: “I’m not exaggerating this point: the day I heard this was even on the radar that we might get this —and I swear to you this is the truth — the first words out of my mouth were, ‘We have to lock Kate Abdo as soon as possible if this is true. Let’s make that phone call now.’”
Inside an office in London in the summer of 2020, Radovich and the decision-makers at CBS Sports brought together a group of personalities that they believed could mesh into one of the best soccer panels in the world. For two days, Abdo, Carragher, Belgium manager Roberto Martinez, former Denmark and Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, former Manchester City and England fullback Micah Richards and others had their days blocked out for trial runs as to how they would fit on camera. At one point, after an hour of just watching them all sit and talk shop, it dawned on Radovich that he had what he wanted. It was right in front of him.
Eventually, Abdo approached Radovich and asked when the meeting was going to officially start. He said there was going to be no meeting. He just needed to see them as a unit in order to believe it could translate to live television.
“When you put a studio crew together,” Radovich said, “it’s like setting people up on a blind date.”
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In the years since, Abdo and the CBS Champions League crew have positioned themselves well as a cohesive crew. The chemistry isn’t hard to miss. Carragher is the prankster who doubles as the show’s iron fist when a manager, player or team flounders on the biggest stage. Richards and Schmeichel too have found ways to exist in the realm that Abdo and Carragher seem to inhabit often: volleying jokes back and forth when the situation calls for it.
“The format of our show is pretty lighthearted,” Carragher told The Athletic. “I’m just really determined to make good TV. Kate can push and some people want to be pushed. Some people I couldn’t say certain things to. That’s why we have that relationship where we feel we can each get away with anything. Everyone knows their fair game and if you leave yourself open you have to expect what’s coming.”
On USMNT broadcasts, Abdo leads a crew of former national-teamers in Edu, Charlie Davies, Oguchi Onyewu and Clint Dempsey. Some are much more experienced than others. There have been hilarious moments when Dempsey burns one of his former teammates for sticking to a somewhat dated routine like Davies’ patented post-goal dance move or Onyewu having a calculator in his binder on set.
There have also been learning moments along the way for some of the analysts. Onyewu poorly missed last summer when he told fellow on-site analyst Janelly Farias last June 2021 that he was going to “come across this desk choke you” during the CONCACAF Nations League final. Later on that night, Onyewu apologized to Farias with the support of Abdo leading the way for a necessary on-screen moment. Having someone the quality of Abdo there, Edu explained, smooths any choppy waters. Just like their playing days, they need a persona to empower them to be confident and themselves. Abdo, he said, is that persona.
“I think every show aims to have the vibe of ‘Inside the NBA,’ but that’s years in the making,” Edu said. “That doesn’t happen overnight. But the starting point is trying to find personalities that will mesh. Personalities you hope will come together on-camera. When people see Kate Abdo, straightaway, they know this is something I’m going to be interested in hearing.”
Then, of course, there is the “Abdo superpower,” as Radovich describes it. Producers and fellow on-air talent were as stunned as viewers when starting in 2020 the show had Abdo conduct live on-air translations during post-game interviews with some of the biggest names in the world. She’s done it in Spanish with Gerard Pique, in French with former Lyon manager Rudi Garcia and in German with Serge Gnabry.
“That’s the next-level stuff,” Radovich said.
“To handle emotional interviews when you’ve just come off the pitch and your heart is beating like a rabbit 100,000 miles an hour and for her to be able to pick that up and give us what’s being said by a player? What a unique skill and something pretty special, I’d say yeah?” Carragher said.
When asked if she noticed the lack of representation during those weekends she’d cram in front of the TV with her family, Abdo pauses. She said she’s never been asked that before. Being a woman in sports broadcasting, she said, puts a different type of pressure on you. Always has and always will.
“But I also have a real sense of responsibility, because I think you realize that whether or not more young girls will find it easier to get more opportunities after you depends on how competent and capable you prove yourself to be in this role, because that’s what essentially, women, as a whole, will be judged on,” she said. “If you have a bunch of terrible female broadcasters who are there for the wrong reasons and don’t know their stuff and don’t put in the hours and don’t prove that they deserve the opportunity like any man does, then I think that does a disservice to the generation that wants to follow. I think you always feel the weight of what that means.”
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As it is, arguably the two most recognized soccer hosts in the United States at the moment are both women: Abdo and NBC’s Rebecca Lowe. The two have yet to meet but they exchange DMs at times checking in on one another. What, then, does it mean to Abdo to have this stage as part of her daily life? She is the voice Champions League viewers recognize and American soccer fans, too. She is synonymous with the hype spectators prepare for on match days. And when the moment calls for it, Abdo’s moved beyond the host chair. When UEFA referee Stéphanie Frappart became the first female ref to be in charge of a men’s Champions League match in December 2020, Abdo and Radovich decided to have her go in-depth on the monumental moment in a first-person essay format.
"2020 is the year it matters to be a girl dad.."
Well said, @kate_abdo 👏 pic.twitter.com/5dr300y9df
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) December 2, 2020
“It moves me in a way that I get to represent and hopefully get to pave the way for other young people to move into that space after me and not be judged in the ways I was at certain points and times in my career because maybe if I earn their respect, if Rebecca earns their respect, maybe it’s more accepted than judged moving forward,” Abdo said.
For soccer junkies, be prepared for a lot more Abdo on your TV. For those waiting to have the hook set, you’ll meet her along with her merry band of pundits diving into some of the most-anticipated performances of 2022 and beyond.
Pressure isn’t part of the ethos anymore, right?
“I don’t know. Probably part of the story with live television is when you do it enough, you don’t feel it like you used to. It becomes a comfortable pressure. It feels like home,” she said. “Whenever it’s a big event, a World Cup or Champions League final, there’s this buzz. But, really, it’s more the idea of privilege than anything. Like, this is my job? I get to be at the World Cup final in Russia and experience this live. I get to be at the Champions League final in Madrid. Those are the moments I totally geek out on. I’m blessed. That’s how I feel.”
(Photo: Francesco Scaccianoce / LiveMedia / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
