Jazz Holly Rowe: ‘I Never Have Let My Gender Make Decisions For Me’

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – During the Utah Jazz Friday night victory on the road over the Sacramento Kings, Holly Rowe became the first woman to sit in on the local television broadcast as the team’s top analyst.

With regular analyst Thurl Baily attending his son’s wedding, Rowe stepped into the gig alongside play-by-play voice Craig Bolerjack.

While Rowe became the first woman to fill in on the local broadcast as an analyst, she said in an interview with The Zone Sports Network that she didn’t get into sports broadcasting with the sole purpose of breaking new social ground.

You can listen to the full interview with Holly Rowe in the player below.

“I’ve never conscientiously been like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna do this, because…'” Rowe said, “I’m just a sports fan.”

Before joining the Jazz broadcast team, Rowe had worked her way up the broadcast ladder to the highest ranks in the business. After attending BYU and the University of Utah, Rowe started at ESPN in 1997 and has become the company’s premier reporter during college football and basketball games.

Though her work has carved out a new space in the industry for women looking to make a living in broadcasting, Rowe said she didn’t see her gender as the main focal point for her career.

“I’m a football fan, I’m a basketball fan, I’m a football reporter, I’m a basketball reporter. I never have let my gender make decisions for me.”

But while gender hasn’t been the determining factor in what she can and can’t accomplish in her career, she’s not naive to the fact that she’s a role model to up-and-coming women in the business.

Holly Rowe (@sportsiren) will serve as the first female analyst for a @utahjazz local broadcast tonight against the @SacramentoKings. #takenote https://t.co/XnFOrJ8c1m

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) October 22, 2021

Rowe credited fellow basketball analyst Doris Burke for her role in understanding the importance of setting an example for women in broadcasting.

“She’s probably the best basketball announcer I know and she has said that we do bear a great responsibility for young women who come behind us,” Rowe said. “So we have to conduct ourselves in a certain way and we have to push for things because we’re doing it for the next generation. I do take that very seriously.”

You can catch Rowe’s full interview in the player-player above, or subscribe to the Jake and Ben show podcast at this link.