Cari Champion

Cari Champion (born June 1, 1975) is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. Champion attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she majored in English and minored in mass communications. She wrote for the Daily Bruin and was inspired to pursue a career in journalism by UCLA alumni, including Matea Gold of the Washington Post, who was the editor in chief of the student newspaper. In her junior year, she studied in Washington, D.C., and earned an internship at VOA. Champion graduated from UCLA in 2000,

In November 2007, while working as an anchor for WGCL-TV in Atlanta, Champion was fired for allegedly uttering a profanity over the air. She appealed the firing and said in an interview for the Maynard Institute that the floor director had not cued her and her co-anchor following a commercial break, and that the microphone picked up a conversation they were having about an unhandy mechanical screenwriter: "I called the screenwriter a 'mothersucka' not the f-bomb." She was rehired in January 2008, but left shortly after in March for a broadcasting job outside of Atlanta.

After moving to Florida, Champion covered news such as human interest stories and devastating hurricanes in the state. Champion worked as a courtside reporter, She was hired over Heidi Watney and Jemele Hill for the job. As the show's host, she moderated debates between sports pundits Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith, who she said had "the biggest, strongest personalities in the building". After proposing ideas for stories to ESPN, Champion made her journalistic debut for the network on November 4, 2014, when she profiled and interviewed American football quarterback Cam Newton in a segment for E:60. That same day, she was the target of racist and sexist tweets from comedian Artie Lange, who jokingly portrayed himself and Champion in a sexual fantasy set during slavery. Lange tweeted an apology to Champion the following day and ESPN issued a statement to Sports Illustrated that rebuked Lange's tweets, while Champion did not respond publicly.

After petitioning ESPN for six months to become an anchor on SportsCenter, Champion was promoted to the position in June 2015. She hosted her last episode of First Take on June 19 and began anchoring morning editions of SportsCenter in July.

Career at Amazon Prime Video In 2022, Embassy Row announced that Champion will host The Cari Champion Show on Amazon Prime Video. On November 14, 2022, Champion made her debut on The Cari Champion Show.