As an ESPN expert and host, Maria Taylor is understood for breaking down the play-by-play of college football, volley ball and basketball.
After finishing from the University of Georgia in 2009, the 33-year-old got her start in media as a production assistant for her university, prior to landing a part-time task with ESPN in 2011 covering volley ball matches and ladies’s college basketball. In 2014, she signed up with ESPN’s SEC Network full-time, bringing her abilities and understanding as a sports reporter to the nationwide phase.
Now, after operating at ESPN for more than 6 years, Taylor is utilizing her platform to speak up about more than simply sports as she’s signed up with LeBron James’ More Than a Vote effort to eliminate citizen suppression in the nation.
“It’s almost like every time there’s a primary, or really any election, you’re going to hear a story about, ‘Oh, in the inner city lines were this long.’ Or, ‘There were some issues with casting ballots.’ Or, ‘We don’t know if everyone was allowed to even vote,'” she informs CNBC Make It. “I know this is an issue in my city specifically and I feel like it actually affects me personally.”
ESPN host and expert Maria Taylor.
Photo credit: ESPN Images
As a local of Atlanta, she states she desires the neighborhood that she and her household matured in to “be recognized and have their voices heard.”
“And obviously, one way for everyone’s voice to be heard is through voting,” she includes. “So when you add a name like LeBron James into the mix of trying to fix an injustice there’s going to be a lot of attention placed on it. And I just wanted to make sure that my city was going to get some kind of light shined on it, and there would be a way that we could figure out how to fix the issues that exist there before November comes around and we have some of the same issues that we had in our primary.”
In a June 22 tweet, James revealed the main launch of the More Than A Vote website, thanking “every incredible athlete and artist” who dealt with him to pull it together. In addition to Taylor, other professional athletes and influencers who James partnered with for the effort consist of previous NFL receiver Andrew Hawkins, Olympic-winning track and field star Allyson Felix, retired NBA star Caron Butler and WNBA stars A’Ja Wilson and Arike Ogunbowale.
Taylor, who just recently made headings for slamming NFL quarterback Drew Brees over his remarks about kneeling throughout the nationwide anthem, states that utilizing her platform to loudly speak up versus social and racial oppressions has not constantly come simple.
“I used to think that as long as I’m doing the work that I didn’t have to say anything,” she states. “Like my actions would speak louder than words. And so for me, it was having a nonprofit and focusing on diversity. And I was like, if anyone knows who I am personally then they would know what I stand for.”
But, she states, after seeing George Floyd’s death play out on TELEVISION, she seemed like she might no longer be quiet about the work she was doing or her ideas about racial oppression.
“I always go back to what Jalen Rose said on one of our NBA countdown YouTube shows,” she states. “He was much like, ‘The Black neighborhood requires me more than I require my task or than I require security or than I require to feel comfy.’ And so that’s type of how I feel which’s where I’m operating. It may not be the most comfy thing for me to do, however at the end of the day my neighborhood requires me now especially and my voice matters.”
Outside of utilizing her platform on ESPN to discuss more than simply sports, Taylor is utilizing her impact as a reporter to assist diversify business side of the sports market. Five years back, she co-founded the not-for-profit, Winning Edge Leadership Academy, to expose trainee professional athletes to the numerous various profession chances in the sports field.
“It’s all about helping minorities and women break into the sports industry,” she states. “Our focus is student athletes because I spent a lot of time on campuses with student athletes who work so hard in their field of competition, but when they graduate they’re not necessarily given all the tools to be successful in the sports industry. And so that’s how you see this kind of lopsided view where there are way more players on the field than we see in an NFL front office or as a general manager for basketball or these other sports that create a lot of money for universities.”
Right now, more than 76% of college athletic directors are white guys. Of the 32 groups in the NFL, simply 4 have head coaches of color and just 2 groups have Black basic supervisors. In the NBA, where there are 30 groups in overall, simply 9 groups have Black basic supervisors, 8 have Black head coaches, and just 11 have ladies assistant coaches.
To bridge this space in between trainee professional athletes and business chances in sports, Taylor utilizes her not-for-profit company to hosts numerous retreats and tops where she has executives and magnate discuss their profession courses in the market.
“The last 2 tops have actually remained in Miami and Atlanta and we generated leaders like Carla Williams, who’s the athletic director at the [University of Virginia],” she states. “So she can meet a student that’s interested in being an athletic director and that person can see, ‘Oh, there’s a black female AD at a power five school.'”
In addition to Williams, the more than 150 trainees who have actually taken part in the Winning Edge Leadership Academy have actually spoken with executives who work for numerous sports companies consisting of the Atlanta Braves and NASCAR. They’ve likewise gone on website check outs to Turner Sports head office in Atlanta where Taylor states trainees had the ability to see that “yea, you can work in the NBA, but there is also this new industry popping up around video gaming and there’s an entire studio here and there are jobs here.”
So far, through the Winning Edge Leadership Academy’s work, Taylor and her group have actually had the ability to connect trainees to sports tasks at numerous companies and colleges consisting of CBS News, Texas Christian University and the Miami Dolphins.
When taking a look at the absence of gender and racial parity in the sports market today, Taylor states it’s clear that there requires to be more concentrate on closing the chance space for ladies and minority specialists so that they have equivalent access to operating in the field.
“I think the whole pipeline problem is like complete BS,” she states. “That was just created as another hurdle that people could use to put in front of you like, ‘Well, we’ve really been trying to diversify, but we just could not find the candidates.’ And that’s a lie because if you really do seek them, you will find them.”
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