NBC Sports' Michele Tafoya will be on the sideline for Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13.
It will serve as her final broadcast with the network, it announced Tuesday.
The New York Post first reported that this would be Tafoya's final NFL season as a sideline reporter in mid-December. She will move into the next phase of her career, after nearly 30 years working for CBS, ABC/ESPN and NBC.
“My time with NBC Sports has been the most satisfying of my career,” Tafoya said in NBC's release. “I’ve had the good fortune of collaborating with a team that is amongst the best at what they do, and the support I’ve received in this position has been unparalleled. The list of people to thank is incredibly long, but for now, I will say I am immeasurably grateful to Fred Gaudelli, Drew Esocoff, Al Michaels, and Cris Collinsworth. They are the backbone of the Sunday Night Football family.
“Some may consider me crazy to walk away from one of the more coveted roles in sports television, and I do not doubt that I will miss many aspects of the job. But for some time, I have been considering other areas I would like to explore both personally and professionally. I couldn’t ignore that little voice anymore after what we have all endured over the last few years. There’s no better way to walk away from covering the NFL than with one more Super Bowl!”
Super Bowl LVI will be Tafoya's 327th and final NFL broadcast.
The move comes about a month after Tafoya's controversial stint on The View, during which she compared COVID-19 to the flu.
Some speculated that Tafoya's absence from NBC's broadcasts on Nov. 28, Dec. 5 and Dec. 12 were a quiet suspension after those comments, though NBC said these were predetermined “bye weeks.”
The network had said the notion that she was suspended was “blatantly false.”
Tafoya is a four-time Sports Emmy Award winner for her work as a reporter. It is not clear what her next role will be, though, her departure has led to industry speculation that she could step into the role vacated by Meghan McCain on The View full-time.
