The Utah Jazz have signed new talents.
The same applies to their television broadcast.
Smith Entertainment Group announced Wednesday that it has hired 25-year-old Lauren Green as its new sideline reporter. Green will accompany the team to all 82 games this regular season and will cover stories related to the Jazz during the team’s television broadcasts on KJZZ and Jazz+.
Also announced Wednesday was a role change for Holly Rowe, who has served as the team’s co-commentator alongside Craig Bolerjack and Thurl Bailey for the past three seasons. Rowe will no longer be in the team’s commentary booth, but will work as a storyteller for select content in various media outlets throughout the season, such as her Front Rowe podcast. She will also appear in certain segments of the television broadcast. Rowe, a winner of the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Media Award, will focus on her duties at ESPN, where her roles include lead sideline reporter for college football and the WNBA.
Introducing sideline reporter Lauren Green
Green had two great passions in her life: athletics and journalism.
In both cases, seconds count.
As an athlete, she was one of the fastest young runners in the West. She first competed in high school in New Mexico, where, she says, “don’t forget how many times she was state champion.” In one meet she ran the 100 meters in 12.56 seconds, in another the 200 meters in 25.16 seconds, and in yet another meet the 400 meters in 55.51 seconds.
She was a track and field athlete at the University of Nevada, chosen because of the university’s diverse journalism program, which included television, newspaper design, podcasting, documentaries and more, but she found her true calling in bringing sports news to a wider audience.
“Track and field has been my life for a long time, and live TV is pretty much the closest I’ve gotten to feeling the same joy and intensity I used to get from racing,” Green said. “There’s a fun, performative aspect that I like about being in front of the camera.”
Green further diversified her portfolio at Arizona State’s Cronkite School of Journalism, earning a master’s degree while covering ASU’s basketball and track teams. While in college, she covered the NBA’s summer league in Las Vegas, Steph Curry’s golf tournament and more.
Following a chance encounter at the National Association of Black Journalists conference, Green was hired as a weekend news anchor at NBC affiliate station KOB4 in New Mexico, where she has worked for the past two years.
But Green’s contract expired on Monday, so she was now eligible to be hired for the Jazz’s side gig. It was a highly competitive position, said Travis Henderson, Jazz senior vice president of broadcasting, with “hundreds” of applicants for the job, which involves months of travel with a professional sports team.
But Green stood out from the crowd.
“In her news market in Albuquerque, she was busy reporting everything herself every day,” Henderson said. “She was really combative in that respect, she did a lot of her own work, she did a lot of her own reporting, she did a lot of her own writing, she did everything herself.”
With no traditional sideline reporter since Kristen Kenney’s departure, the team has relied on Bolerjack and Nayo Campbell to conduct interviews in the locker room, tasks that are outside of their job descriptions.
Henderson said Green will enhance the Jazz broadcast by “providing more detail on some of the bigger stories we’ve always covered – adding some context and coverage to things that maybe we haven’t always been able to dive into as deeply, just because that wasn’t what we did.”
Green will also be a key contributor to the pregame, halftime and postgame shows on KJZZ and Jazz+, as well as hosting select programs.
It’s a significant task, but Green is ready for it, she said.
“I’m going to be someone who’s at every open practice and every press conference. I’m always going to be there to watch and observe everything with the Jazz and travel to every away game,” she said. “I have to bring really fine-tuned storytelling to this position about what the audience just doesn’t get to see. How can I present that in a way that’s personable but also trustworthy and easily digestible for every viewer? That’s my goal.”
