Former Good Morning Football analyst Kay Adams tells all in an exclusive interview on her career, memorable Super Bowl moments, and her love for a good underdog story.
Kay Adams started from the bottom, and now she’s here, at the apex of the NFL media world running her own show. Drake would approve.
The long-time Good Morning Football host recently sat down with Stacking the Box’s Matt Verderame and Special Olympics’ Malcom Harris-Gowdie at Super Bowl media day and discussed everything from her past football coverage to her current venture with FanDuel.
Adams manned the panel of analysts on NFL Network’s daily morning show “Good Morning Football,” for six years before taking off to do her own thing. She told Verderame and Harris-Gowdie that she was never scared of taking risks and decided to pave her own path in the crowded NFL media landscape.
Adams said:
“I knew a year before my contract ended that I wasn’t coming back. I feel like I did such good work there, I really built something there, and I won the Emmy out the door, and if that’s not a mic drop moment then what is, right?”
In Adams’ sports media career, she’s done just about everything from bartending at a sports bar to reporting for NBC to hosting fight night broadcasts on online streaming platforms.
Last September, Adams opted not to extend her contract with NFL Network and launched her own venture with FanDuel TV, “Up & Adams,” the platform’s flagship daily morning show.
On the show, Adams has cultivated a casual, water-cooler vibe characterized by her witty sense of humor and easy-going conversation with various guest stars from around the NFL. Think Pat McAfee, but much less bro-ey.
Kay Adams springboards into the next stage of her career, holding onto her lasting love for the Cincinnati Bengals
She spoke to FanSided’s Verderame about how Super Bowl LVII was her first Super Bowl with her own show and how excited she was to meet different players.
In total, Adams has covered 10 Super Bowls, and the very first one of her career didn’t quite go so well:
“My first Super Bowl was Niners-Ravens, the Harbaugh Bowl, Beyoncé, the lights, that whole things. I remember I was working for NBC at the time and all week all I did was go to those early morning media availabilities with the players, and my job was to ask guys like Jacoby Jones and Alex Smith, ‘What’s your favorite Beyoncé song? Will you sing it?’”
Fast forward several years later, and Adams is blazing her own unique trail and just learning how to “appreciate the moment.”
The Chicago-born Adams is apparently a full-blown Cincinnati Bengals fan now and said that she fell in love with the Bengals fanbase because “they weren’t entitled.” This season played out a little differently, of course, yet compared to other Bengals bandwagoners, Adams supported them from the start.
Adams revealed that she has a soft spot for those kinds of underdog stories and that she wants to focus her NFL coverage on less-talked about players, noting that Arizona Cardinals’ Budda Baker was at the top of her most-wanted guest list.
Based on her career trajectory, it seems like Adams definitely knows how to get what she wants.
