An Ode to Rebecca from a Rebecca

By | April 14, 2020

Premier League mornings tend to look a little different for everyone. There are the diehard fans who camp out on their couches at early hours, with total and utter disregard for the time difference. There are the more casual fans of whom rely on Twitter for commentary and highlights because they accidentally slept through their team’s match because, well, the time difference. There are the fans who head to a local pub, draped in their team’s kit, to watch the game while pounding back pints of Guinness. And then there are the fans who watch lonesome, taking in all the sounds and sights that a telecasted game has to offer from the comfort of their own home. No matter how the game is consumed, there remains one constant that unites us all: the magical voice of Rebecca Lowe.

For the more casual fan who may not be fully aware of the true greatness that is Rebecca Lowe, I take great pleasure in explaining how she came to be one of the most iconic voices in soccer today. Prior to her current tenure on NBC, Lowe was a soccer reporter for 5 years at BBC and even covered the 2006 World Cup in Germany. She later joined ESPN UK, covering the Premier League in England before ultimately making the journey across the Atlantic to the United States. She’s been a Premier League staple ever since, leading NBC Sports’ coverage of each match alongside former players, Robbie Earle, Robbie Mustoe, and Kyle Martino. Her insight on specific players and storylines has garnered laud from fans all over, with a some professing their “unwavering love and support” on social media and others creating fan pages and accounts dedicated the “First Lady of Soccer.”

Rebecca Lowe means more to me than she probably does to most. As someone who aspires to be in her position one day, I’ve looked to her as a source of inspiration and motivation. Being a woman in sports is hard enough as some “knuckleheads” (for lack of a better term) don’t give female commentators the time of day simply because they are women. Instead, they flood commentators’ mentions with hateful and objectifying comments often about their appearance or apparent “lack of knowledge” about the sport. However, being a woman who anchors a television show dedicated to arguably the most famous league in the world, is a different beast itself. Over time, soccer has been stained by varying forms of misogyny. Whether it’s Sepp Blatter stating that women should play soccer in skirts if they wanted more coverage or some Middle Eastern countries barring women from entering stadiums, soccer hasn’t been the most welcoming space for women. But Rebecca Lowe is breaking down the patriarchal barriers of soccer one morning show at a time. She has shown girls, like myself, that their soccer voices belong on the big screen, and has proved to angry twitter trolls, that our voices are here to stay.

From one Rebecca to another, thank you for everything you’ve done and will continue to do for the beautiful game and its’ fans.

Until Saturday,

Becca Kuperschmid

 

 

 

Citations/Sources:

How Rebecca Lowe went from England to become the US’s …

www.theguardian.com › may › rebecca-lowe-nbc-sports-premier-league

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