Alisia “Lisa” Salters is an American journalist and former collegiate women’s basketball player. She has been a reporter forESPN and ESPN on ABC since 2000. Previously, she covered the O.J. Simpson murder case for ABC and worked as a reporter at WBAL-TV in Baltimore from 1988 to 1995.
Salters has reported worldwide for ESPN, including a series of reports from the Middle East prior to the Iraq War. In addition, she has hosted ESPN’s coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics from Turin, Italy, and ESPN’s coverage of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Currently, she is the secondary sideline reporter for ABC’s coverage of the NBA, college basketball, college football, and ESPN’s Monday Night Football replacing Suzy Kolber.
Salters joined ESPN as a general assignment reporter in March 2000. She currently serves as sideline reporter for Monday Night Football and the lead sideline reporter for ESPN’s coverage of the NBA on ABC. In addition, Salters is one of the featured correspondents on ESPN’s news magazine show, E:60, which debuted October 2007. In 2008, she was nominated for a Sports Emmy Award for the story “Ray Of Hope”.
At ESPN, Salters’ reports have been regularly featured on the award-winning “Outside the Lines” series. She led the network’s comprehensive coverage of the murder trial ofCarolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth in December 2000 through January 2001. Additionally, Salters was ESPN’s reporter at the 2002 FIFA World Cup in South Korea andJapan, where she broke the news on the U.S. National Team’s starting lineup a day before its first match in against Portugal. Salters reported from the 2004 Olympic Games inAthens, Greece and hosted ESPN’s coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics Games in Torino, Italy.
In 2006, she served as the lead sideline reporter for ABC’s coverage of the NBA on ABC and worked the 2006 NBA Finals on television as that season she filled in for Michele Tafoya who was on maternity leave. Salters returned to her role as its secondary sideline reporter the following year as Tafoya returned to her old role. In 2007, she worked the 2007 NBA Finals on radio. In 2009, she is back to being its lead sideline reporter whenever Doris Burke isn’t there.
During the build-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom through the commencement of the Iraq War, Salters covered sports-related stories in and around U.S. Central Command in Qatar for Outside the Lines, SportsCenter and ESPNEWS. She went back into the war zone in 2004 when ESPN took SportsCenter on the road and broadcast live from Camp Arifjan, a U.S. Army base in Kuwait.
On December 1, 2007, Salters was covering the Big 12 Championship Game at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. In one of her sideline reports during the first half she mentioned Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel’s frustration due to Missouri being stymied by theOklahoma defense, saying Daniel was “upset” and “fuming.” However, a technical blunder caused Salters’ microphone to be broadcast over the stadium’s PA system. The camera shifted to Chase Daniel, who was visibly perplexed and curious as to who was talking about him and why it was being heard throughout the entire stadium. ABC TV announcer Brent Musburger then mused, “Lisa was talking to a lot more folks than she anticipated.” The likely explanation was that Salters’ mic was to have been hooked up to the PA for the upcoming halftime contest, and her mic was inadvertently left on the PA after a pregame sound check.
Prior to joining ESPN, Salters served as a Los Angeles-based correspondent for ABC News from 1995 to 2000 and provided news coverage for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and other ABC News broadcasts. At ABC News, she covered the Oklahoma City bombing trials, the Matthew Shepard murder, the crash of TWA Flight 800, and both the civil and criminal O.J. Simpson trials.
In 2012, ESPN announced that Lisa Salters would join Monday Night Football replacing Suzy Kolber as a full-time solo sideline reporter joining Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden.
Born in 1966 and a native of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, Salters graduated from Penn State University in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism. She played guard for the Lady Lions basketball team from 1986–87, where she holds the distinction of being the shortest player in school history at 5′ 2″.
Salters is a graduate of Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia, where she is a member of the school’s Hall of Fame. Salters is a cousin of former University of Pittsburgh and Dallas Cowboys star running back Tony Dorsett.