Kaylee Hartung is one of two sideline reporters for NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LX between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots at Levi’s Stadium on February 8, 2026.
She will be working alongside Melissa Stark, marking her first Super Bowl assignment, according to the Associated Press via Fox Sports. Once the game ends, she’s catching a 1 a.m. flight to Italy to cover the Winter Olympics for NBC, per Awful Announcing.
Hartung has spent three seasons as Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football sideline reporter alongside Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit while simultaneously serving as a national correspondent for NBC’s Today Show. But before she ever held a microphone on a sideline, her path into journalism began with a family tragedy that shaped everything she’s done since.
“You could add up everything I’ve ever done on TV to this point and it might not equal the viewing audience that we’ll have on Sunday night,” Hartung told the Roanoke Times. “I’m a little sarcastic in saying that, but it feels that way.”
Here’s what you need to know about Kaylee Hartung’s family and background:
1. Her Father, Joe Hartung, Was a Pilot Born in Indonesia Who Died in a Plane Crash at an Air Show When She Was 10 Years Old
GettyKaylee Hartung speaks to Caleb Williams #18 of the Chicago Bears after the NFC Wild Card Playoff game against the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field on January 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois.
Kaylee Hartung was born on November 7, 1985, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Joe Hartung and Julie Tucker. Joe Hartung was born in Indonesia in 1952, grew up in the Netherlands, and followed in his own father’s footsteps by learning to fly while serving in the Royal Dutch Air Force. He came to the United States in 1975 “in search of adventure with not much more than his skill as a pilot to his name,” Kaylee wrote in a 2018 essay for CNN.
In 1985, the same year Kaylee was born, Joe Hartung saved up enough money to start his own aviation company. He bought a WWII-era AT-6 Texan, stripped it down and rebuilt it, and began traveling the world performing in air shows, flying aerobatics and racing vintage aircraft. The family lived in Ventress, Louisiana, per Kaylee’s CNN essay.
In August 1988, Joe performed at an air show in New Orleans with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in the crowd. Months later, after Bush won the presidency, a letter from the White House arrived at the Hartung home. “When you fly these planes, you put on an exhilarating show and you provide a powerful reminder of the tremendous sacrifices so many men made to keep America free,” Bush wrote, per Kaylee’s CNN essay. Joe had the letter framed and hung it on his office wall.
On May 4, 1996, Joe died in a plane crash at the Sertoma Cajun Air Festival in Lafayette, Louisiana, while performing low-altitude aerobatics in a T-6 on loan from a friend while his own plane was being serviced. He was 44 years old. Kaylee, her mother and her brother all witnessed the crash.
That night, CNN aired a 30-second report on the crash. Kaylee never forgot how it made her feel. “The death of the most important man in my life was covered as an event,” she told her alma mater’s alumni magazine. “His life wasn’t honored, his accomplishments weren’t spoken of, and the incredible man he was wasn’t talked about. I didn’t understand how his life could be simplified in such a way,” per Washington and Lee University’s Columns magazine.
That experience became the reason she pursued journalism. “I wanted to honor other people’s stories, and I wanted the people whose lives were impacted by those stories to feel like justice was done,” she said in the same interview.
2. Kaylee Hartung Grew Up in Baton Rouge With Her Mother, Julie Tucker, and Her Brother Tyler Hartung, Who Followed Their Father Into Aviation
After Joe’s death, Kaylee’s mother, Julie Tucker, raised Kaylee and her younger brother Tyler Hartung in Baton Rouge. Julie worked for the Tiger Athletic Foundation at LSU, according to SportsUmUp, which meant the family was deeply embedded in the college sports culture that permeates the area.
“You have to try not to be a sports fan; it’s in your blood down there,” Hartung told Columns magazine. “The Louisiana State University football schedule comes out and weddings are planned around it. Every game is the social event of the season.”
Tyler Hartung followed Joe’s path into the cockpit. He became a corporate contract pilot working at BTR Air Charter and Management in Baton Rouge. He previously worked at Gold Coast Skydivers.
Kaylee has posted about Tyler on social media, sharing a throwback photo of her “pilot brother” for his birthday in January 2018..
Kaylee is close with her mom and grandmother, frequently posting about family celebrations and trips together. In 2022, on what would have been her father’s 70th birthday, she wrote on social media: “Would have loved nothing more than to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday with him today. My dad died 25 years ago, but the older I get and the longer he’s been gone, the harder I try to draw inspiration from him on these special days, to ensure I’m living my life in a way that would make him proud. Dad, I’m trying my hardest,” per The Spun.
Kaylee attended Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge, graduating in 2003. She then went to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where she earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in journalism and politics in 2007.
3. She Worked as Bob Schieffer’s Assistant at CBS, Was a Backup Singer in His Country Band, and Won Two Emmys at ESPN Before Covering Hurricanes and Charlottesville for CNN
GettyKaylee Hartung interviews head coach Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers against the Chicago Bears in the NFC Wild Card Playoff game at Soldier Field on January 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois.
After a summer internship at NBC, she landed a job as assistant to veteran journalist Bob Schieffer at CBS News. That role evolved into an associate producer position on Face the Nation, where she helped prepare research for Schieffer’s 2008 presidential debate coverage, according to a CNN press release.
And here’s a detail most people don’t know: she moonlighted as a backup singer in Schieffer’s country music band during her time at CBS, per Adweek. “In her spare time the Louisiana native can be found cheering on the LSU Tigers, traveling or reminiscing on her former side job as a backup singer in Schieffer’s country music band,” Adweek wrote when she joined ABC News.
In 2012, ESPN hired her to cover live events. She hosted Longhorn Network’s flagship show Longhorn Extra and became a sideline reporter for the SEC Network’s college football preview show SEC Nation. She won two Lone Star Emmy Awards during her ESPN tenure, one for a feature on University of Texas super fan Brandon Puente, per CNN’s press release.
“If you’d have told me, as I was standing at my graduation without a job lined up, that eight years later I’d be reporting for ESPN on college sports at the highest level, I’d have laughed at you,” Hartung said, per SportsUmUp.
She left ESPN for CNN in April 2017, wanting to prove she could tackle hard news. She reported from the streets of Charlottesville during the deadly 2017 rally, covered the Parkland and Sutherland Springs shootings, reported on hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Florence, and covered wildfires in Malibu and Paradise, California, according to Adweek. She then joined ABC News in 2019, where she reported for Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and Nightline.
In March 2020, while covering the early COVID-19 outbreak in Seattle for ABC, Hartung contracted the virus herself. After recovering, she donated plasma that helped save another patient’s life. “It was impossible to hold back the tears of joy and incredibly hard for me to find words to express what this all meant to me. It was a day I’ll never forget,” she said.
4. She Is Not Married & Has Dismissed Rumors About Tim Tebow
Hartung keeps her personal life extremely private. As of 2026, she is not married and does not have children.
In 2021, at age 35, she publicly shared her decision to freeze her eggs in an Instagram post where she described herself as “clinically single.” She wrote on Instagram: “But as I turned 35 in a year when so much seemed to be out of our control, I decided there would be no better time to get serious with myself and make a plan. I was fortunate enough to be able to control this.”
Hartung has reflected on how she once expected to follow her mother’s path and become a parent by 25, but instead threw herself into building her career through her 20s and 30s.
As for dating rumors, the most persistent one involved former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Tim Tebow. The speculation started after Tebow posted a photo with Hartung in October 2015 on social media. Fans and gossip sites ran with it, but Hartung shut down the rumors, saying Tebow is “like a brother to herr.” The two were ESPN colleagues at the time.
There was also a vague 2013 tweet that referenced a “boyfriend” at South by Southwest, but it was unclear whether she was joking or referring to an actual relationship. Beyond that, Hartung has kept her romantic life completely off the record.
She has been open about other personal struggles, including her experiences with anxiety and depression. She has spoken publicly about seeking therapy while maintaining a high-pressure career, per SportsUmUp, and has described the community among female NFL reporters as uniquely supportive.
“It’s the most special group of women I’ve ever gotten to consider myself part of. There’s no competition,” she said, per SportsUmUp, citing her friendships with Melissa Stark, Erin Andrews, Charissa Thompson and Taylor Rooks.
5. The Super Bowl Is the Biggest Broadcast of Her Career, and She’s Heading Straight to the Winter Olympics After
Super Bowl LX represents the pinnacle of a career that started with Kaylee answering Bob Schieffer’s phone in the CBS Washington bureau nearly two decades ago. She was named to NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast team in January 2026, joining play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico, analyst Cris Collinsworth and fellow sideline reporter Melissa Stark, per the AP via Fox Sports. It marks the second time NBC has used two sideline reporters for the Super Bowl.
Hartung told the Awful Announcing podcast that she’s known about the assignment for most of the NFL season, but it didn’t feel real until the announcement was made. She has been preparing by studying old Super Bowl broadcasts and watching interviews with former sideline reporter Michele Tafoya about what it’s like to cover the game.
“You can’t ignore it, I’m going to treat this like another game as much as I can,” Hartung said on the podcast. “But you cannot ignore that this is Super Bowl 60 and these games live forever. More than anything, what I think about is the moment that this is for the players and the coaches and their families. It’s not about me. None of this is about me, it’s about them and it’s about honoring them.”
After the Super Bowl, Hartung will fly overnight to Italy for NBC’s coverage of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, where she’ll report on aerials and moguls freestyle skiing alongside play-by-play announcer Todd Harris and analyst Jonny Moseley, per Awful Announcing. She also covered the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, reporting on track and field and gymnastics.
“One of the things that’s so fulfilling about the position I’m in now is that I get to work across the spectrum,” Hartung told Columns magazine. “Everything I do is about humanizing the people who I cover, whether it’s news or sports. Every story that’s told is someone else’s story that I have the privilege of telling.”
She also earned her first solo Sports Emmy nomination in 2024 for Outstanding Sports Personality/Sideline Reporter, per Columns magazine. She was nominated alongside reporters who have been doing this far longer than she has, and it clearly caught her off guard.
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