sport news NBC's EPL anchor Rebecca Lowe on breaking America, Lionel Messi and why soccer ... trends now
Rebecca Lowe can still picture every single face in the crowd. All four of them. The English broadcaster, now the face of NBC’s Premier League coverage in America, was on her gap year. She had hopped across the pond to study in Pennsylvania.
It was May 1999 and the Champions League final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich was around the corner. ‘How am I going to watch this?’ Lowe, now 42, thought.
There were no televisions in the dorms of her boarding school. Not much buzz either. ‘No one seems to care,’ she realized. Thankfully, though, she wasn’t entirely alone.
‘I found two guys, who played on the soccer team, who wanted to wanted to watch it,’ Lowe recalls. ‘And the German teacher, who was also one of the soccer coaches, was interested too.’
So they hatched a plan. ‘We all went over to the German teacher’s house and watched the game there. There was literally four of us in the room and 600 people out there, at the school, with no clue that the Champions League final was going on.’
Rebecca Lowe has been the face of NBC's Premier League coverage for the past 10 years
Since the 2013-14 season, the network has presented all 3,800 Premier League matches
All rather unthinkable now. ‘It is a very different world and it gives me great hope,’ says London-born Lowe, who worked at the BBC, Setanta Sports and ESPN before moving Stateside. ‘Because that was nearly 25 years ago. And in 25 years’ time we’re going to make another massive jump.’
She has been here for the last 10, fronting NBC’s broadcasts, doing her bit to turn more American heads towards soccer. The change in that time has been remarkable – the fact that nearly half of the Premier League are here this summer is proof of that. The next decade could bring an even greater shift in the landscape.
‘I would not be surprised to see an actual Premier League game in America in the next 10 years,’ Lowe says. ‘It is going to happen… I know when (ex-Premier League chief) Richard Scudamore brought it up, he was annihilated for that idea.’ Now, though, the picture looks very different.
‘This is the last area of the world to be tapped into – this is why they’re all coming over,’ Lowe continues. ‘There are 350million people in this country and only about 10m have a team… a lot of the money is coming from America now – whether it be ownership or television.’ And that brings certain expectations.
‘They want to see a Premier League game and it will happen at some point. I have no doubt about it,' she adds. 'It will cause an absolute ruckus in England.’
It would spark bedlam in the States, though. If this summer is anything to by, anyway. Starting Saturday, Lowe will anchor coverage of the first ever Premier League Summer Series. Chelsea, Brighton, Fulham, Brentford, Newcastle and Aston Villa have all come to town. Arsenal and Manchester United are also Stateside, too.
NBC has hosted Premier League fan festivals in cities across the United States since 2018
Brandi Chastain's celebration at the 1999 World Cup was a landmark moment in US soccer
It’s a sign of the times. ‘The only thing that penetrated in 1999 in this country was the women,’ Lowe recalls. The USWNT won a home World Cup that summer as Brandi Chastain’s sports bra went down in history. ‘Men’s football? Absolutely no chance,’ Lowe says.
‘Ten years ago, when I first arrived here, the Premier League had been on television but in sort of drips and drabs.’
And then NBC stepped in. Since
