Pam Ward in ‘talks’ to call WNBA games after leaving ESPN

Veteran broadcaster Pam Ward is “not retired-retired” after stepping away from ESPN last month.

The longtime ESPN voice spent nearly three decades at the network, calling everything from women’s basketball to college football to softball and beyond. But Ward isn’t calling it a career just yet. Speaking with Edward Lee of the Baltimore Sun earlier this week, Ward revealed that she has her sights set on another gig this year.

“I would love to do another season of the WNBA — whether for a team or whoever. So yeah, I am in some talks for that, and that’s something that I would be interested in doing because I’ve always said it’s the best summer job in the world,” Ward said.

The former ESPN mainstay also opened up about why she ultimately exited the network when her contract was up in December.

“It’s a little convoluted, but I almost didn’t re-sign a couple of years ago just because the travel and everything was starting to get to me and I’ve been doing it for a long time. But this one came up and I wanted to scale back at best and only work one more year, but that just didn’t work out,” she said.

So now, Ward will look elsewhere to close out her career. Clearly, she still has some fuel left in the tank, but doesn’t want to commit to the grueling full-year schedule she had at ESPN. Ward mentioned how, for the first time in over 30 years, she was able to stay put during the holiday season.

“Doing two or three games a week and stuff like that, traveling in the winter, all those challenges, I’m not missing that at all. I’ve had the holidays all to myself for the first time in well over 30 years. So that has been a good thing.”

There should be no shortage of broadcasting opportunities in the WNBA for Ward, assuming the league is able to settle its labor situation prior to the start of the season. USA Network, under the new ownership of Versant, will be looking to build out its women’s basketball broadcasting team. Other WNBA partners like Ion, Prime Video, and NBC could be looking to add a veteran voice like Ward as well. Of course, there’s also the avenue of calling local broadcasts for a specific team.

Whatever the case may be, it seems like Ward already has some suitors, and we’ll be hearing her for at least one more year during the upcoming WNBA season.