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SANTA CLARA — Aly Wagner did not think about history while she was making it.
Last year, Wagner became the first woman to broadcast a men’s World Cup match on U.S. television as a Fox Sports analyst. But at the time, all she could think about was commenting on the action, as Iran defeated Morocco 1-0 in a Group B opener in Russia.
It was not until after the game ended last June that Wagner said she understood the significance of serving as a color commentator.
“Becoming the first woman to call a men’s World Cup wasn’t about me,” said Wagner, who was a Santa Clara University soccer star two decades ago. “It was about those ladies who come after me and proving to them it’s possible with the right amount of work.”
Wagner, 38, now takes on a higher-profile role by joining JP Dellacamera as the lead play-by-play announcers for the Women’s World Cup, which began Friday in France. Wagner and Dellacamera called the France-South Korea opener and will call the three Group F games featuring the United States, starting Tuesday against Thailand. The pair are scheduled to announce seven of the 36 group games Fox is covering.
“Aly is one of the most gifted analysts of any sport that I’ve ever worked with and that’s working 40 years in television,” said David Neal, Fox Sports’ executive producer. “She just seized that role and excelled from the moment she went on the air.”
Wagner is not the only former Santa Clara University star with a prominent role in broadcasting soccer’s showcase event this summer. She will be joined by Danielle Slaton and Leslie Osborne, 18 years after the trio led the Broncos to the 2001 collegiate national championship.
They are among Fox Sports’ 15 women broadcasters for the tournament that ends July 7 in Lyon, France. The on-air crew also includes seven men.
Other women also made strides in soccer broadcasting last year during the men’s World Cup. Viviana Vila of Argentina announced games for the Spanish-language Telemundo network and the BBC’s Vicki Sparks and ZDF’s Claudia Neumann in Germany had similar breakthroughs.
“It is a trend, and it’s about time,” said Neal, who helped assemble the Fox Sports Women’s World Cup team.
The women are following a broadcasting path paved by female commentators in other sports. Doris Burke, for example, is working the NBA Finals as a sideline reporter for the 11th consecutive year and former Stanford softball star Jessica Mendoza has been a respected member of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” team since 2014.
The shift toward women broadcasters comes at a time when soccer officials are facing increasing pressure to pay female players more. Norway’s Ada Hegerberg, considered the world’s best striker, is protesting the inequality between men’s and women’s soccer by declining to play in the World Cup.
The American women’s national team made inequality an issue in March when filing a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging “institutionalized gender discrimination” against the U.S. Soccer Federation. American soccer officials denied the allegations last month in a court filing responding to the complaint.
FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, has been criticized for ignoring women’s soccer for decades. In response, it increased the earnings for the 2019 Women’s World Cup to $30 million overall, including $4 million for the winner. But the figure represents a fraction of the $38 million France earned last year for winning the men’s tournament in Russia.
“As much as FIFA has stepped up a little bit, they still have a long way to go,” said Osborne, an in-studio analyst for Fox Sports. “I’m confident it is shifting and everyone needs to play their role in that.”
That includes the women broadcasting the 24-team World Cup. Nerissa Balce, a SUNY Stony Brook assistant professor who teaches popular culture, said seeing minority and women’s faces reporting on sporting events “can have an amazing effect on the perception for young Americans.”
None of the former Broncos teammates, who live within a mile of each other in San Jose, aspired to become a soccer broadcaster after college. Wagner played for the U.S. national team for 10 years, winning two Olympic gold medals and two World Cup bronze medals. Slaton, 38, won a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics and a bronze medal at the 2003 Women’s World Cup. Osborne, 35, won a World Cup bronze medal in 2007 but missed the 2008 Olympics because she tore a knee ligament two days after being named to the roster.
Wagner, who made her broadcasting debut at the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada, said it was a natural ascension to the TV booth after playing under Jerry Smith, Santa Clara University’s coach since 1987.
“Jerry was the one who taught me the most about the game,” said Wagner, who scored the game-winning goal in the 2001 championship match against North Carolina. “It helps us do our job well now that we are in front of the camera.”
Smith, who is married to former U.S. star Brandi Chastain, said he tries to recruit strong-willed women who fight for what they believe in. Smith said the three alums working as broadcasters fit the profile of those who wanted to “break barriers or have enough courage” to challenge themselves on the field, in school and in the workplace.
Perhaps none of the three women embodies that spirit as much as Slaton, who grew up in San Jose playing with Wagner. In 2010, Slaton became a soccer analyst for the Big Ten Network, after leaving a coaching job at Northwestern University. Slaton said she took the job only because she was not working.
Now she is one of the play-by-play announcers for the Women’s World Cup and the San Jose Earthquakes’ sideline reporter.
“If Aly is very clinical and analytical and quick to offer an informed opinion Danielle brings more of playfulness to her call,” Fox executive Neal said. “It is a wonderful one-two punch for our two lead analysts. We don’t want everybody to be the same person.”
Slaton, who is African-American, said she understands the symbolism of being on the air as a minority woman.
“Especially for a woman of color, it is more OK now than ever before for me to be fully who I am on TV,” Slaton said. “This is just what you get. I’m not just the cookie cutter sideline reporter and that’s OK.”
Osborne, a mother of two, hopes her studio analysis will leave the kind of imprint Wagner and Slaton have through their broadcasts of Major League Soccer and World Cup games.
She said she wants to change attitudes about women in sports with entertaining and knowledgeable commentary and not simply fill a demographic quota.
“Who is the best equipped to tell our stories, who is going to analyze in the best way possible?” Osborne said. Doing “what men have been doing their whole lives is where the shift happens.”