Legends Behind the Lens: Andrea Berry The trailblazer that redefined the impact a tech manager could have on a sports broadcast By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - 12:00 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The story of American sports television is engrained in the history of this nation, rising on the achievements of countless incredible men and women who never once appeared on our screens. During this pause in live sports, SVG is proud to present a celebration of this great industry. Legends Behind the Lens is a look at how we got here seen through the people who willed it to be. Each weekday, we will share with you the story of a person whose impact on the sports-television industry is indelible.
Legends Behind the Lens is presented in association with the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the SVG Sports Broadcasting Fund. In these trying times - with so many video-production professionals out of work - we hope that you will consider (if you are able) donating to the Sports Broadcasting Fund. Do so by visiting sportsbroadcastfund.org.
___________________________
Trailblazer. Pioneer. Groundbreaker. Throughout Andrea Berry's decades-long career in sports broadcasting, these descriptors have been attributed to her time and time again, each with excellent reason. Berry blazed a trail as one of the first female tech managers at CBS in the mid '80s, pioneered field operations for Fox Sports in the '90s and 2000s, and continually broke new ground as an African-American woman in a predominantly male industry. And through it all, she has remained one of the most humble, well-liked, and respected people in the business.
She was steady, locked in, and she always understood that whatever we did was a collaboration, says Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Jerry Steinberg, who worked with Berry at CBS and Fox Sports. She somehow knew how to put the right moving parts in the right place at the right time, and that's what production's all about. It's a testament to her strength and fortitude: she was always just Andrea. Besides her unique talents, she's a pioneer. She's a pioneer by how she does her job. She cracked the glass ceiling in the television business.
Interestingly, Berry did not initially pursue a career in sports broadcasting but, rather, through a series of fortuitous circumstances, discovered her passion for live television. A native of Chicago, she attended middle and high school in her mother's native Jamaica before returning the U.S. for her senior year, during which she wanted to be an architect and interior designer. After her father encouraged her to pursue engineering instead, Berry decided to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, where she found an outlet for her love of music and art at the college radio station. She also found a work-study position broadcasting night classes to local companies like Bell Labs and Motorola via satellite.
We would be in a studio at school, and we would just pretty much follow the instructor, Berry recalls. Little did we know at that time that we were doing live TV, little did we know that we were doing microwave transmission, little did we know that we had to be perfect with the audio and the recording. I was just going for it to make the most money for work-study.
But she was hooked. At a college fair during her freshman year, she interviewed for a summer-relief position with NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV Chicago and was offered the job. Over the next four years, she immersed herself in studio operations.
I knew right there that I wanted to be in TV. I had gotten the bug, and there was no turning back, she says. The radio did it for me because I was doing live radio - radio really started the live experience and the high - and, to me, there's nothing better than the high of being on live TV.
Whatever she said in the room, made its way on air. The things that she wanted innovated: the sights, the sounds of Fox Sports that put the viewer in the stadium. You knew if Andrea was in charge of that game, that was going to be a game that was on point. Director Tony McCuin
As she prepared to graduate, Berry accepted a job with CBS in New York to become a management trainee within its studio system. After completing the trainee program, she became manager of the graphics group supporting both studio and field operations and quickly realized that her calling lay in the latter. At 24, she embarked on a 10-year career in the field for CBS in New York, taking on such roles as NFL coordinator and MLB co-coordinator and even scoring a trip to the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway.
The cool thing about CBS is that I created a family, says Berry. I grew up there, and the people that I spent time with were masters in this business, and so I learned from the masters on the production side and on the technical side.
After a decade in New York, she was asked to return to Illinois to become the director of technical operations for the CBS affiliate in Chicago. Soon, however, she was recruited to join the nascent Fox Sports and, in 1996, left Chicago for Los Angeles, becoming part of the team that launched Fox Sports Net (FSN).
The work of broadcasting sports is [as much] a team endeavor as many of the competitions we cover. Leadership of those teams is something that very few have done with the [same] grace, competence, compassion, and enthusiasm as Andrea, says Jerry Gepner, formerly of CBS Sports and Fox, who recruited her to the West Coast. She inspires those who work for her to go beyond their own preconceived limits, which is the ultimate job of a leader. Her management style is based on walking the walk, not just talking the talk. People like Andrea are rare, and I count myself as very fortunate to know her and to have worked with
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the First Look for Land of Sin' - Premier...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
Legends Behind the Lens: Andrea Berry The trailblazer that redefined the impact a tech manager could have on a sports broadcast By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
