Speaker Profile

Michele Steele is a correspondent for ESPN based in Chicago. A versatile journalist, she has covered some of the biggest stories both in the Midwest and nationally for SportsCenter, NFL Live, Outside the Lines and ESPN’s digital platforms.

In the past, Steele has led coverage of the weekly Monday Night Football game for SportsCenter, providing postgame and live reports from the MNF city the morning after each game. She was the first reporter on the scene at the hospital after the devastating injury to Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier – leading coverage from Cincinnati for three days following the injury.

Steele also interviewed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on player protests following his decision to both kneel and stand with his players during the anthem at a MNF game against the Arizona Cardinals. Later in the season, she sat down with Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton for a SportsCenter feature on the tremendous outpouring of support from Bills fans for his foundation after he helped end their 17-year playoff drought. Steele also covered the 2018 Pro Bowl in Orlando, interviewing Drew Brees, Derek Carr, Le’Veon Bell, among other star players.

Steele has also covered pro and college teams near Chicago as well as in other areas. In 2017, she was the on-site reporter for the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., and she has covered the Warrior Games. .

Before moving to Chicago in October 2016, Steele served as ESPN’s Boston-based bureau reporter for three years. Her reporting took her inside a criminal court to follow the murder trial of former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, to Phoenix, Ariz., for coverage of the death of Muhammad Ali and to Houston to cover the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.

Steele, who joined ESPN in December 2011, has also served as a fill-in anchor for SportsCenter.

She has expanded her work by doing video and written pieces for ESPN’s The Undefeated, including a feature on Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox, and she collaborated with reporter Adam Rittenberg on an in-depth investigative piece for ESPN.com on how Black players were treated within the Iowa football program over the last two decades.

Prior to ESPN, Steele was an anchor for Bloomberg Television and the network’s first full-time sports reporter. Her interviews at Bloomberg included NCAA President Mark Emmert and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in addition to numerous owners and team executives. She started her career in sports covering Tiger Woods for Bloomberg TV in 2009, ultimately following his return to The Masters that year.

A native of Chicago, she is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), the Alliance Francaise and the Young Professionals group of the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In 2019, she was recognized by ESPN in its “Volunteer of the Year” awards among employees for her work with Special Olympics and Unified Sports.

Steele earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University. She speaks fluent French and conversational Tagalog, the language of the Philippines.