“We felt if we are an organization that is working with and trying to solve breast cancer through our pink marketing, having an all-female team, that was real quality, would be a feather in our cap. Also, we are trying to cure cancer, but we thought as a staff, there’s been some prejudice about having an all-female team, and we thought we could cure some of that as well.” – Alan Gooch, Executive Director, Cure Bowl
As the 150th year of college football begins its postseason, another historic moment will occur on Dec. 21, at the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl presented by the Orlando Sports Foundation when the first NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) national radio broadcast featuring an all-female crew takes over the airwaves from Exploria Stadium.
Play-by-play voice Jamie Seh (Orlando, Fla.), color analyst Dani Welniak (Kansas City, Mo.) and sideline reporter Melanie Newman (Atlanta, Ga.) make up the all-female crew on a national radio network.
“These women are qualified; they are very passionate about it, and we are happy to give them this platform to show that they can do this,” Executive Director Alan Gooch tells CollegeAD. “The radio partners and I did discuss it. We have Jamie Seh, who is a local sportscaster here in town with the CBS affiliate. She’s actually been the sideline reporter for the previous four years and donates her time to do that. We wanted to recommend, to our radio partners, to go with Jamie because she’s a pro.”
Radio stations throughout the country will also air the national network game. The local Orlando market can hear the game on Real Radio 104.1. The game will be broadcast nationally on Sirius XM Radio and the TuneIn Radio app.
“Breast Cancer is most associated with women; men can get it too, but it is mostly associated with women. Because of that, this is something we’ve thought about for a long time, the concept of having an all-female radio team, and this year we were able to put that together.”
The FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl is also the first postseason college football game to incorporate its cause of raising awareness for cancer research into its name. The platform of the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl has been used to raise over $3.7 Million for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). The mission of the bowl’s founding organization, the Orlando Sports Foundation, is bringing teams together to find a cure for cancer.
“The research that we are supporting is the research that will help fight cancer no matter which tissue it’s in. That research will benefit all. We are riding the pink wave that was started by Estee Lauder back in the day. Their company actually created that pink ribbon. We are continuing to raise money for cancer research.”
Two members of the all-female radio crew have direct ties to the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl. She is the sports director for the local CBS affiliate, WKMG, and served as the radio play-by-play voice of the Orlando Apollos from the former Alliance of American Football. Newman spent the fall as a sideline reporter for the Liberty Flames six home games on ESPN+ and was part of the first all-female radio broadcast for a professional baseball game.
The third member of the broadcast crew is Dani Welniak, who is the sports director for CBS affiliate KCTV in Kansas City, Mo. Welniak’s experience includes four seasons as the sideline analyst/reporter for the Kansas City Chiefs Radio Network.
“We’ve had an opportunity to do a lot of firsts with the Cure Bowl and with the move to Exploria Stadium, we just feel like the energy is going to be the highest ever for the Cure Bowl.”
Kickoff between the Georgia Southern Eagles from the Sun Belt Conference and the Liberty Flames is set for 2:30 p.m. on December 21st.
This story first appeared in The NightCap, CollegeAD’s evening newsletter. The NightCap delivers the day’s college athletics news in simple bullet points, giving you what you need to know in just a few lines. Get The NightCap today.