ESPN Re-Signs NFL Analyst to Large Multi-Year Contract

A popular ESPN NFL analyst is not going anywhere. On Monday, ESPN announced it has re-signed Mina Kimes to a multi-year contract. She will remain on NFL Live and The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny. In September, the New York Post reported that Kimes and ESPN signed a new contract that will pay her a little more than $1.7 million per year. She also has a separate deal with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions for her podcast. 

Kimes, 38, has been with ESPN since 2014 when she was writing for ESPN The Magazine. In June 2020, Kimes was named an NFL an NFL analyst, joining NFL Live. She has also been seen on SportsCenter, First Take and Around the Horn. In October, Kimes revealed the birth of her baby boy while watching Monday Night Football. 

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Earlier this year, Kimes appeared on The Pivot podcast and talked about the challenges of being an NFL analyst. “I used to be so nervous about f—ing up,” Kimes said, per Barret Sports Media. “Paralyzed. Some of that is because of my identity…I was very anxious about making mistakes. I was constantly like ‘Who the hell cares what Mina Kimes thinks of this team?’. Because when you’re a reporter, you’re bringing people a story. People reading it cause they’re interested in Jalen Ramsey.”

“When you’re an analyst, you kind of are the story. You’re the expert, and I just always felt like — when you guys (former NFL players) come to being analysts, you bring instant credibility. I always felt like I had zero credibility. The only way I could build credibility was doing it and doing it for a while. I feel like I have to prove myself every single time. I still feel like that.”

Kimes is one of the rising stars at ESPN, and some think she could work for an NFL team in the future. “The sky’s the limit on-air,” ESPN analyst and former NFL offensive lineman Jeff Saturday told the New York Post last year. “I think she could work for a team. I think she sees the games from an analytics perspective as well as anybody. We are coming to a place in our game where you can use analytics for decision-making in games and that sort of thing, but [also] players and player performance.”