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EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — The jokes started early and often, and the 1,000-watt smiles rarely stopped.
“You guys are looking lovely in those pink bibs,” NBC’s eagle-eyed soccer anchor Rebecca Lowe said before rehearsal to the unsuspecting crew of workers tasked with getting the Premier League’s studio show off to a roaring start before Everton took the pitch against Bournemouth.
While the laughs had everyone in a good mood, minutes later, the reality of the situation soon faced Lowe and her analysts, Tim Howard and Robbie Earle, when they walked through a tunnel and onto their workstations for the day.
The task of doing a pre-game show before NBC’s first broadcast this year of the Premier League’s Summer Series in New Jersey in the 90-degree heat at MetLife Stadium with no shade to be found wasn’t lost on anyone. But Lowe, Howard, and Earle (the other regular analyst Robbie Mustoe was not present for this assignment) put on their professional hats and performed their tasks without complaint.
The team is usually in more comfortable confines at NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, but what makes the show unique is the easy camaraderie and chemistry of any sports studio show, including “Inside the NBA,” whose viral hijinks get more attention than actual basketball analysis.
When the network paid $250 million for the rights to broadcast the Premier League in the United States in 2012, beating bids from ESPN and Fox, it was up to Pierre Moossa, the coordinating producer of NBC Sports’ Premier League coverage, to find the mix of talent for the studio show that was both knowledgeable and could translate the game to those who didn’t live and breathe soccer.
He had less than a year to accomplish that task and to answer the question of whether Americans are going to pay attention to any type of soccer outside their every four-year curiosity about the World Cup. Moossa took his concerns to Mustoe, asking him how they were going to fill the many hours of programming, but also find a way to bridge the geographical gap between England and the United States.
Mustoe, who played for Oxford United and Middlesbrough during his almost two-decade playing career, told him there is always something to talk about in the league and not to worry.
“There was also a large fan base that wasn’t familiar with the Premier League, so our job was to create a very welcoming and inclusive broadcast that super-served the hard-core fans but also welcomed and introduced a new fan base to what makes the Premier League so special,” Moossa said to USA TODAY Sports. “Rebecca and the Robbies are the perfect team to create destination Premier League viewing each weekend from the early morning into the afternoon.”
Studio show vibes
What is immediately apparent watching Lowe and the Robbies is the easy flow of their commentary, as this will be the 12th year they have been together. Tim Howard, who made 121 appearances as a goaltender for the United States national team, joined the studio team full-time beginning in September 2020. Howard also knows a thing or two about the EPL, having played in goal for Manchester United and Everton during his career overseas.
Mustoe said it makes coming to work easy.
“Firstly, we all genuinely like each other — and that makes a massive difference. The banter is real, and it gets us through those long days in the studio,” Mustoe said. “There’s a lot of laughter, a lot of trust, and that natural rapport shows up on screen because it’s authentic. We all care deeply — about the sport, about the viewer, and about doing good work. I think that shared sense of purpose is what makes the chemistry feel so natural.’
What the four don’t do is blur the lines between analysis and criticism, each saying that the play on the pitch dictates what is said on air.
In Lowe’s view, that’s what makes the shows work, because at times she is exactly like those three men and the English Premier League in general, “brutal, sarcastic, and sort of mean.”
Both Howard and Earle, a Jamaican native who scored the country’s first-ever World Cup goal in 1998, said they fully understood when taking this role that they had to come across as authentic, yet provide commentary without worrying about past relationships or hurt feelings.
“I don’t really feel beholden to anybody when I give him my opinion,” Howard said, who is constantly ribbed for his iced coffee obsession. “You have to not make it personal. The pictures tell the story. And my job, our job, is to give our expertise on those pictures. If it’s good or bad or different, we have to explain what that is.’
“But I think you’ve got to be true to yourself and then true to this because people will find you out very quickly,” Earle added.
The fun times don’t stop when the studio show ends, as the communication is constant with both crews in the U.S. and England, and with a chat group.
Earle says he talks to Howard as much as his wife, with a healthy mix of missed calls in between, but the talks are daily among all involved in the production.
“There’s a bond between the group in the studio and the group in the U.K.,” Earle said, “It’s a cliché, but it is like a team, and we do at times banter; it’s healthy. “And we challenge each other, and Becks (their nickname for Lowe) knows if I am tapping my finger, going ‘let me in’ because I want to challenge something that is said.”
And before Earle can continue, comments are made about his shirt, a sort of green concoction with pink patterns.
“Well, I like this shirt,” Earle said, as his colleagues continued to laugh.
Thoughts on the Premier League
While Mustoe thinks it is a little early to make predictions about the season, especially while the transfer market remains active and dynamic, his partners don’t expect much change from last year, when Liverpool blitzed the rest of the league, winning the title by a points margin over Arsenal and Manchester City.
One consensus prediction amongst the four: don’t expect a repeat of the 2015-2016 season, when Leicester City came out of nowhere to take the championship.
“I don’t think there’s a Leicester out there. I wish there was. Yeah. I’m not sure we’ll see that again. I hope we do. But that was a kind of quirk,” Lowe said, who added that if Liverpool gets Newcastle forward Alexander Isak via a transfer, “then we all might as well pack up and go home.”
Liverpool’s offseason spending spree included the addition of Hugo Ekitiké and Florian Wirtz and the return of superstar forward Mohamed Salah, who had 29 goals and 18 assists in the EPL last season.
“Liverpool feels the strongest,” Howard said. “Arsenal has finished second for three years in a row and finally gotten the striker (Viktor Gyökeres from Sporting CP) that I think they needed. So, they could get close. Maybe there is some recency bias from Chelsea, who won the Conference League and Club World Cup.”
NBC’s Premier League coverage for the 2025-26 season starts on August 15 with Liverpool vs AFC Bournemouth at 3 p.m. on USA Network. Nine other matches are slated to be broadcast live throughout the weekend, airing on USA, NBC, or Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service.
The Captain
When asked about the unquestioned leader of the group and how she keeps it together with the strong personalities on set, the banter continues. “She doesn’t really,” Earle said. “We do a great job; without us, she would be nothing.”
The sarcasm in the statement is evident and gets another healthy round of laughter, a constant theme on this day.
“But seriously, every week without fail, there will be 60 seconds to go in a spot, and she will ask you a question that will put you on the spot, and your heart starts beating fast, thinking, ‘Why would you ask me that?’ She does her job and isn’t doing it to be our best friend; she’s doing it to make the best show,” Earle continues. “She sets the standard.”
“She’s a leader. Everyone who watches the show is in love with her,” Howard says. “You think she’s great? Well, she’s even better than that. She is not going to let you fail.”
But about three hours before the first Summer Series doubleheader at the Meadowlands, Lowe is finally done with her hair and makeup and is ready to banter at a moment’s notice for anyone who is within earshot.
Lowe, a 44-year-old dynamo who is originally from west London, is in full control of the set, anchoring the network’s live pre-game, half-time, and post-game coverage, knowing when to interrupt her colleagues or give her analysis when warranted.
“They’ve said some things to me and I never take it as anything but fun, and it just keeps the vibe up as well,” Lowe said. “So, I give as good as I get. And we enjoy each other’s company, and you truly, truly do, because I can’t think of anything worse than spending 10 hours a day on Saturday and 10 hours on a Sunday with people I did not like; that would be awful.”
Lowe honed her skills as a soccer reporter for five years at the British Broadcasting Company, where her father, Chris, was a longtime news presenter, and at ESPN UK. Her foray into America before becoming the U.S. face of the Premier League was spending a year at Mercersburg Academy, a college-preparatory school in Pennsylvania, before she headed off to the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
“There is nobody who has a better editorial sense and a better ability to communicate to the audience than Rebecca Lowe,” Moossa said. “She is an exceptional host, and she is the reason for the success of the team. Her ability to get the best out of everybody on- and off-camera is second to none.”
Lowe is meticulous about her on-camera work because of the fast-paced nature of the shows. Knowing when to step in to interrupt an analyst or having 90 seconds to wrap for commercial and using every bit of the time is a skill, and Lowe’s eagle-eye and sometimes telepathy are also key to making it work.
“I know their faces so well,” she says. “Like when Robbie Mustoe’s nostrils flare when he wants to start talking. So, I know, right, this Robbie’s talking, but I can see the nostrils. It’s a bit like a traffic cop.”
Off-camera, Lowe insists she is just a regular person, being wife and mother to son Teddy, who is “incredibly cheesy in every way,” while binging her favorite reality shows, which she says is her way of decompressing and watching the craziness going on in front of the television.
“So, give me Selling Sunset. Right now, I’m watching Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. That is my absolute go-to. And I’m not taking any complaints. I have spent my entire life listening to soccer podcasts or watching soccer shows.’
Add that to the “super poppy and super new country” music that she listens to, and she certainly gets the side-eye from her co-workers and friends.
“But I don’t care. I’m not 15 anymore.”
While some look forward to the next step in their careers, Lowe isn’t one of those people.
“To be the number one anchor on the world’s number one sports on the biggest network in America, that was always the dream,” Lowe says. “I’m like, you know what’s harder? Staying there. So for me, that endgame is staying where I am right now in any capacity, doing a job that I love at this level with this kind of network is amazing, and I don’t take it for granted any single day.”
This post appeared first on USA TODAY
