Rooks’s athlete interviews often go viral—as do her stylish game-day outfits.Photograph by Cooper Neill via AP When the Super Bowl kicks off on February 8, Taylor Rooks will be watching live from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. It’s familiar territory for the Gwinnett County nativ e, who hosts Prime Video’s NBA broadcasts and reports for the streamer’s Thursday Night Football: Rooks’s uncle Marv Woodson played for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints. But that’s not all. Her dad, Thomas Rooks, is a former college football player, and her great-uncle Lou Brock was a Hall of Fame left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. Rooks always knew she wanted to follow in their footsteps. But rather than being in the thick of the action, she draws on her childhood spent around athletes to show audiences what makes these sporting superstars tick. A lot of my first sports memories involve my family members. I remember going to University of Illinois football games because that’s where my dad played. We would go up to St. Louis to watch my great-uncle throw out the first pitch on his birthdays. Sometimes I’d get to go on the mound and throw it out there with him. I always had a different understanding of what it meant to be an athlete. Eventually I realized that most people see athletes as otherworldly, whereas I saw them more as normal people that just had otherworldly talent. I have an understanding of what it means to be an athlete because of what I saw growing up. At eight, I practiced being in front of the camera with a hairbrush. I was obsessed with E! True Hollywood Story. I would sneak to watch Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey. I’d even watch the local news with my mom and notice how anchors would change their cadence. There was always something really cool to me about speaking to masses of people about something that you feel is important. As a broadcaster for NBA on Prime Video, my role is to help the talent on the desk shine. It’s like if I’m the point guard, I disperse the ball. I put them in good situations. I want to make everyone else look good. I want to create a fun and entertaining product for the viewer. As a reporter for Thursday Night Football, my job is to have a compelling conversation. I want my interviews to feel like conversations rooted in curiosity. I want to combine the nonathlete perspective with my knowledge of the sports ecosystem, and for the athlete to feel comfortable enough to open up and say something that the viewer has not heard before. I think I have a finger on the pulse of what people want to know about the athletes they’re watching every night. My first Super Bowl as a reporter was in Atlanta in 2019. My mom got to come to some of the parties with me because I was working for Bleacher Report. She loved it. My mom loves the Falcons: We moved to Georgia when I was six years old, and I lived in Gwinnett County all the way up until I went to college. When we would go to football games [when I was growing up], it was a very normal experience. I understood that sometimes I was doing things because I was with former players. But most of the time I was just attending a game with my mom. The Super Bowl is the biggest week in sports. You go to all the events, network, have fun, make business deals. It’s a celebration and spectacle. Everything is larger than life. But everything is leading up to that Sunday. The last Super Bowl was probably my favorite one because my best friend [Saquon Barkley] won. The Eagles won; it was Saquon’s birthday—it was a crazy, crazy night. Eventually you start rooting more for people and less for teams. This article appears in our February 2026 issue. The post Taylor Rooks knows what makes athletes tick appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. ...read more read less