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BRTF Alumna Amy Audibert takes to airwaves in historic event

Give Amy Audibert the chance to hold a microphone and stand courtside at a basketball game, and it’s unlikely she’d ever say no.

The alumna of Niagara’s Broadcasting – Radio, Television and Film (BRTF) program has taken every opportunity to do just that since she enrolled at the college in 2010 with the hope of marrying her two passions, athletics and communications. 

“Every College sports event I could cover, I was there on the sidelines,” Audibert said. “I did everything on the sidelines.”

On March 24, however, Audibert will take centre stage with four other women as part of an all-female broadcast crew for a televised Toronto Raptors game against the Denver Nuggets. Audibert will host and provide analysis alongside TSN host Kate Beirness and reporter Kayla Grey, national women’s team member Kia Nurse, and play-by-play broadcaster Meghan McPeak.

It’s a historic event — it’s the first time during an NBA broadcast in Canada that a woman will be in every on-air role in a televised game. 

But before Audibert stands in front of the camera, she took to the airwaves in another rarity, calling analysis during the Raptors-Utah Jazz game on TSN 1050 Toronto on March 19. She is the first woman to do that. 

The significance of either event isn’t lost on the Niagara Falls native, who’s hustled for years on and off the court for such a monumental opportunity.

“I’m this little girl who grew up watching the Raptors. My goal has always been to call NBA games,” Audibert said. “What this means for me, it’s to wake up and obviously inspire young women out there to do this but also, it’s to do a great job. I don’t want people to say this is political, it’s a nice gesture. In one way, it’s a huge moment, it’s Canadian history…. In another way, it’s ‘I’m going to wake up and go to work next (week).’ ”

The importance of what Audibert is about to do is also being felt all the way back to the college’s BRTF labs and by one of her earliest broadcast mentors, program co-ordinator Peter “Dutch” VandenBerg.

“I use graduate success stories as a means of motivation for my current students,” VandenBerg said. “Participation in a historic event empowers female students here in what’s typically a male-dominated industry.”

Still, there was a time when Audibert would wake up unsure of what to do in life. 

“I’m in an industry where you hear ‘No’ a million gazillion times. But every season I’m sending off emails, sending my tapes. Even if it’s just a few seconds, I feel it’s important for people to remember who you are.” – Amy Audibert

The A.N. Myer grad who towers 6-foot-2 spent four years playing centre for the University of Miami women’s team while working toward her bachelor and master’s degrees in sports administration. 

She returned to Niagara in 2009 with an expired student visa and to an economy that wasn’t rich with jobs. Audibert determined she would take a year to figure out that weighty question of ‘What next?’

She took a serving job at a nearby casino and visited her grandmother every day. It would prove to be one of her best decisions.

In some aspects, it was one of my favourite years of my life,” Audibert said. “I went from playing college basketball to ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ ”

Enter Niagara College. Among Audibert’s strengths is her ability to communicate. She also found television intriguing. So she applied to the BRTF program and got accepted into the second year as an advanced learner. 

“Everything lined up. I went to Niagara College and haven’t looked back,” Audibert said. 

Amy Audibert reports for TSN with Garth Wheeler from the sidelines of an NBA game. Audibert will be part of an Ask an Alumni with the college on March 31 at 1 p.m.

That could be because she didn’t have time. Audibert was too busy taking every opportunity to work the sidelines of NC Knights games and learning the technology that was covered for her classmates in their first year. (She also took on the role of assistant coach for the college’s women’s basketball team in 2011-12 and the men’s team in 2018-19.)

“She would work so hard,” VandenBerg said. “Part of it is her tenacity, but her work ethic was unbelievable. She’d be here in a Mac lab until 10-11 o’clock at night trying to learn something.”

Audibert put in the time because of a passion for sport but also because of a desire to build on what other women, including Doris Burke, NBA announcer and analyst on ESPN, were doing in sports broadcasting. 

“Doris Burke is one of the greatest TV analysts out there, but other than her, there were not a lot of faces out there,” she noted.

After graduating, Audibert continued putting in the hours on the sidelines, reporting or calling analysis at Canisius College, then for five seasons at the University at Buffalo, which took her to the Sweet 16 during an NCAA March Madness tournament.

Those around her suggested she move to Toronto for greater opportunities in sports journalism, but Audibert is certain opportunities like those across the river came her way because she stayed in Niagara. 

“When I was at Niagara College not even 10 years ago, I never took one rep as an analyst because I didn’t see it as a realistic job for me.” – Amy Audibert

Still, the big city would eventually come calling and it was because Audibert did the knocking.

“I’m in an industry where you hear ‘No’ a million gazillion times. But every season I’m sending off emails, sending my tapes,” she said. “Even if it’s just a few seconds, I feel it’s important for people to remember who you are.” 

She got a sideline reporting gig subbing in with the Raptors 905 in the NBA’s G-league in 2018. After her first season, she was hired at the television colour analyst for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. 

The night before her last game in Atlanta, Audibert got the offer to do analysis for the Raptors 905. She admitted it was a job she didn’t think she’d ever have.

“When I was at Niagara College not even 10 years ago, I never took one rep as an analyst because I didn’t see it as a realistic job for me.”

But thanks to women like Burke, Sarah Kustok, who’s the first full-time female analyst for an NBA team, and now Audibert and a group of women joining her on air on March 24, that’s changing. 

“This is huge. It’s being given the opportunity to be part of something that’s the first, something that didn’t consistently exist when I was growing up” Audibert said. “I don’t want this to be a men versus women issue. This isn’t us taking over. This is us pulling up a chair and saying we can sit at the table, too. It’s not showing anyone is better. It’s showing we can do it, too, and creating that opportunity down the line for others, showing that it’s tangible.”