Michele Tafoya Age, Salary, Net Worth, Ethnicity, Husband

• Michele Tafoya is a 55-year old Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and reporter who is famous across the globe
• Her ethnicity is unknown, though she is believed to be multiracial
• She grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, and attended the University of California, Berkeley and University of Southern California
• She has been a sportscaster for NBC since 2011, and has won a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality – Sports Reporter three times
• Her net worth is estimated to be over $2 million, and her body measurements are 5ft 9ins tall, 137lbs, 35-25-35, 40B bra size, dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes.

Known for movies

1999 Army-Navy Game (1999)
as Herself - Sideline Reporter

1996 Army-Navy Game (1996)
as Herself - Sideline Reporter

1997 Army-Navy Game (1997)
as Herself - Sideline Reporter

2001 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (2001)
as Herself - Sideline Reporter

Who is Michele Tafoya?

Born Michele Joan Tafoya under the sign of Sagittarius on the 17^th December 1964, in Manhattan Beach, California USA, Michele, and is an Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and reporter. She’s  most famous across the globe thanks to her eight-year long involvement with NBC Sports as a reporter, bringing her into the spotlight at the majority of the most significant sporting events in the US. She’s also had a multitude of other successes over the course of her often lucrative career in journalism since 1993.

What is her ethnicity?

Even though Michele is arguably one of the world’s most popular sportscasters, little is known about her ethnicity, except that she’s at least part-Hispanic

View this post on Instagram

Ayyy mami de cuero Michelle! ? Very sexy and cute black leather poofy sleeve jacket. Loving her penchant for leather but por favor mami im trying to watch football! #leather #blackleather #michelletafoya

A post shared by Rene S. (@thedarkknightress) on Sep 17, 2017 at 9:51pm PDT

Early life: Her father’s daughter

Michele was brought where she was born, by her father Orlando Tafoya, an engineer, and mother Wilma Conley Tafoya, whose profession is unknown. Michele’s childhood was sporting from the outset, thanks to Orlando’s insatiable passion as an avid sports fan. The future star spent a lot of her time watching TV with her father, including learning about rules and regulations in various sports, memorizing individual players, and soaking-up other information that would later prove vital to her career choice. Regarding education, Michele attended an unspecified high school in her birthplace, matriculating from there in 1982. She afterwards enrolled into the University of California, Berkeley, subsequently graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in mass communication/media studies in 1987.

Two years later Michele expanded her academic resume even further, enrolling into the University of Southern California, graduating from there with a master of business administration degree in 1991.

Career: Quality and quantity

Tafoya started her extensive career in sports broadcasting in March 1993, by joining WAQS-AM alongside Gerry Vaillancourt in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was known as Mickey Conley at the time, commentating on the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (UNC) men’s basketball games, effectively becoming the first female reporter to perform that task. She moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota in December of the same year, having gained a reporting job at KFAN sports radio, where she aided broadcasts involving the Minnesota Vikings American Football team, as well as the University of Minnesota women’s basketball team.

At the same time, she performed the hosting job for Minnesota Timberwolves basketball matches, serving as a sideline reporter for the Midwest Sports Channel, and to top it off, also a play-by-play commentator for women’s Big Ten volleyball and basketball. In September 1994, Michele left her previous positions and started reporting games and hosting shows in the studio for “CBS Sports Spectacular”, meanwhile also hosting “At The Half”, thereby covering college football and basketball, as well as the NFL telecasts. Her first on-air appearance took place during the US Open Tennis Championships – she retained these positions for the next five years.

1998 and 1999 – the turning points

Michele entered 1997 as a well-established sports reporter with more possibilities than ever before, at that point also taking up the position as a commentator on WNBA Lifetime.

In 1998 she was chosen to host the CBS Goodwill Games and late-night Winter Olympics programs, but moved on again in 1999, joining ESPN, as well as ABC Sports in early 2000. She held a variety of on-air positions at the time, and performed a multitude of duties simultaneously. Tafoya’s positions remained unchanged until 2004, and then she became the sideline reporter for “Monday Night Football” on ABC, in which position she stayed until the end of 2005. In 2006 she performed the same duty for ESPN’s eponymous program.

She took a break from her main position in October 2008 due to household issues, but returned to the screen in April 2009, this time at WCCO-AM as a replacement for the previous talk radio host for the evening drive time segments, actually through until January 2012, but claimed the best job in her career slightly earlier.

What a ride…. ⁦Thank you, @JeffBurton @SNFonNBC⁩ ⁦@NASCARonNBC⁩ pic.twitter.com/AbpWbux7w6

— Michele Tafoya (@Michele_Tafoya) October 20, 2018

Finally at NBC

In May 2011 it was decided by the managers of ABC Sports that Andrea Kremer be replaced by Michele as the brand-new sideline reporter for their “NBC Sunday Night Football” program. Tafoya happily accepted, and has kept that position since. In September of 2011 she also joined KQRS-FM as the co-host of “The KQ Morning Show”, which she also retains. Over the course of her stay at NBC, she was given various prestigious tasks beside her regular one, such as reporting the swimming competition at the 2016 Rio Olympics., a task she repeated at the 2020 Games.

Michele lest “Saturday Night Football” at the end of the 2021-’22 season, with Super Bowl LVI fittingly being  her final assignment. However, a surprise awaited for her fans.

Straightaway in February 2022, it was announced by  Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls that Tafoya would join his campaign as co-chair, at the conclusion of which she became a freelance reporter, ie working when she felt like it.

Love life: Who is Tafoya’s husband?

Michele’s known romantic involvements are tied to only one man, starting with the day she met financial advisor Mark Vandersall in 1993.

The two dated for seven full years prior to marrying on 30 May 2000, kept a secret from the media, as only their friends and family attended. They initially made numerous attempts at having offspring, but Michele miscarried four times, until her fifth pregnancy turned out successfully, and in 2005 their son Tyler was born. She and Mark stopped trying to have children after the joyous event, but made the decision to adopt a girl called Olivia from Colombia in 2009. The family reside together in Edina, Minnesota, and haven’t been subject to controveriesy.

Childhood difficulties

In an interview with ivillage.com, Michele had the opportunity to talk about her unfortunate struggle with anorexia during her teens.

The accomplished sports reporter explained that she was influenced by peer pressure and advertising to start an extreme forced diet to obtain a better body shape. She thankfully emerged from the situation by the time she’d hit adolescence, but some of the issues followed her through life, one of them involving problems with the uterus, which caused her to have the miscarriages. When asked about the way she edges her children on in life to help them avoid the situation she had, Michele said ‘I always try to let them know that I think they’re beautiful.’ She bases this statement on her previous conclusion: ‘You look at a magazine cover and you say ‘I wish I looked like that.’ Well, why do you wish you looked like that? Because you don’t like yourself the way you are? And why don’t you like yourself the way you are?’

Her awards

As can be read on Michele’s NBC profile page, she is the only person in the history of broadcast journalism to have won the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality – Sports Reporter three times, and the only female to be nominated for it during its eight years of existence. It was stated by the Sn Francisco Chronicle that Michele is ‘widely recognized as the best sideline reporter in sports.’

How high is Michele Tafoya’s salary? What is her net worth?

Michele’s annual income is reputedly over  $200,000, and her net worth is over $2 million as of mid-2024. She garnered her wealth thanks to consistent excellence in reporting for the most prestigious media outlets in the US, most lucratively for NBC since 2011.

Body measurements

The ultra-popular sportscaster’s physical traits are as follows:

• Height: 5ft 9ins (174cm)
• Weight: 137lbs (62kgs)
• Vital statistics: 35-25-35
• Bra size: 40B
• Hair color: Dark brown
• Eye color: Dark brown
• Complexion: Tanned