This is not a sports story.
Taylor Rooks is known for her interview prowess and innate ability to get athletes to open up about life beyond the game, but who is she beyond the game?
The 31-year-old sports broadcaster — who appears on “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video, “NBA on TNT,” and Bleacher Report — has become a celebrity in her own right.
However, she is fairly private about what makes her Taylor: Friend, daughter, partner and person.
The Georgia native currently lives in New York City, where The Post met up with her for a conversation about life, love, confidence, cocktails, friendships and more over breakfast at a quaint spot tucked away in the Financial District area of Lower Manhattan.
Rooks was dressed casually in a maroon sweater, leggings and a black beret hat.
She was headed to a Pilates class at Solidcore, which offers a high-intensity, low-impact full-body workout on a Pilates-type of reformer, after the interview.
“You have to try!” Rooks said, excitedly, as she sipped a fruity mocktail with her meal: lox, smashed avocado and one poached egg.
Pilates is one of the ways Rooks unplugs from her busy schedule and her phone to focus on her well-being.
After that, she had plans to run some errands before catching a flight to Baltimore, where the Ravens beat the Bengals on “Thursday Night Football.”
It was one of her usual four to six flights she takes per week.
“I was looking at my calendar for last month and I only slept in my bed for nine nights,” she quipped.
“Crazy, because even on top of [covering] the NFL, the NBA, I’ll do a bunch of marketing stuff. So, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to leave the game and come home just to leave the next day.”
Rooks was thrilled that she will be back home in New York this week for the first-ever NFL game on Black Friday, airing exclusively on Prime Video, when the Jets host the Dolphins at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 24.
When she’s not working, Rooks lives a simple life
“I hang out with my pup,” she said about her Goldendoodle. “I love my Bean. I hang out with my partner. I love to read… watch a movie. Honestly to me, the off-day means nothing. It means sitting on the couch. I always tell people, my couch is my favorite place. My couch means the absolute most to me because my home to me is so peaceful.”
Those walls help foster her relationships.
Rooks prides herself on being a loyal friend and a supportive — but brutally honest — big sister to 25-year-old Ryan Rooks, who currently does political fundraising with local chapters in Georgia.
If there is a birthday, she’s getting on the next flight to whichever city her friends are celebrating in.
She’s not much of a drinker but enjoys red wine.
“I like Pinot Noir,” she said. “That’s mainly what I do.”
She tries to stay away from hard liquor, as it makes her feel tired, but she’ll make an exception for Jack Daniels.
“This career has not been a fluke. This career has been incredibly thought out. It has been worked incredibly hard for.”
“My friends and I do a lot of eating and going to lounges. We also love to travel,” she said, adding that Tokyo is on her bucket list for 2024 after checking off Iceland earlier this year.
Rooks went on to name a few of her favorite spots around New York City, including Mezcali, SAGA, 4 Charles and Fini Pizza.
“Oh! I’m at Zero Bond like once a week for their crispy tuna rice,” she said.
Conversation and sharing laughs with friends over food is a successful night for Rooks.
“My friend Samantha always says that ‘there’s a human being and human doing,’” she said. “What we do for work, that’s a human doing. But whenever somebody asks us about ourselves, we always talk about our work.
“So she always says, ‘Well, what is a human being?’ Like, what are you when you were are a being? And I honestly think about that all the time because I think it’s really true.”
An airplane is an escape.
“It’s the one place where no one can contact you. I always tell people for perspective, I hit Delta Diamond Medallion status in May this year,” she said, laughing.
“Planes are actually very peaceful for me. I get so much work done. I get a lot of reading done that I want to do. If there’s a show I want to watch, I can do that.
“But planes to me are like private time. I don’t text, it’s nothing like that. I only work or take time for myself… It’s silence, so I enjoy the rides to an extent.”
Her social calendar is filled
Last week, she flew to Las Vegas for 48 hours for a Jack Daniels event at the Formula 1 race.
It’s become a whirlwind life of red carpets, movie premieres and A-list parties.
Some of her close friends include Giants running back Saquon Barkley, rappers Drake and Jack Harlow, actresses La La Anthony and Anna Kendrick, and WNBA legend Sue Bird.
Rooks joined Harlow on stage, along with a number of stars, during his performance at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.
She also modeled in a campaign for Drake’s OVO clothing brand earlier this year.
Rooks also attends Michael Rubin’s star-studded Fourth of July White Party every year.
She hosted an intimate dinner with Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry in Cannes, France, in June.
‘Outside of [work] and what I do, who am I?’
One word Rooks repeatedly used to describe herself is “warm.”
“I think that that permeates in my personal life and my professional life,” she said.
“I would say that I am a very bubbly, outgoing kind of person. I genuinely will talk to anyone. I love talking to people. People excite me. I like learning about others. I really like learning and reading about different perspectives. That’s also why I try to read books by people that are something that I’m not, because how will I know about that perspective if I don’t learn about it?
“I really like food. I really love animals. I would say I’m an incredibly trustworthy person when it comes to my friendships. I always show up. I won’t miss a birthday. I will fly in, fly out if I have to. I like making people feel good.”
Rooks made it clear that she unapologetically loves herself.
“I’m not saying that in a weird way,” she said. “I feel like everyone should say this, I genuinely love myself, and I don’t think that we say that enough about ourselves. I really love myself.”
She doesn’t lack confidence
She did her first national TV hit at age 19, and humbly, knows she’s the real deal.
“I am so proud of my career,” a smiling Rooks said. “I’m so proud of everything I’ve accomplished. There’s always going to be people that are naysayers [and] people that doubt you.
“… I’m 31 now. This career has not been a fluke. This career has been incredibly thought out. It has been worked incredibly hard for.”
Rooks said her career journey from the Big Ten Network, to SNY, and now Bleacher Report, TNT and “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video has been “really intentional.”
“Knowing everything I have done and everything I am capable of even people that have whatever to say, it can’t mean anything because the proof is in the pudding,” she said.
“I genuinely believe this when I say I think women should say that they’re good at things more than they do because men say they’re good at things all the time.
“Sometimes you feel like you have to put a disclaimer on saying like, ‘Oh, no, I’m really good at the job.’ … because you think saying the truth about your work means that you’re being cocky or too into yourself.
“Meanwhile, Jimmy Butler can say ‘I’m the best basketball player in the world and LeBron James can call himself ‘king.’”
It’s a similar message she said she would hope to instill in her younger sister.
“I think what I would tell her specifically is that it’s really important to be real with people, but specifically women,” Rooks said. “When I was growing up, I was always kind of told that, you know, eventually the world treats women better.
“I think that in some ways, that is true. But I think I would have really benefited from somebody saying, ‘This s–t is actually really hard.’
“I always say this, they might not ever treat you better, but you will get better. So I would tell my sister, like what you can control as yourself and for the rest of your life, the world will either tell you you’re too much, you’re not good enough, that you are less than, that you aren’t deserving of X, Y and Z, but that that just genuinely doesn’t matter. But I would never tell her that that stuff won’t happen because it will.
“I think it’s really more important to be armored and with the tools to not care when that stuff happens. And so I would just want her to hone in on like I am social and who I am, that who you say I am is legitimately inconsequential to me.”
Rooks somewhat followed in her parents’ footsteps.
She majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, just like her mother, Stephanie.
Her father, Thomas, played football for Illinois and is considered one of the best running backs in Illini history.
While legacy is very important to Rooks, she’s carving her own path.
What’s next?
Rooks understands that goals can change and evolve, and now she wants to attract a new demographic to her world of meaningful conversation.
“If I’m walking somewhere, normally a man will see me and I’ll get stopped,” she said. “If I’m at a sporting event, I’ll get stopped all the time.
“It’s something that I’ve actually been thinking a lot about. I guess it’s just the nature of the business that men are the demographic. But I really, really, really, really want women to be more of a demographic of mine. That’s the group that I care the most about.
“But when you do sports, I feel like at this point, if you say my name in the sports world, someone would know who I am or they see my work. If you go into like a supermarket, they wouldn’t.
“I think that that is the part that’s important, how do you establish a crossover, right? How are you interviewing people that are of general interest to others as opposed to just people that are interested in sports?
“So with my interviews, what I try my best to do is make it about them as a human. I want to attack more of that non-sports fan.”
In many ways, she’s already doing that.
She has an eye for fashion
She isn’t in a box that is just labeled “journalist.”
With 622,000 followers on Instagram and more 305,000 on X, Rooks is a bona fide social media influencer.
Her “get ready with me” TikTok videos ahead of “Thursday Night Football” are a behind-the-scenes diary of every beauty and fashion lover’s dreams.
But a lot goes into planning her looks each week, which is why she has her makeup artist, Haley Andrews, and stylist Kennedy.
“So my stylist and I, in the beginning of the season, we get an idea of what I want my looks to be for that year,” she said. “Then we’ll do a chart of what I’m wearing for each game, and bigger games, maybe we’ll try to get a little more fancy with the outfit. “
She’s wearing a holiday-inspired outfit for the Black Friday game.
Rooks sought inspiration for her “Thursday Night Football” wardrobe from two popular television characters, Gina Torres’ character (Jessica Pearson) on “Suits” or Kerry Washington’s character (Olivia Pope) in “Scandal.”
“I really enjoy that uniformity of it,” she said. “I do believe that your body is the accessory. You don’t have to do too much. It just has to fit you right, and look clean and tailored.”
One of her favorite and most comfortable gameday looks was a stunning black, red and white set by Alice and Olivia that featured a Barton cropped vegan leather varsity jacket and Oliver Side Stripe High Waist Flare Trousers.
As for her gameday makeup must-haves? Rooks prefers Nars concealer, One/Size by Patrick Starrr setting Spray, Mac Fresh Moroccan Lipstick and any kind of stripped lashes.
Read more
