Cari Champion

Cari Champion
Champion during a broadcast of First Take in 2014
Born	June 1, 1975 (1975-06) (age 41) Pasadena, California, U.S.
Alma mater	UCLA
Occupation	Broadcast journalist, television personality
Notable credit(s)	Tennis Channel (2009–12) First Take (2012–15) SportsCenter (2015–present)
Website	carichampion.com

Cari Champion (born June 1, 1975) is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. She has worked as an anchor and reporter for the Tennis Channel and as the host of ESPN2's First Take. In July 2015, Champion became an anchor for ESPN's flagship program SportsCenter.

Champion was born and raised in Pasadena, California. Champion attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she majored in English and minored in mass communications. She wrote for the Daily Bruin and was inspired to pursue a career in journalism by UCLA alumni, including Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times, who spoke in her classes. Champion was drawn to journalism with goals of transforming negative stereotypes of African Americans: "I wanted to give people a voice that didn't have a voice. I'm always fighting for the underdog. I don't know where I got it from, but I've been like that all my life. That's why I love journalism." In her junior year, she studied in Washington, D.C. and earned an internship at CNN. Champion graduated from UCLA in 1998, with an English degree.

Champion began her broadcasting career at several television stations. She moved to West Virginia for her first reporting job. She later said of working there: "I was a one-man-band carrying a camera and a tripod and that was God-awful. But I loved it because I wanted to do it. I always wanted to be a reporter." She was a reporter at the Orange County Newschannel in Santa Ana, California before joining WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida in the same capacity in 2002.