For the first time in history, Fox Sports with an all-female announcing crew for D.C. United match

Lisa Byington, Danielle Slaton and Katie Witham are making sports history

For coverage of D.C. United’s match Sunday against the New England Revolution, Fox Sports has assigned a former U.S. national soccer team defender to handle analysis and a one-time college player with years of sports broadcasting experience to do the play-by-play. The sideline reporter has worked MLS games since 2005.

Based on those portfolios, FS1’s presentation from Audi Field won’t differ much from other matches. This one, however, is unique, because for the first time on the national broadcast of a U.S. men’s pro soccer match — it is believed, for the first time in any of the country’s five major men’s professional team sports leagues — the announcing team will be entirely female.

Lisa Byington will call the evening match. Danielle Slaton will join her in the booth and Katie Witham will work at field level.

“I’m excited to be a part of history but looking forward to the day when it isn’t so historic,” Slaton said this week. “We’ll just go out and do our jobs like we do every day and keep the game as the main focus and try to have some fun.”

All spoke about the significance of the all-female crew and how they hoped it would continue breaking down barriers for women interested in pursuing announcing jobs in men’s sports leagues.

They all cited advances in the business, led by the likes of Beth Mowins (NFL), Doris Burke (NBA), Jessica Mendoza (Major League Baseball) and Aly Wagner (2018 World Cup in Russia).

Doing their job well, they emphasized, would outweigh their gender.

“It’s an honour to be a part of this and be able to take a step forward,” Witham said. “And it’s my hope that, after this game is said and done, nobody will be talking about it, because then they will not have looked at us as females calling a male professional soccer game. They will be looking at us like play-by-play, analysts and reporters covering an event.”

To varying degrees, all played soccer and have covered the sport professionally.

Witham played at Capital University — a Division III program in Columbus, Ohio — and began her broadcast career in earnest in 2005 as the sideline reporter for MLS’s Columbus Crew. She has been affiliated with Fox Sports’s soccer coverage for nine years, including national team matches. She has also worked games for the Big Ten Network and contributed to MLS’s digital operations.

Slaton, a former Santa Clara University star, made 43 appearances (26 starts) for the U.S. national team between 1999 and 2003.

Byington has the least experience with pro soccer. Her primary assignments are football and basketball, and last fall, she became the first woman to do playby-play for a Big Ten Network football game.

Skepticism about a woman calling a men’s game, in any sport, has begun to recede, all three said. Yet some fans continue to doubt a woman’s capacity to provide accurate and insightful coverage.

“If you can do a good job calling a game and being insightful and bringing knowledge to the fans,” Slaton said, “it doesn’t really matter whether you are a man or woman.”