Host, ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown"
Samantha Ponder: Biography at a Glance
- Samantha Steele Ponder is an American television broadcaster and the current host of Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN.
- Prior to covering the NFL, Ponder was a host and reporter for ESPN’s College Gameday, College Football Live, and ABC’s Saturday Night Primetime and also served as the sideline reporter for college basketball.
- Outside of game coverage, Ponder hosted the ESPY’s Red Carpet Show, BattleBots on ABC, The Scripps National Spelling Bee on ABC, and has appeared on shows like The View and Jimmy Kimmel Live.
- The Steele family founded Make a Difference (MAD) to provide a safe community and spiritual encouragement to at-risk youth through sports, employment, and travel. MAD has since expanded to the Middle East, Africa, and South America.
Media
Biography
Samantha Steele Ponder is an American television broadcaster and the current host of Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN since 2017. Prior to covering the NFL, Ponder was a host and reporter for ESPN’s College Gameday, College Football Live, and ABC’s Saturday Night Primetime with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit. She also served as the sideline reporter for Tuesday Night and Saturday Night Primetime college basketball with Mike Tirico. Outside of game coverage, Ponder hosted the ESPY’s Red Carpet Show, BattleBots on ABC, The Scripps National Spelling Bee on ABC, and has appeared on shows like The View and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Before joining ESPN full-time, she helped launch Longhorn Network in 2011 and was a reporter and columnist for Fox College Sports in 2010.
Ponder got her start in broadcasting at age 18 as an intern at ABC Sports Radio in New York City while attending The King’s College in Manhattan. She transferred to Arizona State University while maintaining an internship at ABC Sports Television in New York on weekends and hosting a sports talk radio show in Phoenix during the week. Liberty University hired Ponder as the sideline reporter for all football and men’s and women’s basketball games airing nationally on MASN, until she graduated in 2009.
Born Samantha Steele in Phoenix, Arizona, Ponder’s love of sport developed as the daughter of a coach, spending the majority of her childhood on a field or court. The Steele family founded Make a Difference (MAD) Ministries in 1978 to provide a safe community and spiritual encouragement to at-risk youth through sports, employment, and travel. MAD has since expanded to the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Her father, Jerry Steele, is the former head basketball coach of the Palestinian National Team and the South Sudan National Team. Alongside her sister, Jamaica, and brothers Barron and Jerrod, Ponder attended Central High School in downtown Phoenix.
In 2012, she married Christian Ponder, a former NFL Quarterback and founder of The Post, an exclusive membership community for former collegiate and professional athletes. The couple has three children, Scout, True, and Price, and reside in New York City.
