Season 26 of 'The Bachelor' Has Recruited This Trailblazer in Female Sportscasting
By Toni SuttonJan. 31 2022, Published 3:48 p.m. ET
Don't worry, Bachelor nation — there's a new episode of The Bachelor airing on Jan. 31. In Episode 4, audiences will see the suitresses set off to international destinations to find love with Clayton Echard. Clayton is following in the footsteps of Michelle Young, whose season of The Bachelorette was the first in the COVID-19 pandemic era to include travel. Before The Bachelor contestants break out their passports, their first stop will be in Houston, Texas.
Clayton will have a one-on-one date with Rachel Recchia, and in the preview of Clayton and Rachel's nighttime portion of their one-on-one date, he says, "She makes me really just forget about everything else that's going on. I haven't had these feelings in a long time." Furthermore, the ladies's fate of who will score a group date will be decided by a football match, called The Bachelor Bowl football classic.
The women will be divided into two teams where the winners will get an after-party with Clayton, and the losers will go home. Special guests Texans defensive end Jonathan Greenard and linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill will serve as the ladies's mentors for the game, and hosts Jessie Palmer and Hannah Storm will lend a hand with sidesplitting commentary during the game. Many fans of the franchise may not know who Hannah is, so keep scrolling to find out more about the legendary sports anchor.
So, who is Hannah Storm?
Some fans may remember that Hannah's story was actually a part of The Bachelor Winter Games, which aired back in 2018. The competition that added winter sports and an international slate of contestants aired a total of four episodes during the 2019 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. We understand if you blocked out the underwhelming series, because we did. Hannah Storm and Ashley Brewer lent some much-needed sports authority to the commentator lineup.
Hannah Storm, whose real name is Hannah Storen, has over three decades of sportscasting experience under her belt. She first began sportscasting in the mid-1980s on a rock station in Houston, and eventually worked her way up to host the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets half-time and post-game shows. From there, Hannah went on to work at a local news station in Charlotte, N.C. as a weekend sports anchor and then moved onto the big national stages at CNN, CBS, and NBC, blazing trails all the way.
She was CNN Sports Tonight's first female host, the first woman to host a network sports solo (NBC's Major League Baseball games), and the first play-by-play announcer for the WNBA. Hannah isn't just a one-trick pony. In the early 2000s, the sportscaster reported hard-hitting news and pop culture as a co-host of The Early Show on CNN before finally making her way to ESPN. Throughout her career, Hannah has covered the Olympics, the NBA finals and, Wimbledon.
In 2018, she and Andrea Kember made history when they became the first female duo to call an NFL game on an Amazon Prime stream of Thursday Night Football. Currently, Hannah is an anchor on the network's SportsCenter Face to Face. Since 1994 the 59-year-old has been married to famed sportscaster Dan Hicks, and the couple has three daughters named Ellery, Riley, and Hannah, who are all adults now.
It will be fun seeing Hannah cover sports again on The Bachelor, as well as watching the ladies battle it out to win the group date with Clayton.
The Bachelor airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. EST on ABC.
