Jenny Taft takes a seat in the shade. It is late morning in Irvine, California, and this represents a rare moment away from the spotlight for the FOX Sports reporter, who is spending this summer’s World Cup embedded with the USMNT. For once, she can take a moment to relax and reflect.
Because when those cameras start rolling – at the team hotel or training base or on the sideline – Taft knows millions will be tuning in. Including her most important critic: four-year-old Georgie ‘Gigi’ Taft. ‘She sees me on TV, so that’s wild,’ Taft, 38, tells the Daily Mail. ‘She’ll go: “Oh, mom’s working.”‘
Being away from her daughter and her husband – ex-NHL star Matt Gilroy – is the hardest part of this assignment. Record TV audiences bring huge pressure, too.
But the FOX Sports star knows this job is also a privilege. Arguably no one – outside Mauricio Pochettino’s players and staff – will enjoy a better view of the USA’s World Cup campaign on home soil.
‘This is the most access I’ve ever had with a national team coach,’ says Taft, who is covering her sixth World Cups across men and women. ‘I do believe I’ve earned that trust.’
She began forging those bonds long before this summer and, in truth, Taft’s journey to the sidelines of this World Cup began at off-road bike races, dog shows in New York, and back home in Minnesota, where she grew up as the daughter of an Olympic hockey star.
FOX Sports reporter Jenny Taft spoke to the Daily Mail about her journey to the World Cup
This summer, Taft is embedded with Mauricio Pochettino’s US Men’s National Team
Taft played soccer as a youngster before walking on to the lacrosse team at Boston University
The FOX Sports reporter is married to former NHL and United States star Matt Gilroy
Now Taft has a front-row seat for what promises to be a wild journey. Pochettino’s team set this tournament ablaze with wins over Paraguay and Australia, sealing top spot in Group D even before defeat by Turkey.
With those two results, Taft says, ‘this could not have started in a better way for the US, for this fan base, for a World Cup on home soil.’
She continues: ‘To see the belief from the players, to see the fans get excited in a new way that I think will change soccer in America, that’s what excites me the most.’
So far, nothing has proven more stirring than hearing Lumen Field sing ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ after the USA’s win over Australia.
‘As reporters, we so often are able to kind of turn off the emotion of the moment,’ Taft says. Not then, though. ‘I did get a little choked up. I love a flyover, I love the national anthem, but it felt different… we’ve just been hoping and waiting for that.’
Those group games became the top three most-watched USMNT World Cup telecasts in English-language US history. They attracted a combined audience of more than 50million on FOX and Taft, like everyone else, has enjoyed watching the network’s studio squad of Alexi Lalas, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry and anchor Rebecca Lowe.
The relationship between controversial ex-USMNT star Lalas and his fellow analysts has been one of the more fascinating subplots of this tournament and Taft is eager to see how it ‘evolves.’
‘Alexi is a great teammate,’ she says. ‘He understands polarizing television.’ Taft considers Lowe the best host in soccer ‘hands down.’ She is a big fan of Ibrahimovic and Henry, too. ‘I randomly speak French, so I love to like practice with Thierry,’ she reveals.
The 38-year-old first joined FOX Sports North in 2011 and over the last decade and a half, she has worked as an anchor and reporter, covering soccer, college football, hockey, motocross, baseball… and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. The annual New York event dates back to 1877.
Taft has spent the last few weeks at the USMNT hotel and training base in California
Pochettino’s team secured top spot in Group D with wins over Paraguay and Australia
This summer, Taft says, fans are ‘excited in a new way that will change soccer in America’
‘I know way too much about 206 dog breeds,’ Taft says with a smile. ‘It’s one of the more nerve-wracking jobs I’ve ever had.’ Why? ‘It’s their World Cup,’ she explains. ‘If you get to Westminster, there’s no prize money, it’s just for bragging rights, for the love of the game.’
But that experience taught also Taft one important lesson: ‘Never say no.’
Hence why, for two seasons, she covered ‘BattleBots,’ the TV show that pits robot designers against one another. ‘Incredible,’ Taft says. ‘The smartest people I’ve ever met – some of them are MIT professors, some of them work for NASA.’
No assignment, though, proved more consequential than motocross. She didn’t know much about off-road motorcycle racing but it became Taft’s ‘first big break’. In a remarkable twist of fate, her coverage was being re-broadcast in the offices of longtime FOX executive, David Neal, around the time he was on the hunt for a reporter to cover the USWNT at the 2015 World Cup.
That summer changed Taft’s life. She was in Canada as Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Co led the US to a third title.
‘I looked up to the way they changed the game and changed women’s sports in America,’ Taft says. ‘I’ll never forget that.’ She grew close to Carli Lloyd, who scored a hattrick in the final against Japan. They’re both mothers now and very soon they will launch a podcast together.
‘It’s going to be about soccer,’ Taft reveals. ‘But [also] mom life and how you balance it all – maybe there is no way of balancing it all.’
This summer, though, Taft’s focus will be on the USMNT. She played soccer as a youngster and wishes now that she had not stopped at high school. But her focus centered around tennis, ice hockey and lacrosse. She ended up walking on to the lacrosse team at Boston University.
During her broadcasting career, she has also covered the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
Taft is pictured with her four-year-old daughter, Gigi, who enjoys playing soccer
Like Taft’s father, Matt Gilroy played in the NHL and represented the US at the Winter Olympics
That means she can empathize, in some ways, with Pochettino’s players. ‘I understand the grind… the mental drain of it,’ Taft says.
Her career behind the microphone has also been shaped by her father, John, who played in the NHL and captained the United States at the 1976 Winter Olympics.
‘I think the biggest thing having a dad that was an athlete [was] he always believed in me and put me in sports playing with the guys,’ Taft says. ‘I played ice hockey my whole life and I always had a confidence that I deserved to have a seat at the table.’
That ‘drives’ her now, too, as a female reporter covering men’s sports. Taft’s mother, Mary, meanwhile, competed as a speed skater and her younger brother, Charlie, played hockey in Germany and now works on the production side at FOX.
When not on the road, Jenny lives in Boston with her own young family. Like Taft’s father, Gilroy played in the NHL and represented the US at a Winter Olympics. ‘He lived his dream and is so happy to support mine,’ Taft says.
Their daughter has fallen in love with hockey – ‘she enjoys the snacks at the hockey rink,’ Taft says. ‘She also just wants to go in the locker room and fist bump the guys.’
But this summer, the World Cup is constantly blaring out of their TV and Gigi is honing her skills. ‘She has a soccer ball at home… she’s dribbling a bit and wanting to pass,’ Taft says. ‘Those are moments that change the game and change the way Americans view soccer… I think we’ll all look back at 2026 and go: that was [the] turning point.’
