ABOUT
Kimmi Chex has spent her career being the person two rooms don't expect to trust the same way — the NFL league office and the production truck. Most people are fluent in one. She came up speaking both, thanks to a non-traditional start in sports.
In 2018, the NFL put her through its Junior Rotational Program as a business analyst, cycling through International Media & Business Development, Fan Database Marketing, Event Revenue & Strategy, and Digital Media. Four rotations at 22 years old, learning how the most powerful league in American sports operates strategically and financially. When the NFL tapped her on-air in 2020, she brought the business brain with her instead of trading it in.
Since then, she's anchored and led NFL Network's biggest shows including NFL Total Access, GameDay Morning, Fantasy Live, and more. Beyond the studio, she's covered the Super Bowl, the NFL Draft, and the Scouting Combine as a live in-venue host, and built social-first programming for viewers who scroll before they watch. She teamed up with NFL x Snapchat to develop "Real Talk with the NFL," a series built around the league's social justice initiatives, athlete voices, and Black culture's ties to the game.
At the NFL Scouting Combine, that access goes further. Chex has spent years on-field, catching top prospects the moment their drills end. Her superpower has been making the interview feel less like talking to a journalist and more like a conversation with someone who came up alongside them, two contemporaries each actualizing the same dream in a different role: one as the player, the other as the one telling his story.
That same instinct is what she's built her live-hosting career on. Six years running, Chex has hosted the NFL Draft live, standing in the gap between a venue of 600,000-plus screaming fans and a 21-year-old about to hear his name called. The crowd wants energy and the player deserves a moment that isn't rushed past for television. Holding both, live, is where Chex found her sweet spot.
Her hosting range keeps stretching well past NFL Network. She's entering her fourth year as preseason sideline reporter and ancillary host for the Kansas City Chiefs, in-venue host and emcee for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, host of the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, and in-venue host for the inaugural Enhanced Games. Keynotes, corporate off-sites, and moderated panels have taken her from Cannes to her alma mater, the University of Iowa.
What excites Chex most now is building original content and formats of her own, and understanding how brands and networks think about content strategy before a single frame is shot. That's the part of the business she trained for first, and the part she still cares about most.
She's been recognized as part of the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30, The Athletic's 40 Under 40, and Front Office Sports' 25 Under 25. She graduated with honors from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in Journalism & Mass Communication and a Certificate in Critical Cultural Competence.
Off camera, Chex sits on the Board of Trustees at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) and serves as a board member and strategic advisor for United WE, a non-partisan, national nonprofit advancing women's economic impact. Public service, for her, is the same read-the-room instinct that got her into an NFL boardroom at 22 years old.