{"id":2266808,"date":"2026-02-04T19:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2266808"},"modified":"2026-02-04T19:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:33:13","slug":"espn-hiring-sports-gossip-influencer-lily-shimbashi-to-mold-entertainment-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/espn-hiring-sports-gossip-influencer-lily-shimbashi-to-mold-entertainment-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN hiring sports gossip influencer Lily Shimbashi to mold entertainment coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>ESPN is adding Lily Shimbashi, the founder of Sportsish, to its creator sector.<\/p>\n<p>The Worldwide Leader reportedly is finalizing a two-year deal with the influencer to serve as a full-time creator for major events, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/espn-finalizing-two-year-deal-influencer-lily-shimbashi\/\">according to Front Office Sports. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Shimbashi\u2019s first assignment is the NFL Honors ceremony \u2014 the league\u2019s annual awards show \u2014 where she will serve as ESPN\u2019s lead red carpet content creator Thursday in Santa Clara, Calif.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Lily Shimbashi, the founder of Sportsish, at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut in 2025.   <span class=\"credit\">Instagram\/Lily Shimbashi<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>She will create original Sportsish content across espnW and other social media platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Shimbashi, youngest child of former Knicks president Dave Checketts, founded Sportsish \u2014 a content website geared toward women that seeks to bridge the gap between sports and pop culture through exclusive and original content, interviews and social media \u2014 in 2021.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>ESPN reportedly envisions Shimbashi in a Katie Feeney-type role.   <\/p>\n<p>Feeny \u2014 who has 7.6 followers on TikTok, and 1.3 million more on Instagram \u2014 <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/04\/sports\/espn-hires-katie-feeney-for-new-lifestyle-role\/\">signed with ESPN<\/a> as a sports and lifestyle content creator last August after graduating from Penn State University in the spring. <\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old Feeny serves as weekly contributor on \u201cCollege Gameday,\u201d \u201cSunday NFL Countdown,\u201d and \u201cMonday Night Countdown,\u201d as well as the daily lead of \u201cSportsCenter\u201d on Snapchat. <\/p>\n<p>Feeny and Sportsish share the same agency, Creative Artists Agency.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Lily Shimbashi, the founder of Sportsish.  <span class=\"credit\">Instagram\/Lily Shimbashi<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Lily Shimbashi was a part of ESPN\u2019s creator network and covered the 2025 ESPYs.  <span class=\"credit\">Instagram\/Lily Shimbashi<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really excited to be associated with a company like ESPN,\u201d Shimbashi told Front Office Sports on Radio Row Tuesday ahead of Super Bowl 2026 between the Seahawks and the Patriots on Sunday. \u201cI always grew up wanting to be an ESPN reporter, and then I felt like there was a gap in mainstream sports media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo out of college, I kind of developed this business plan that became Sportsish, which is the company I\u2019ve been building over the last five years. And slowly but surely, ESPN took note that we have an audience of female fans, and it\u2019s a fandom that they\u2019re trying to reach. And so now we are official partners, and I can\u2019t wait to bring it to life.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram wp-block-embed-instagram\"\/>\n<p>Shimbashi covered Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, for ESPN last October.<\/p>\n<p>Before that she was a part of ESPN\u2019s creator network and covered the 2025 ESPYs.<\/p>\n<p>Shimbashi is based in New York City with her husband and their two kids. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESPN is adding Lily Shimbashi, the founder of Sportsish, to its creator sector. The Worldwide Leader reportedly is finalizing a two-year deal with the influencer to serve as a full-time creator for major events, according to Front Office Sports. Shimbashi\u2019s first assignment is the NFL Honors ceremony \u2014 the league\u2019s annual awards show \u2014 where [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2266809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22444,21848,438981,314882],"class_list":["post-2266808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-espn","tag-sports","tag-sports-media","tag-sports-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ESPN-hiring-sports-gossip-influencer-Lily-Shimbashi-to-mold-entertainment.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2266808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2266810,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266808\/revisions\/2266810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2266809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}