It has been a career of firsts for Lesley Visser. She was among the first female sportswriters and she was the first woman to appear on “Monday Night Football” and a Final Four telecast.
“At 61, I thought my pioneering days were over,” Visser said. “I guess not.”
Indeed, here’s another milestone for Visser: She will be part of the first all-female, general sports talk show with the debut of “We Need to Talk” at 9 p.m. Tuesday on the CBS Sports Network.
Virtually all of the 12 rotating regulars will be on hand for Tuesday’s debut. Besides Visser, there’s Andrea Kremer, Amy Trask, Lisa Leslie, Laila Ali, Tracy Wolfson, Allie LaForce, Dara Torres and Dana Jacobson, among others.
Going forward, there will be four or five women featured on the weekly show. Suzanne Smith, a pioneer as a women director for CBS’ coverage of the NFL, will be the director and co-coordinating producer.
When asked how she describes the show, Visser reflected back 30 years ago to when she attended Smith’s parties.
“It would be Suzanne, me, Mary Carillo and Billie Jean King talking about sports,” Visser said. “We thought, ‘Gosh, wouldn’t this make the greatest show?’ All these years later, it’s happening.”
Sure, there will be discussions on women’s sports if they are in the news, but the dialogue will cover everything and anything — from the upcoming baseball playoffs to LeBron James returning to Cleveland.
“We will have people on the show capable of talking about all sorts of issues,” Visser said. “We were just having a discussion about what makes Gregg Popovich so successful. This show could go in many different directions, depending on who is on.”
