Interview: Rebecca Lowe Talks 'Premier League Mornings'
'Premier League Mornings' host Rebecca Lowe on VAR, new rules, and why more Americans should be watching soccer.
Since 2013, soccer fans in America have awoken early to tune into the Premier League, the most popular league in the world. While drinking countless pots of their morning coffee, these fans have also discovered a voice synonymous with the Prem: Rebecca Lowe, studio host of Premier League Mornings on USA Network and NBC. Lowe sets a high standard for covering the sport in the United States, and to be frank, other outlets are chasing what she and the rest of the crew at NBC have built. Based in Connecticut, Rebecca and her rotation of desk mates Robbie Earle, Robbie Mustoe and Tim Howard bring an unbiased, blunt and honest account of the action surrounding the always dramatic Premier League. We had the chance to sit down with Rebecca and ask her about some hot topics surrounding the league, how she got her start covering the sport, and more. To watch Rebecca Lowe on Premier League Mornings, use the link below to subscribe to Sling Blue with USA Network and NBC in select markets.
https://main--sling--aemsites.aem.page/aemedge/fragments/try-sling-blue
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TIOkAtkiHs8?si=g1KbhZJFpWucHrU0
Sling: Do you think VAR is an issue in football right now? It kind of feels like there's almost a controversy every week watching the Premier League.
Rebecca Lowe: Here's the problem with VAR – there was a controversy every week before VAR came in. So now everyone called that the referees need more help, so in comes VAR. Now there's a controversy every week because VAR is in. Why? Because it's just another human being, and human beings make mistakes. I personally think that we should only have technology for black-and-white things. So is the ball over the line, or isn't it? That works perfectly. Offside is black-and-white, but we don't have the technology yet to decipher whether somebody's offside or not. The lines that are drawn is not technology of a high enough standard to decide whether or not they're offside, because they're drawn by a human being. Human beings make mistakes. All the other situations that VAR gets involved in – Was it a red card? Was it a penalty? – all that is is another level of subjectivity to what we already had with the on-field referee. So for me, I think we've made it far too complicated. Now with VAR, the problem is, once you open the bottle, there ain't going back. The genie is out the bottle, and the genie is flying around causing problems. So I think there is a problem, but I'm not sure they're going to fix it.
We're three weeks into the new season. There's the new time-wasting rules. What have been your first impressions with everything?
RL: With some more yellow cards and some of the way it's been enforced, I'm not against cracking down on time-wasting, because there definitely is too much of that in the game. I am a little bit nervous about the amount of time that it's added on to both halves in the game. I'm not sure I've been to many games of football where anybody has left a match thinking, 'oh, we should have had another five minutes.' You might leave a match thinking you should have had an extra 30-seconds, but no one goes home thinking they were denied five or ten minutes of football. Everyone's been happy for over 100 years. This is now changing that, and all it's doing is it's contorting the game because it's dragging it on. Players are getting more injured, players are getting tired, and it's contorting the game. I'm not a big fan of these big, long stoppage times. What I am a big fan of is cracking down on players now who are abusive to officials. Virgil van Dijk got sent off for Liverpool at Newcastle. Number one, it was 100% a sending off. But even if it wasn't, his behavior to the referees and to the fourth official was appalling. The swearing in the face and the general abuse that he gave all referees is a terrible example to set to children, millions of whom are watching that right now. I have a 7-year-old boy, and I hate to think that he watches what Virgil van Dijk did and thinks that that's okay. The Football Association have charged him since that game with foul and abusive language and various other things, and I'm happy about that crackdown, because we need to get that kind of behavior out of the game.
What's it been like to see the Premier League grow in America, starting several years ago and then looking at where it's come to now? What are your thoughts?
RL: Well, it's been quicker than I thought it would be. When I arrived ten years ago to the US, it was a niche sport. It was sort of a little bit left field, and if you knew about it, you knew about it and you were kind of a bit in this kind of cult and slightly in this kind of cool group. Now it's mainstream and that's really down to NBC's coverage and how it's reached so many hundreds of thousands of millions of people over the years. And also it's down to the product itself, which sells itself because it is so brilliant. Week in, week out, it's been amazing to see out and about. Back in 2013, 2014, 2015, I would hardly ever see anyone other than Arsenal fans. Maybe United, maybe Chelsea, maybe Liverpool. Now I see football fans from the Premier League of all the teams. When I'm in airports, when I'm at supermarkets, at malls, everywhere I go, I see them on a daily basis. So it's gone from seeing one...maybe somebody wearing a jersey once a month, to seeing them, I would say, on a daily basis. So it's been incredible. I think the Premier League has realized that America is waking up to football as a country and it's filled a bit of a void that was there before.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/bAgW9PZqjEs?si=JQs2GK2i_hiDDdh_
What was your favorite moment supporting Crystal Palace?
RL: The one moment probably, was back in 1990, when Crystal Palace beat Liverpool in extra time of the FA Cup Semifinal at Villa Park by four goals to three. Alan Pardew – who went on to manage Crystal Palace, managed Newcastle, West Ham, other teams – scored the winner with his head in extra time to beat Liverpool, who were then the best team in the country, to reach the FA Cup final for the first time. Crystal Palace went on to lose that FA Cup final against Manchester United. But that semifinal in 1990, for me, was the moment that I think about the most as a Crystal Palace fan and has yet to be matched, in my opinion, since.
How did you get into covering football?
RL: My journey was kind of unusual. I applied to a competition that was being run by the BBC, which is sort of the biggest broadcasting company in the UK, and they were looking for a soccer reporter. And I was fresh out of university and thought that, well, I like soccer, even though it was 2002 and women didn't really like soccer. I did, and I thought, I'll give it a go. Why not? I applied. I kept getting through to the next round and the next round, and then I finally made the final, which was held at BBC Television Center. And the seven finalists all had to do various things in front of camera throughout the day, and the prize was a six-month contract with the BBC as a soccer reporter, which I won rather ridiculously. Having had no journalism training, no television training, all I wanted to do was be an actress. I was not planning on being a soccer reporter, and that's how I started when I was 21 years of age, with the BBC having won a competition, something like Pop Idol, but for soccer.
For people who do not watch the Premier League, what would be your pitch as to why they need to watch the Premier League on NBC?
RL: If people like soap operas and stories – which most people do in this life, most people love a story, whether they read books, watch soap operas, or watch movies – this is a real life soap opera playing out every week, with multiple storylines going on, and an atmosphere beyond anyone's wildest dreams. The best footballers on the planet play in this league. The best stadiums host these games. And the other thing about it is, you never really know what's going to happen. You can think you do, but it's very difficult to predict what happens in the Premier League on a weekly basis, which keeps it interesting for everybody, and it's also addictive. And once you're in, you're in.
https://main--sling--aemsites.aem.page/aemedge/fragments/try-sling-blue