ESPN’s NICOLE BRISCOE last month signed a new multiyear extension with the net that will see her sitting behind the 7:00am ET “SportsCenter” desk for the foreseeable future. The Wisconsin-born anchor and studio host has a lot on her plate with her career and raising two young children. She recently took some time out of her busy schedule to walk THE DAILY through what a typical day looks like for her, including her 3:00am wake up.
3:00-3:35am: I actually have four alarms set on my phone. Every day, I play a game with myself where I try to get up before the second alarm goes off. I’ll get up and stumble for the next 20 minutes through the whole brush-the-teeth, wash-the-face and get-out-the-door thing. I try to be out of my house every day by about 3:25am, coffee in hand and breakfast in my bag. I'm usually to work by about 3:45am.
3:45-6:00am: This is my writing and collaboration time with my co-anchor, RANDY SCOTT, and our producers. The producers, directors and some of the behind-the-scenes guys have beaten us to the door by perhaps a good hour, if not more. They have got the show formatted. When we come in, we start writing and putting the finishing touches on the show.
6:00-6:45am: I walk over to the digital center, which is the building that the studios are located in, as well as the hair and makeup room. I'm in the hair and makeup chair and I'm getting ready. I jokingly call this time my daily therapy session. You have the same people do your hair and makeup every day, so it’s a very personal thing. They are trying to make you look and feel like the best version of you so when you go out there and you're sitting in front of the camera for a couple hundred thousand people every single day, you feel your best and you're comfortable.
6:45am: I try to be on set by this time. Sometimes, there are a couple of things that we have to pre-tape. The very first thing you hear in the show is called a tease, which highlights the top storylines of the morning. That is pre-taped because it's all done to glitzy video elements.
Briscoe and her husband, Ryan, have a 6-year-old named Finley and a 3-year-old named BlakeNICOLE BRISCOE
7:00-10:00am: The red lights go on and we’re on the air. Rumor has it, we do a TV show. I'm really lucky I work with a really good group. Randy and I have gotten into a really good relationship. He's a good friend of mine as well as my co-anchor. There are a lot of times where we'll just be sitting there talking and we kind of forget that it's an actual TV show. We’ve always wanted the show to feel like a couple of friends sitting around at a bar or restaurant and the viewers are the people who are joining the conversation.
10:00am: We go to a post-show meeting that is with everyone that's worked on the show, as well as the higher-ups. It's sort of like a postmortem on what we did that day -- things that we were happy with, things that we thought we could have done better. It is also a chance for us to talk about what we know is happening the next day and if we have any ideas on how we could present certain topics in different storylines.
11:00am: I head out of the building to go home and then I start the next part of my day. I have a 6-year-old named FINLEY and a 3-year-old named BLAKE. Finley is in kindergarten, so she's in school most of the day, but Blake is in preschool and only goes a couple days a week and is home by 1:00pm. So, I try to get my workout in before she gets home from school.
3:45-7:00pm: Finley gets home from school and we kind of debrief on her day. Then before you know it, Blake's getting up from her nap, and then it's dinner time. Since my schedule has changed, we have adopted the earlier bird special dinner where we're eating at 5:30pm. Then we clean up by 6:30pm, so the kids have a little bit of time to play and unwind before we head upstairs and start the bedtime routine.
8:30pm: The kids go to bed and then I fall asleep. There are times where I'm putting the kids to sleep, and I blink and start falling asleep. So, by the time I climb into bed and everything is done, that is all she wrote.
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