Michael Rothstein joined ESPN’s enterprise and investigative team in 2024 after over a decade covering the NFL for ESPN with focuses on the Detroit Lions from 2013-21 and the Atlanta Falcons from 2021-24. In addition to the NFL, he also covered boxing for ESPN.com for multiple years with a focus on the emergence of women’s boxing before moving to his current role. He was also a fill-in host on ESPN Radio and previously covered the University of Michigan’s football and basketball teams for ESPN. He joined the company in 2011.

At ESPN, in 2020, Rothstein and his ESPN colleague Seth Wickersham were recognized by the Pro Football Writers of America with a Dick Connor Writing Award for their work on Inside the short, unhappy life of the Alliance of American Football.

In 2023, Rothstein was the reporter for the Emmy-nominated story, “The Real Deal,” about fighter Amanda Serrano, in the Spanish language feature category. He also won a first place Boxing Writers Association (BWAA) award for his event coverage of the Katie Taylor-Serrano fight in 2022 and a second place award for a feature on fighter/humanitarian/model/Somali refugee Ramla Ali’s journey to boxing.

Rothstein started his career at the Daily Press in Victorville, California, in 2002, where he covered high schools and the High Desert Mavericks, including a story where he dressed up as the team’s mascot, Wooly Bully. He spent two years at the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia, covering high schools, James Madison women’s basketball, University of Virginia football and Bridgewater College football.

He then spent four years at the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette, covering Notre Dame football and basketball along with auto racing. While there, he won two National APSE awards, including a first-place finish for a series on college athletes and eating disorders. He then spent two years at AnnArbor.com covering University of Michigan basketball and football.

When Rothstein covered college basketball in Fort Wayne, Ann Arbor and for ESPN, he started the College Basketball Player of the Year poll, which correctly predicted the consensus player of the year every year of its existence until he moved to the NFL before the 2013-14 basketball season.

From Long Island, N.Y. and a 2002 Syracuse University graduate, Rothstein has won numerous USBWA and FWAA writing awards throughout his career.

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