Tisha Thompson is an investigative reporter for ESPN based in Washington, D.C. Her work appears on all platforms, both domestically and internationally, including SportsCenter, Outside the Lines, E60, SC Featured, ESPN Deportes, The ESPN Daily podcast and espn.com. She also serves as an occasional guest host for OTL on SportsCenter.

Thompson specializes in complex investigations that explore the intersection of sports and power, including league and government investigations, sexual assault and harassment, high-profile civil and criminal cases, consumer issues like sports ticketing, and the evolving field of sports banking, including the use of public funding, private equity, hedge funds, cryptocurrencies and other financial instruments. While at ESPN, her reporting has covered nearly every professional sports league – including the NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA and NWSL  — as well as controversies taking place within amateur sports including the Olympics and the NCAA. Some of her more high-profile stories include workplace investigations of the Washington Commanders and its former owner Dan Snyder and the Arizona Cardinals and its owner Michael Bidwill, sexual assault allegations against former MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer, and sexual abuse allegations against former U.S. Snowboard Coach Peter Foley.

Thompson is a member of ESPN’s 2019 Peabody Award winning team for its work on “Spartan Secrets,” and received the 2019 national Gracie Award for Best Online Video Host for her work on “Being Believed: A Conversation with Sister Survivors,” which also received the 2019 Gold Telly Award for Best Online Talk Show. She’s the recipient of three other national Gracie Awards, 24 regional Emmy Awards, 15 regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, the national Gerald Loeb Award for business reporting and the national Society of Professional Journalist Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service journalism. “Dead Man Walking,” her E60 profile of a man targeted for murder, was part of a team entry that won a national Emmy Award in 2019, while her investigation of the University of Rochester Football team, entitled “I Just Wanted to Survive,” was nominated for the 2018 Dan Jenkins Medal in Sportswriting and ranked No. 2 by Chartbeat’s “100 Most Engaging Stories of the Year,” with more than 17.5 million minutes engaged the year it was published.

Thompson joined ESPN in January 2017. She previously worked as an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., for WRC-TV (2011-2016) and WTTG-TV (2007-2011) and in Baltimore at WMAR-TV (2003-2007). She also worked as a reporter and anchor at WPSD-TV in Paducah, Ky., and as an anchor and political reporter at KOMU-TV in Columbia, Mo.

A fifth-generation reporter, Thompson’s journalistic roots can be traced back to the late 1800’s. She played women’s rugby at Princeton University and received her master’s degree from the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism. She is an advisory board member for the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and has served in a multitude of volunteer positions for other journalism non-profits, including Investigative Reporters & Editors and the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting.

She resides near her hometown of Washington D.C.

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