Amanda Balionis shares wholesome moment with NFL star after taking a break from her golf job
Amanda Balionis was at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland on Sunday, October 27, to cover the Cleveland Browns-Baltimore Ravens game for CBS Sports. The game took place during the eighth week of the 2024-25 National Football League (NFL) season.
Balionis shared several images and videos of her work at the FirstEnergy Stadium with her more than 321,000 fans on Instagram. One of her posts showed Cleveland's Pierre Strong Jr. playing catch and throw with some of the fans in the stands.
"Wholesome," Amanda Balionis captioned the video.
The Browns ended up winning the game 29-24. This was the second win of the season for the Cleveland team, who had lost five straight games. Meanwhile, the Ravens lost their third game in seven tries.
Baltimore is fifth in the American Football Conference North Division with five wins and three losses. The Browns are 12th in the same division.
In other posts on her Instagram Stories, Balionis can be seen covering the game and interviewing players, both from the locker room and on the field.
Balionis alternates between golf and football coverage for CBS Sports. With the end of the PGA Tour regular season and the start of the NFL regular season, the reporter is focusing primarily on the latter sport.
Amanda Balionis and football
Amanda Balionis has been linked to golf for most of her life, as she even played organized golf in her childhood and teenage years. Subsequently, an important part of her journalistic work has been linked to this sport, mainly as on-course reporter.
But football has also been there almost from the beginning. Early in her professional career, she covered football as part of her duties as a high school sports reporter for Verizon Fios Channel 1 and MSG Networks.
However, high-level football did not become part of her job until 2018, when she was already working for CBS Sports. The network hired her in 2017 to cover golf on a part-time basis. A year later, she was hired full time and added NFL and college football to her duties.
Since then, Balionis has been a regular on CBS Sports golf broadcasts during the PGA Tour's regular season (roughly January through August), which includes the majors. She switches to football in the fall.
Balionis began her journalism career in 2009, working for Verizon Fios Channel 1 and MSG Networks. Two years later, she got her first big break in golf media when the PGA Tour hired her as an in-house reporter and anchor.
Five years later, Amanda Balionis accepted a similar offer from the Callaway brand. There, she spent two years producing digital content for the golf manufacturer's media production team. Shortly thereafter (2017), she joined CBS Sports.