Toni Collins is SportsCenter news anchor, providing ESPN Now news updates within the weekday 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. editions of the ESPN news and information program.
Collins joined ESPN in September, 2013, as part of the Digital Media team to anchor news and analysis video segments in every sport category for ESPN.com. Her role expanded to include enterprise reporting and interviews for features as well as guest-hosting ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. In addition, the bilingual Collins also hosted One Nación on ESPN Deportes. She moved to her current role in February of 2016 when the morning lineup of SportsCenter was revamped.
Prior to joining ESPN, Collins was sports anchor for Univision Deportes’ morning show Despierta America, as well as for the network’s magazine show Primer impacto. She served the same role for UniMas Network’s Contacto Deportivo, its flagship sports highlights and analysis daily program.
Previously, Collins was sports anchor and reporter for Deportes 23, Univision’s Dallas, Texas affiliate, where she covered the NBA postseason and Finals, Major League Baseball’s ALDS, ALCS and World Series, the Dallas Cowboys, FC Dallas, and the Dallas Stars. She also produced and anchored Univision 23’s local sports show Accion Deportiva Extra.
Collins, whose parents were Mexican, moved to the United States at a young age and grew up in Miami. She began playing soccer at age 10, and was asked to join Mexico’s National team, in the Sub 19 division. She is a graduate of Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, with a Bachelor of Science in Communications, with an emphasis in Sports Management.
Upon graduating in 2007, she became a production assistant at Univision in Miami, collaborating with producers of national programs such as Nuestra Belleza Latina, Premios Lo Nuestro, Premios Juventud and Primer Impacto. She also worked with the CBS Sports Radio affiliate in St. Petersburg, Fla., as a production assistant, then as sports reporter covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the University of South Florida football team.
In 2009 she accepted her first on-camera job as news reporter for Univision’s Noticias 48/FOX2 news team at the dual language station in McAllen, Texas where she covered stories on immigration and drug trafficking on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border, also filling in as sports and weather anchor. A second-generation journalist, Collins is the daughter of María Antonieta Collins, a television reporter for more than 40 years in Mexico and the U.S.