Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer Fusing Friendship With Football

Like John Lennon and Paul McCartney recording songs for Abbey Road, Andrea Kremer and Hannah Storm make beautiful music together even when they’re apart. Kremer provides analysis and anecdotes from her home in Massachusetts. Storm provides play-by-play from her car in Connecticut.

“Hannah mentioned on the [Cowboys-Ravens] broadcast it was the anniversary of John Lennon’s death,” Kremer says. “Well, I lived four blocks away from the Dakota. I heard the sirens of the ambulance when I was sitting in my apartment in New York. So she asked me about it and I brought up a personal experience. People like that.”

“I call her little nugget,” Storm says of Kremer, “because of her size and all the nuggets of information she comes up with for the broadcast.”

The assist-score relationship flips the other way, too. In the same game, Ravens wide receiver Dez Bryant was pulled from the field moments before kickoff after testing positive for COVID-19. Kremer worked the phone furiously to figure out the who, what, where, when, why, and how. All viewers heard was Storm’s refined news-dissemination skills.

“Hannah’s going on the air and I'm texting with someone from the league, getting information and passing it onto her and she’s getting it on the air seamlessly,” Kremer says. “That’s how you work together as a team.” 

“A lot is out of your control,” Storm expounds. “You rely on your preparation and let the game come to you. I would say we’re a lot better at that now than we used to be because neither of us had ever done this before.” 

Storm and Kremer are in their third season as the voices of Amazon Prime Video’s NFL coverage. In that time, they have established themselves as one of the most unique broadcast booths calling NFL games. 

That aptitude will be on full display today as Storm and Kremer call the Vikings-Saints game on Prime Video at 4:30 ET and at the same time tomorrow when they call 49ers at Cardinals, which is being broadcast exclusively on Prime Video.

Viewers who listen to their coverage are greeted by a more conversational style than what’s found on traditional broadcast networks. That’s deliberate. Storm and Kremer want viewers to feel like they’re watching the game with a couple of friends on the couch. Friends who are deeply informed.

“Rather than just calling the action, we definitely take it to the next level in terms of sharing our thoughts about play-calling or how someone is playing or what a team looks like,” Storm says. “We’re not afraid to tackle all of those topics."

The style works because they’re friends. Storm knows Kremer’s favorite color is purple and that her husband packs oranges and trail mix as snacks when she travels. Kremer knows Storm celebrates Christmas Eve with the feast of the seven fishes and about her love of a good glass of wine with dinner. They exchange Christmas gifts and, during non-COVID times, Kremer goes to Storm’s Connecticut home for dinner with the family.

“We’re a small but mighty team,” Kremer says.

That bond translates into the broadcast. In the Week 14 Thursday night game between the Rams and Patriots, Kremer, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018, reminded viewers Rams quarterback Jared Goff scored on the goal line the previous week by jumping over the defense. Five minutes later, Storm opined, “they have got to get it together,” after the Patriots fell behind 10-0. Both proved prophetic. Goff scored on a leaping QB sneak and the Patriots lost to the Rams 24-3.

“It’s a comfort level we continue to build and have,” Kremer says. “It’s confidence imbued by experience.”

There are challenges. Kremer and Storm call games in a remote booth using the live broadcast feed as their only visual guide. FOX, which broadcasts the game and shares the live feed with Amazon as part of their agreement with the NFL, controls the graphics being displayed and camera angles shown. That leaves Storm and Kremer the task of incorporating their own storylines and research with what is being presented on the screen. They do so with grace and ease.

“You become very adept at dealing with the unknown or unexpected and weaving around all of that,” Storm explains. “Now that we have confidence, you can rely on your instinct to a certain extent and let the game unfold and tell the story.”

Both admit there was a steep learning curve at first and both equated it to being a first-year NFL head coach. 

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Kremer says. Similarly, Storm adds, “you don’t know it until you do it.” 

They made history in their debut, becoming the first all-female broadcast team to call an NFL game on September 27, 2018. That meant a lot to them and still does. What means more is the fact that they’re still calling games now.

“You need someone out there in front to look at and say this is a viable career option for me,” Storm says. “To be doing this with Andrea is so meaningful I can’t even tell you. The key to having this be meaningful was not necessarily the first game, it was the fact that we’re still here three seasons later. That’s what’s meaningful. That’s staying power. That’s sustainability. That is a true, viable career option for somebody.”

Kremer is reminded of an email she received two days before calling their first game. She still has it in her inbox and pulls it up. 

“Good luck to you two fine broadcasters,” it reads. “It is about time. We are better for having you paved the way. I imagine there will be countless young girls who will wake up Friday morning with an entirely new dream. You are making it possible.”

“Hannah and I looked at each other and we started getting tears in our eyes,” Kremer recalls. “We hadn’t thought about the impact that we could have on people.”

The conversation turns to the future and where they hope to go from here. They both focus on the present and say they want to create a great broadcast every time they’re on the air and then improve for future calls. 

Follow-up questions about the personal importance of becoming the first all-female booth to call an NFL game on a national broadcast station and likewise warmly received, but ultimately pushed aside because, as they both say nearly identically, “you can’t worry about stuff that’s out of your control.”

Soon after, the questioning stops and the appreciative goodbyes begin. Two hours later, an email pops up. It’s from Kremer. It says, in part, the following:

 “Upon further review, there is one thing I DO hope that Hannah and I get to do that’s very important to me: CALL A SUPER BOWL.”

Now that would be a hit record.