Malika Andrews and Dave McMenamin are two of ESPN’s top NBA reporters.
They also got married last year.
What basketball fans may not realize, however, is that their relationship stretches back further than their time at the Worldwide Leader. Andrews and McMenamin began dating in 2018 when he was covering the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers for ESPN, and she was a sports reporter for the New York Times.
But even once they started working together, they kept their relationship private.
In a new interview on the Straight to Cam podcast with Cameron Brink and Sydel Curry-Lee, Andrews explained how she and McMenamin navigated their relationship in the limelight of the sports media business and the difference between being “private and keeping a “secret.”
“Anybody who knew us, even a fan in the arena, you could see us walking down the street together. We would walk into arenas together. He would give me a peck,” Andrews explained. “If you observed us in person, you would know, and it wasn’t something that was, like, a secret. But it was something that was private, private from… Instagram, social media, those sorts of things. That was sort of the line that we made.”
Understandably, Andrews would be careful with what she shares. Since becoming ESPN’s top NBA host, she has been subject to far more scrutiny and vitriol than the typical sportscaster. Fans have accused her of racism and poor journalistic ethics over her coverage of outside-the-lines NBA stories.
If viewers are willing to be nasty over basketball news, Andrews is wise to keep her love life on the down low. As the relationship became public, Andrews made it a priority to block out commentary online.
“I think I’ve graduated from the place in my life where I want to give away my power to other people’s opinions,” Andrews said. “We talked about it, but we always knew that we wanted to do it that way.”
Andrews, who has also been open about her lifelong struggle with mental illness, knows the scrutiny she faces comes with the territory. But her personal life and relationship clearly matter more than what the chorus of commenters and reply guys might have to say.
“When people don’t have information, oftentimes they fill in the blanks with whatever they come up with,” Andrews said. “We certainly had to contend with that, but that was always something that I just was comfortable with because that’s your prerogative, I suppose.”