Hartung has spent three seasons as Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football sideline reporter alongside Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit, while also serving as a national correspondent for NBC’s Today Show. The dual role highlights her ability to blend live sports reporting with hard news coverage.
Hartung’s journalism path was forged by a family tragedy. Her father, Joe Hartung, a pilot born in Indonesia, died in a 1996 plane crash at the Sertoma Cajun Air Festival in Lafayette, Louisiana, when Kaylee was 10. Kaylee, her mother, and her brother Tyler witnessed the crash, an event she has said shaped her resolve to tell and honor others’ stories.
Raised in Baton Rouge by her mother Julie Tucker, with brother Tyler following their father into aviation, Hartung grew up deeply embedded in Louisiana sports culture. Julie worked for LSU’s Tiger Athletic Foundation, and Tyler pursued a career as a corporate pilot. Hartung earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in journalism and politics from Washington and Lee University in 2007 after attending Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge.
Her early career included a stint as Bob Schieffer’s assistant at CBS News and work as an associate producer on Face the Nation, along with a period moonlighting as a backup singer in Schieffer’s country band. She joined ESPN in 2012, reporting for Longhorn Network and SEC Nation, earning two Lone Star Emmy Awards, before moving to CNN to cover Charlottesville, the Parkland and Sutherland Springs shootings, and major natural disasters. She later joined ABC News and, in 2020, contracted COVID-19 while reporting on the outbreak in Seattle, an experience she described as transformative, before joining NBC. Hartung earned her first solo Sports Emmy nomination in 2024.
Hartung keeps her personal life private; as of 2026, she is not married and has publicly discussed egg freezing. She has addressed dating rumors involving Tim Tebow, clarifying that the relationship was not romantic, and she has spoken about anxiety, depression, and the importance of therapy. The Super Bowl LX assignment represents the peak of her career to date, with Olympic coverage in Milan-Cortina to follow for NBC.
