Kate Abdo has become one of the most recognisable British presenters in international sports broadcasting, best known today for leading CBS Sports’ UEFA Champions League coverage. The Manchester-born broadcaster, now also known professionally as Kate Scott, built that position through years of work across Germany, the UK and the United States, moving between football, boxing and major studio shows.
How Kate Abdo became a familiar name in football broadcasting
Kate Abdo’s career did not begin with the kind of straight-line route often attached to sports presenters. Before becoming a high-profile football host, she studied and worked across Europe, building the language skills that later became one of her strongest on-air assets.
That background matters. On Champions League broadcasts, Abdo has often been able to move between English, French, German and Spanish interviews without making the moment feel staged. It is a practical skill, but also part of her appeal: she can handle the studio, the live interview and the occasional chaos around a panel of former players. GQ noted that she started her broadcasting career in Germany, later worked with Sky Sports in the UK, and moved to the United States in 2017.
Her early career included work with CNN and Sky Sport News HD in Germany, before she moved into UK coverage with Sky Sports and later US-based roles. A sports festival profile lists CBS, Fox, Turner, ESPN and DAZN among the networks she has worked with during her career.
From Sky Sports to US television
For UK viewers, Abdo’s name first gained wider recognition through football and boxing coverage. Sky Sports used her across Champions League programming and pay-per-view boxing, a combination that suited her calm studio presence and ability to handle live broadcast pressure.
The next step was the United States. Abdo worked with Fox Sports and Turner before CBS became the defining chapter of her career. That American move also changed her profile back home. Oddly, she may now be more visible to many UK football fans through social media clips of an American Champions League show than she was when she was regularly appearing on British television.
CBS’ UEFA Champions League Today gave her the kind of format that presenters rarely get: structured enough to cover serious football, loose enough to let personality show.
Kate Abdo and CBS Sports’ Champions League success
The CBS show works because it is not built like a traditional highlights programme. Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards bring status, analysis and noise. Abdo keeps it moving.
CBS made her central to the project from the start. Awful Announcing reported that when CBS took over Champions League rights in 2020, Abdo was the first hire for UEFA Champions League Today. In 2023, she signed a four-year exclusive extension with CBS, underlining how important she had become to the broadcaster’s football coverage.
That is the career turning point. Before CBS, Abdo was already a respected international presenter. With CBS, she became the face of a football show that clips well, travels well and has built an audience beyond the United States.
Her job is not just reading links. She has to manage Carragher’s sharpness, Richards’ volume and Henry’s authority without flattening the show. The Ringer described her as a facilitator of a mostly unscripted broadcast, while also noting her work on Paramount+’s long-form interview series Kickin’ It and her continuing role as a boxing presenter.
Why her broadcasting style stands out
Abdo’s strength is control without stiffness. She can challenge pundits, tease them, interrupt when needed and still return the discussion to the match. That sounds simple until it is live television.
A lot of the CBS show’s viral moments rely on timing. Abdo’s introductions of Micah Richards, often built around mocking his limited Champions League appearances compared with Henry and Carragher, became part of the programme’s identity. The jokes work because she delivers them cleanly and because the panel trusts her.
There is also a very British edge to parts of her style: dry, quick, not overly deferential. In a US studio setting, that gives the show a slightly different rhythm. Less polished in the old American studio sense. More like a smart football conversation that might veer off course, then snap back.
The name change from Kate Abdo to Kate Scott
Search interest still centres heavily on “Kate Abdo”, but viewers have also seen her introduced as Kate Scott. In September 2024, she announced on CBS Sports’ Champions League coverage that she would use her new married surname after marrying former boxer and trainer Malik Scott.
Awful Announcing also reported the change, noting that she introduced herself on air as Kate Scott and that the announcement came during CBS’ Champions League Today coverage with Henry, Carragher and Richards.
For readers looking her up, both names now matter. “Kate Abdo” remains the name many football and boxing fans know best, while “Kate Scott” is the name CBS has used following the change.
Boxing, awards shows and major-event hosting
Football has made Abdo most visible, but her broadcasting career is broader than Champions League studio work. She has hosted boxing coverage for major networks and streaming platforms, including Fox and DAZN, and has worked on event-style programmes where the presenter has to carry atmosphere as much as information.
That variety has helped her avoid being boxed into one type of role. Football studio host, boxing presenter, awards host, interview-show anchor — they require different gears. Abdo’s career has been built around switching between them without making each move look like a reinvention.
Her Champions League role remains the anchor point, though. It is the platform that turned her from a well-travelled sports broadcaster into a global football media figure.
Why UK audiences still follow her closely
There is a clear UK angle to Abdo’s rise. She is from Manchester, she worked in British sports television, and two of the personalities beside her on CBS — Carragher and Richards — are already familiar to UK audiences from Sky, BBC and Premier League coverage. GQ reported that Abdo herself said she is now recognised more in the UK because clips from CBS travel so widely on social media.
That is unusual. A US rights-holder’s Champions League studio show has become part of the football conversation in Britain, even though UK viewers do not watch it as their main live broadcast. The format crosses borders because the clips are funny, sharp and football-literate.
Abdo sits at the centre of that. Not as the loudest voice. As the person who knows where the show is going.
FAQ
Yes. She signed a four-year exclusive extension with CBS in 2023 and has remained central to the network’s UEFA Champions League Today coverage.
She announced in September 2024 that she would use the surname Scott after marrying former boxer and trainer Malik Scott. Many fans still search for her as Kate Abdo because that was the name attached to most of her earlier broadcasting career.
She is best known for football, especially CBS Sports’ Champions League coverage, but she has also worked in boxing and other major sports broadcasting roles across networks including Fox, Turner, ESPN and DAZN.
Kate Abdo’s career is a rare example of a British presenter becoming more prominent internationally after leaving the UK market. CBS gave her the right stage, but the reason it worked is simpler: she can handle live sport, big personalities and unscripted television without losing the room.
