Meet Sloane Martin, voice of the Minnesota Lynx
When the Minnesota Lynx play at Target Center in Minneapolis, you can find Sloane Martin perched above Section 132 doing play-by-play.
She tells the story of the game beyond what fans see on TV, and brings fans exclusive conversations with the standout player of each game. It's a role Martin treasures.
"Women's sports to me is not a means to an end when it comes to my career. This is what the dream was," Martin said.
This dream did not come easy, but it was manifested at a young age, growing up in Los Angeles as a basketball player and big fan of the WNBA.
"I've been chasing this career since I was 14 years old," she said.
Martin went on to play Division III basketball at St. John-Fisher in New York, where she also got reps on the microphone calling other college games.
When she graduated, she joined a newsroom in Rochester, New York, to continue to hone her skills.
"[There I was] learning my voice, learning my cadence, just getting the opportunity to talk and to be on air," she said.
Martin eventually made her way to Minnesota, continuing her journalism career at WCCO Radio and Big Ten Network calling volleyball games. But in 2020, COVID paused sports and forced Martin to cover news she never expected.
She was in the streets of Minneapolis covering the unrest following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, and captured some of the darkest moments in the city's history at that time.
"It felt like a pressure cooker, and finally it just had to be released," she said.
In 2021, when sports started making a resurgence, Martin jumped at the chance to get back to doing what she loved. She took the leap of faith and left radio news to make sports a full-time career, and landed a job with the Lynx.
Martin travels with the team for every game and has been in every WNBA arena this year, giving her a front-row seat to the growth of the game.
"It has dialed up across the entire league, where it becomes a significant factor going into road arenas, just how strong, how packed they are," she said. "But I got to say, right here, Target Center, hard to match."
Martin reflects on the full-circle moment she's living in right now, from starting as a WNBA fan to calling WNBA games.
"It still feels like a pinch-me kind of moment," she said. "But keeping your dream should be of utmost importance if that's been the goal all this time."
You can still follow Martin's reporting in the Lynx off-season. She also calls college basketball, hockey, volleyball and softball games for the BIG 10 Network.