Ashley Moore giving a tour of the 9news studio in Denver. photo by Daniella Prime-Morales
Ashley Moore paves the way for women in sports journalism.
Ashley Moore is a prep sports reporter and Journalist for 9News, and she has been on the team since July of 2023. Since her arrival in Denver from her hometown in East Texas, Moore has made a huge impact on the news station and everyone around her. Her positive energy and hard-working mindset bring a light to 9News that is one of a kind. As the only woman on her sports reporting team of seven, Moore works harder than anyone to make space for herself and any woman that comes after her.
Moore never anticipated a career like the one she has now. The journalist originally went to the University of Houston for Chemical Engineering, and after being involved in broadcasting extracurriculars on campus, Moore realized her passions lay elsewhere and switched her major to Journalism. After receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Houston, she earned her master’s degree from Syracuse University in New York. Moore then began her career at CBS 19 back in Texas, where she initially began prep-sports reporting. Her job in prep-sports is to report on all things having to do with high school sports, such as championship games or someone breaking a school record. Moore describes her hometown, Longview Texas, as the “Mecca” of high school sports, especially football, which is what created a high demand for prep sports reporting.
Longview is also where she first noticed the extreme difference in attention that female sports receive compared to male sports. The journalist reflects on her teen years and how, as a basketball player herself, the biggest crowds were always when the team had a doubleheader with the boys, and all the boys’ teams were unfairly issued newspapers and TV stations reporting at every game. She said, “I was talking back here with Jacob Tobey once. He was a sports reporter here and we’d go back and forth all the time. He goes, well, Ashley, where are your newspaper clippings from when you were in school? Cause I’m better than him at basketball, and I’d go, well look at where we are now. The WNBA is just now getting covered. We’re just now getting an NWSL team. I don’t want to age myself, but imagine 13 years ago when I’m in high school playing basketball in Longview, Texas, nobody cared. Nobody was at the games, no media, no nothing. So it was a big difference.” Since then, Moore has been a huge advocate for women’s sports, even speaking at the DPS Female Athletic Summit this year where she encouraged middle and high school girls to build a community, stay passionate, and work hard.
Though being one of the first women in any field can be very isolating, this has never stopped Moore. When she first arrived at 9News after being promoted through the news company Tegna (which owns both CBS 19 in Texas and 9News), Arielle Orsuto was a sports anchor for 9News. Moore credits Orsuto for taking her under her wing, as well as introducing her to SportsWomen of Colorado and the Broncos Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board (both of which are organizations made to support women in sports.) When Orsuto left 9News in July of 2024, Moore became the only woman in the sports department. Additionally, Moore is the only black woman in her department, a big difference from her first station. This could have negatively affected Moore’s career, but she refutes the idea that differences like gender or race get in the way of what matters most to anyone in sports journalism: Sports. She said, “I think the thing about sports is that it’s a language within itself. You could have 12 different people on a basketball team speaking 12 different languages, but at the end of day, the only language that matters is the ball on the court. I don’t think it’s affected me that much when it comes to doing my job, because at the end of the day, it’s sports, there are stories to tell. It’s just in a different environment. Much less diverse environment, but such a bigger sports market from where I came from. The diversity of the sports here is rich. People not so much.”
These factors have failed to dishearten Moore’s love of the game in the slightest. With women’s leagues gaining increasingly substantial amounts of traction over the past few years, Moore is glad to be working up close with them and seeing first hand the progress being made. In contrast to how she struggled to find WNBA games to watch when she was a kid, they’re broadcasted in many places, and this progress means a lot to her. She stated, “From where I was as a kid to now and being a part of that, you know, anytime I can get womens sports on, I’m raising my hand to do so. I’m loving the shift, how everybody’s realizing, oh, yeah, women can play too. Yeah, we can, we could the whole time. But the shift with all the eyes is definitely something I’m glad I got to see in my lifetime, and I can’t wait to see where it’ll end up.”
Moore has been a wonderful new addition to the 9News team, and women’s sports wouldn’t have the attention they now do without leaders like Moore. She is a pioneer and advocate for all future female journalists, especially in male dominated fields of journalism like sports. Her advice for young girls is to always be the hardest worker in the room, to be exceptionally educated about your craft, and to make any place better for those who come after you.
