How Mina Kimes Became ESPN’s Best Talking Head—and Indie Rock’s Biggest Fan

When Mina Kimes appeared on ESPN’s Around the Horn during the pandemic—as she mixed it up with a grizzled cadre of sportswriters across the country from a makeshift home studio—you could catch an Easter egg perched above her right shoulder. Gleaming under the production lights was a painting of Pavement’s third (and most difficult) record, Wowee Zowee.

This is a deep cut, even among indie rock snobs. The most traditionally acclaimed Pavement albums are its first two: Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Wowee Zowee, on the other hand, is best known for its engorged runtime and reedy experimentalism, which obliterated the band's ascending MTV traction. In other words, it’s the sort of record you consecrate when you’ve already spent much of your life thinking about Pavement.

ESPN is airing its first Super Bowl in 2026; its staff is composed of retired quarterbacks, game-tape bingers, and reflexive free-agency newsbreakers. But as Kimes emerges as an unlikely star of the jock universe, she’s still very much one of us: an indie kid perpetually eager to put her taste on display.

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