“What is The Shift?”
\When I launched my show back in 2021, it was the first question at every stop on the press tour. I remember this consistent sharp pain at the centre of the deep breath I would take before answering. First of all, I ask the questions here. That is my purpose. I was born to ask. Confirm. Revisit. Challenge. To me, asking feels about as natural as walking. Answering in absolutes is still a work in progress. I’ve pushed for and against a lot of things over the years in the Canadian sports media landscape through prompts, follow-ups, and more direct asks of “What the f*ck?”s. That sharp pain, which I journaled about until I could name it, was 10% “I really do hope I say this right” and 90% saying anything at all. It was this fear that defining a show too clearly would leave no room for change, correction, growth, going back, or moving forward.
For the sake of promotion, I put together an answer. For the sake of the show’s growth, my co-executive producer Craig Chambers and I let the Shift be what it needed to be. That allowed us to shape-shift. It allowed us to try. Fail and find flow. We started as an episodic series — 28 of them bad boys in season. Where linear was “the ultimate place for visibility,” we went digital. Where to-the-second formats were standard, we took them as suggestions and produced both segments and specials. Where “people just want to see the highlights,” we held conversations and delivered challenging monologues that wouldn’t have aired on TSN even a year before the show was born. Where sports or culture were treated as a choice, we chilled right in the middle with our storytelling. The Shift has meant a lot of things. That intersectionality made it possible for us to have a Prime Minister and a 7-time Formula 1 World Champion appear on our show in the same year without anyone batting an eye. That intersectionality allowed us to amplify incredible women taking up space in professional sports at the network.
Today, The Shift as a show at the network represents redirection. And after just over 10 years, “The Shift,” as it relates to me and my time at TSN, feels like a sweet release and a very grateful goodbye.
I lead with the show that came together on a napkin because from ideation to creation, it was my most personal work at TSN. Yes, my name was plastered on a property —marketed nationwide. We even had a billboard on the Gardiner. Seeing your big head blown up? That shit felt great. The ego needs it sometimes. What felt better for the soul, though, was making a certain kind of storytelling a natural reflex at TSN. The kind that resonated with a community, hopefully making them feel celebrated and seen. What felt best: creating opportunity.
The show’s heartbeat was a group of incredible storytellers and humans who poured so much of themselves into a show that didn’t “make sense.” The countless hours. The ideas. The Monday meetings that really tried to stick to an agenda but couldn’t, because life was happening, and life is what gave our content something to build off of. I am forever indebted to The Shift family and can’t thank them enough for always buying in, even when the future wasn’t clear. It’s beautiful and a miracle to think that in an industry as uncertain as ours, five years flew by and we get to close this chapter on our own terms.
I auditioned for SportsCentre in 2013, my last year at the College of Sports Media. It was a no. We all knew it was a NO. I was green and inexperienced. I may have tried to sneak a How I Met Your Mother reference into the audition… like, GIRL. Not the time. And it wasn’t. Thank God. You don’t want these moments to come fast. Trust me. It was the first no I heard, and I was devastated. I thought I’d blown my one shot at doing something really, really cool. I laugh writing this, because you’d have to know the trajectory I was on as a teenager. It is true: anyone you ask who knew me back then would say, “Kayla always said she wanted to work in sports.” But the path I was on, and the choices I made, would have kept that declaration as something Kayla just said. When I eventually got my life back on track, a job in sports would’ve been GREAT, but any job would’ve been good. The rejection from the audition mattered because it was information. The first piece of intel came right away: hearing no to this on-air thing I had tried out, despite having never seen somebody who looked like me do it before, hurt, which meant it was important. The second piece took years to understand: The “ no” wasn’t a no. It was a not yet.
It allowed me to move to Winnipeg and Prince Rupert to work for local networks. There I was able to grow. I shot and edited my own reports. I made my mistakes. Learned I hated news (I’m so sorrrrry, I love y’all). Learned how to listen to different communities. Learned how to yap through technical difficulties and crashes. You need to hear me when I say NOTHING is ever wasted.
I came back to TSN not too long after. First as a radio producer at TSN 1050 for Raptors and Leafs game days, then as a radio sports anchor. I moseyed over to TSN.ca and asked if I could file reports on the opposing teams coming to town to play the Raptors. For free.99. I needed the reps, and they let me. That led to sideline work at the BioSteel All-Canadian Basketball Game, which led to weekly sports updates on CTV’s Your Morning. It helped me build up enough tape and credibility within the space. This brings me to my next piece of unsolicited advice: Touch ‘em all, Joe. Every base counts. My timeline wasn’t linear. It couldn’t have been. I’m only the broadcaster that I am because of the skills I was able to collect at each stop along the way. It built a level of respect for every role and made me understand quickly how much of a team effort this whole thing is.
In February 2018, I got the call to make my SportsCentre debut. The fun part: I was eight and a half months pregnant. While I could barely breathe, I was also set to become the first Black woman to host a national sports highlight show in this country. If there was ever a time to find some confidence, I had to find it, and fast. Once I found my pace, I found my fun. I learned to hang on to that joy from the best to ever do it, Darren Dutchyshen. Dutchy would ask, “Aye man, isn’t this the best?” and then answer, “ Come on, we get to watch sports for a living!”
TSN has given me a lot of opportunities, but the one I’m most grateful for was the shot to prove seven-year-old me right. As a kid, I went to my first professional basketball game with the West Scarborough Boys and Girls Club and said, “I’m going to cover that team one day.”That team was the Toronto Raptors.
I started poking my head around the team with SB Nation’s Raptors Republic. I remember interviewing Amir Johnson and a young DeMar DeRozan about his Kobe shoe collection. Well, Amir is now an assistant coach, and DeMar isn’t so young anymore. Which means neither am I.
The organization embraced me as an eager baby in the game. I was lucky to start coming around more consistently when Dwane Casey was head coach. Casey understood how rare it was to have a Black woman around the team at the time, and so time was something that he always made. When I was pregnant with my son, Coach kept telling me, “Kayla, you gotta get a tennis ball in that baby’s left hand as soon as he’s out. The league needs more left-handed point guards, you know.” Don’t worry, coach knows how short I was. There was always a feeling of we see you, and we got you. It was a respect that I hope was felt both ways over the years. I got to see and cover so many iterations of this team: from “something special is growing here,” to “Game 7,” to “culture reset,” to “Championship,” to “Tampa,” to “New beginning,” to “ New beginning (take two)”. In a lot of ways, the team’s evolution lined up with where I was at professionally. That alignment felt spiritual.
Covering an NBA season is no joke. The thing that kept me grounded through what can demand a lot of sacrifice and travel: the people I got to cover this team alongside. My road dawgs.My family. The brilliant minds in the truck who got us to air every single night and, at times, through some impossible situations you’d never know about watching at home. Because let me tell you, live TV is not for the weak, boi. Matt Devlin and Jack Armstrong: my hype men, therapists, gold standards, fun havers and teammates for life. What an honour to work, learn and create TV magic with them all.
To the many people at TSN who work tirelessly to make that place go: producers, directors, camera operators, AUDIO, story editors, web editors. Thank you.
To Brand Partnerships, Programming and Comms: I will never forget the ways you advocated for The Shift and got it across the finish line.
To the leadership who let me run up in their offices — scheduled and mostly unannounced, with some story, question, feedback, pushback, or bright (by my measure) idea: coffee on me forever. It surprises no one that I am vocal, one to wear my heart on my sleeve. It would be wrong for me not to acknowledge the room given for this loud heart to beat professionally. It takes a lot of things. Most importantly, it takes respect. Respect in a shared vision for better, individually and collectively as a network.
To my colleagues on air, you are my favourite to watch. The level of care and energy you bring every single day is what continues to set the bar. I’m lucky to say I’ve worked with the best of the best.
My final thank you is reserved for the viewers at home who watched me grow up on air. Professionally and personally. What an honour it has been to share some of the biggest moments in Canadian sports with you. I can’t wait to take you along for this next chapter in my life
With so much gratitude,
Kayla Grey
Congratulations on all the work you’ve put in! So grateful to have met you through the journey.
Inspiring to see your growth, confidence and unshakeable authenticity through your TSN run.