Mina Mugil Kimes is an American journalist born on September 8, 1985, in Omaha, Nebraska. She works as a senior writer, NFL analyst, and podcast host for ESPN.
Her career spans business journalism, investigative reporting, and national sports broadcasting.
Who is Mina Kimes?
Mina Kimes works as a senior writer, NFL analyst, and television contributor for ESPN. She built her reputation first in business journalism before moving into sports media.
Her ESPN role now spans television, podcasting, and long-form writing. She appears regularly on NFL Live, Get Up, SportsCenter, and First Take.
Kimes also hosts The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny, one of the network’s most popular football podcasts. Her work has earned her a Sports Emmy Award along with several business journalism honors.
Early Life of Mina Kimes
Mina Kimes was born on September 8, 1985, in Omaha, Nebraska. Her father, Winston Kimes, served as a captain in the United States Air Force, while her mother, Sun-Min Kimes, is of Korean descent.
Her father’s military career meant frequent relocations during her childhood. That upbringing exposed her early to different regions of the country and shaped her adaptability later in her career.
Kimes has described her father’s love for football, particularly the Seattle Seahawks, as a defining part of their relationship. That connection later became the foundation for the personal essay that helped launch her sports journalism career.
She has one older brother, Isaac Kimes, who works as a trial lawyer. Kimes has generally kept the rest of her family life private throughout her career.
Mina Kimes Age
Mina Kimes is 40 years old as of 2026, born on September 8, 1985. Her zodiac sign is Virgo.
She joined ESPN The Magazine as a senior writer at age 28 in 2014. Since then, her profile has grown across ESPN’s television, podcast, and digital platforms for more than a decade.
Kimes stands at a height of 5 feet 8 inches, or 172 cm, or 1.72 meters.
Mina has a slender figure and slim-shaped body and weighs just 55 kg or 121 lbs. She has black hair and black eyes on her fair skin.
Mina Kimes Ethnicity and Nationality
Mina Kimes holds American nationality. She is of Korean descent through her mother, Sun-Min Kimes, while her father served in the United States Air Force.
That mixed cultural background shaped much of her early life, especially given her family’s frequent moves.
She has spoken publicly about her mother’s influence, celebrating her on social media as someone who shaped her sense of humor and resilience.
Mina Kimes Education
Mina Kimes graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She completed her degree in 2007, the same year she entered business journalism.
Her writing background from Yale later supported her transition into long-form sports features at ESPN.
That academic foundation helped her build a reputation for detailed, narrative-driven reporting throughout her career.
Mina Kimes Career
Early Career in Business Journalism
Mina Kimes began her career in 2007 as a reporter for Fortune Small Business. She continued writing for Fortune Magazine for several years, covering corporate scandals and financial reporting.
Her 2012 investigation, titled Bad to the Bone, exposed the unauthorized use of bone cement with lethal consequences during medical procedures. That story earned her the Henry R. Luce Award, and the Columbia Journalism Review later named her exposés among its business must-reads of 2012.
In 2013, Kimes moved to Bloomberg News as an investigative reporter. Around this time, she wrote a personal essay connecting her father’s Air Force career to their shared love of the Seattle Seahawks during the team’s Super Bowl run.
Move to ESPN
That essay caught the attention of ESPN executives, and Kimes joined ESPN The Magazine as a senior writer and columnist in May 2014. During this period, she also made guest-hosting appearances on the daily sports show Highly Questionable.
In 2014, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers gave her the Larry Birger Young Business Journalist Prize. Kimes signed a multi-year contract extension with ESPN in 2018 and launched the podcast Bootleg with Mina Kimes that same year.
In October 2019, Kimes helped launch the ESPN Daily podcast and wrote the publication’s first digital cover story following the transition of ESPN The Magazine to an online format. That piece told the story of NFL wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and his mother.
Recent Work
In June 2020, ESPN named Kimes an NFL analyst on NFL Live, expanding her role beyond writing into daily television coverage. She also contributes football analysis to Get Up, SportsCenter, First Take, and the digital show Around the Horn and Debatable.
Her show NFL Live won the Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Studio Show – Daily in the 2024-2025 season, then repeated the win again in 2025. Kimes shared her excitement about the back-to-back honor on social media, crediting her co-hosts and producers by name.
In May 2026, Kimes was announced as the host of the 2026 Scripps National Spelling Bee. As a former three-time school spelling bee champion herself, she said the role brought her back to a competition she once viewed as her own version of the Super Bowl.
Mina Kimes Awards and Recognition
Mina Kimes has built a long list of journalism honors throughout her career. She won the Henry R. Luce Award for her 2012 investigative series Bad to the Bone.
She also received the Larry Birger Young Business Journalist Prize from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in 2014. In 2019, Kimes earned a National Headliner Award first place honor for magazine feature writing.
She has been a two-time finalist for the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. Organizations including the New York Press Club, the National Press Club, and the Asian American Journalists Association have also recognized her work.
Her television work has earned recognition too. NFL Live, the ESPN show she appears on daily, won the Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Studio Show – Daily in both 2024-2025 and 2025.
Mina Kimes Husband
Mina Kimes is married to Nick Sylvester, a music producer and co-founder of the record label Godmode. The couple began dating in 2012 after being introduced by mutual friends.
They married in September 2015 at a venue called Material Culture in Philadelphia, Sylvester’s hometown. Their dog, Lenny, served as the guest of honor at the ceremony.
Sylvester later left Godmode to start a new label and production company called Smartdumb. The couple has kept much of their relationship private while both pursued their respective careers in sports media and music.
Mina Kimes Children
Mina Kimes and Nick Sylvester have one son together, born in the fall of 2023. Kimes announced her pregnancy publicly on the red carpet at the 2023 ESPYS in July that year.
She revealed her son’s birth during an ESPN broadcast of Monday Night Football in October 2023. Kimes shared a photo of her baby wearing a Seattle Seahawks onesie, joking that the team had never lost a game during his lifetime.
Mina Kimes Net Worth
Mina Kimes’s estimated net worth is $3 million as of 2026. Her income comes mainly from her ESPN contract, along with her podcast and digital media work.
Reports have placed her ESPN salary at around $1.7 million per year. Her podcast, The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny, adds additional revenue through advertising and sponsorships.
Mina Kimes Social Media
Mina Kimes is active on Instagram under @mina_kimes. She posts updates about her ESPN work, her podcast, and occasional glimpses of her family life.
She also maintains an account on X, formerly Twitter, under the handle @minakimes. There she shares football commentary, podcast releases, and reactions to breaking NFL news.
The Bottom Line
Mina Kimes helped NFL Live win back-to-back Sports Emmy Awards for Outstanding Studio Show – Daily in 2024-2025 and 2025.
Her career took shape years earlier with a Henry R. Luce Award for her 2012 investigation into unauthorized bone cement use.
Kimes built her early career as a business journalist before an essay about her Air Force veteran father and the Seattle Seahawks brought her to ESPN.
She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and has carried that reporting discipline into her sports coverage ever since.
In 2026, she took on a new role hosting the Scripps National Spelling Bee, drawing on her own history as a school spelling champion.
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